On the debt ceiling fiasco and the calling of the church

The news has been dominated of late with talk of the impeding collapse of Western civilization if the United States doesn't increase our already enormous debt level. As usual, the conversations surround this issue are getting more and more hysterical and nasty. Christians in America on both sides are drawing battle lines over the “solutions” being bandied about (none of which will actually “solve” anything, but I digress). So what to think about this whole issue?

This is not intended as a political discussion but…if I were calling the shots, we would not give the very people who have proven utterly irresponsible with credit (i.e. the Congress) even more credit that we the people have to pay the bills for. If the United States was a person no one would extend them a nickel of additional credit given our spending habits and debt level. In place of some bogus cuts over ten years (which really means they will never happen) I would cut spending below expected revenue for the next fiscal year and use the difference to pay down the existing fourteen trillion in debt. That is just me and that is why I am never going to be elected to office.

So setting politics aside. what are some of the ways this issue should be examined from a Gospel perspective? I have posted on this before but I think given the vitriolic and emotion driven “debate” that is going on we need to soberly and cautiously examine the issue and where (if anywhere) we come down on the issues and how we speak on behalf of the church in the world. The Left and the Right are making a mad dash to grab the Kingdom high ground in this contemporary issue and I think both are on doctrinally shaky ground. Some may airily wave their hands about in a show of pseudo-piety and claim to be above politics but this conversation has and will continue to draw Christians in and we need to be thinking about how this impacts our witness to the world.

First, the Christian responsibility toward the poor is very clear. It can’t hardly be any clearer that we have a) a general call to care for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the “least of these” in the society God has placed us and b) we have a more specific calling to care for the material needs as well as the spiritual needs of those God has elected and called as our adopted brothers and sisters in Christ. It is a travesty and a grievous sin that there are Christians here in America and around the world that are going without food and shelter today while so many of us in this country and elsewhere live lives of luxury unimaginable in most of the world.

Second, the truth of the calling of Christians to care for the poor is in no way a call to use the world’s methods to make that happen. In fact I can think of nothing in Scripture that Christians are called to do that can be accomplished by adopting the methods of the world, whether that is educating our kids or caring for the poor or how we gather as the church. The notion that we can subcontract out our calling to care for the poor to some secular, faceless bureaucracy that forcibly seizes money from people to give to others is completely unsustainable by any serious examination of the Scripture. We are called to sacrifice for others, not support policies to force other people to sacrifice for others.

Third, it is more than slightly disingenuous when Christians who are rabidly against social spending are simultaneously in favor of spending nearly a trillion dollars on the military. This is not a Constitutional issue even though defense spending has a basis in the Constitution and most social spending does not. It has to do with the notion that Christians should be opposed to wealth transfer but in favor of military spending. Military spending is a reality of virtually every secular nation-state but the zeal for spending hundreds of billions on the military while screaming bloody murder at any social spending is unseemly among God’s people.

Fourth, the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of programs designed to alleviate suffering and poverty do little more than slap a band-aid on the problem. The poor don’t need perpetual handouts, they need jobs. To strike a partisan tone, there is supposed to be a social safety net, not a hammock. Too much of what the government does in terms of social spending leads to and if the truth be told enables generational poverty. Christians are not doing the poor any favors by advocating the very programs that have led to the poor being poor in the first place.

Fifth, the reality is that the spending spree we are on is unsustainable. Here are some sobering numbers from the Wall Street Journal:

According to the most recent government data, today some 50.5 million Americans are on Medicaid, 46.5 million are on Medicare, 52 million on Social Security, five million on SSI, 7.5 million on unemployment insurance, and 44.6 million on food stamps and other nutrition programs. Some 24 million get the earned-income tax credit, a cash income supplement.

By 2010 such payments to individuals were 66% of the federal budget, up from 28% in 1965. (See the second chart.) We now spend $2.1 trillion a year on these redistribution programs, and the 75 million baby boomers are only starting to retire.

America cannot keep spending this way and while future outlays are nearly unlimited, future revenue is very much limited and especially given the way that we seem bound and determined to squash economic growth. I can think of few things we can do that are more punitive and unjust than to pass on an unsustainable system and an unbearable tax and debt burden to our children. They are the ones who will suffer from this fiscal irresponsibility, not the old guys in Congress making the laws and spending the money.

Sixth and perhaps most important. Every person that has been created bears the imago dei, the image of God. Every person, whether they are an unborn child or an elderly widow or some place in between, deserves and demands the respect of Christians. You do not have to support amnesty for illegal immigrants or welfare payments to the poor to honor and respect human life in every form and iteration. That list of “every person” includes people like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama (or John Boehner and Paul Ryan if you are on the political Left).

Whatever happens with the “debt ceiling crisis”, our calling as God’s people is clear. We are to give sacrificially to care for the least of these and nowhere is that more true than with the neediest among us in the church. Our calling doesn’t change based on marginal tax rates or the occupant of the White House and our calling is our calling, not the governments nor corporate America. We cannot rely on our benevolent overseers in the Federal bureaucracy nor can we abandon the poor to the vagaries of the free market. We will always have the poor with us and we will likewise always have the blessing of being called to aid others in need. Being a follower of Christ does not come with a parenthetical “R” or “D” nor does it come with a “Get out of caring for the poor free” card to be played based on the winds of political change.