When
Should the Able-bodied Poor Be Helped?
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Should Able-Bodied Poor People Receive
Welfare?
Should able-bodied people who aren't
working should receive welfare? They
shouldn’t, as is explained below, but it's not merely because of what Paul
taught.
Now Paul clearly taught that the
"unworthy poor" shouldn't be given handouts from others. That
is, those who are willingly irresponsible and lazy. Notice II Thessalonians 3:10-12: "For even when we
were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone will not work
neither let him eat. For we hear that some among you are leading an
undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now
such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet
fashion and to eat their own bread."
Likewise, the poor in the Old Testament had to go gather leftover food
in the field through gleaning (Leviticus 19:9-19). They didn’t have that food delivered to their doors, but had to
work for it. Notice that the landowners
had to allow them to enter their fields to pick up the leftovers that the
landowners could have taken for themselves.
So it's clear that people who are willingly
lazy shouldn't be helped. The "worthy" poor, to allude to the
old Victorian social worker's terminology, are those who are poor because of
factors beyond their own control, such as not being able to work because of bad
health and serious illness or even just old age. The "unworthy"
poor are those who are lazy, chronically alcoholic, etc., who wreck their lives
economically by their own free will. (Another such class of people,
although it's somewhat more ambiguous at times, concerns those who have babies
out of wedlock and/or are divorced; a great deal of current poverty in America,
Britain, and other developed countries is caused by what is politely
called "family instability."
It’s caused mainly by a lack of sexual discipline and/or a lack of relationship
management skills and self-restraint).
Now there is another class of people,
which became very obvious during the Great Depression: Those who wish to
work but simply can't find any jobs. Even if they moved to another city
or state, they would still have trouble finding anything to work at when
unemployment (at one point) was around 25% in 1932 or 1933. Such people
aren't poverty-stricken because of their bad habits in life, but because of
economic factors beyond their control. In order to help such people the
original "relief" programs, not just make-work programs like the WPA
and PWA, were established under FDR’s “New Deal.”
However, there’s another principle here
to consider. Of course, Scripture of
full of statements, in both the Old and New Testaments, about the need to help
the poor. The Parable of the Good
Samaritan is just one of the best known examples of this. The main problem, however, with using the government
to help the poor results from trying to accomplish a good moral end by an
immoral means. The duty of Christians
to help the poor, such as commanded in Matthew 25:31-46 in the parable of the
sheep and goats, should not be accomplished by an immoral
method. The government has to forcibly confiscate other people's
wealth through taxation in order to fund "transfer
programs." In Christian ethics, the end never justifies the
means. Therefore, it's immoral for the state to dispense charity to
truly needy people when looted funds paid for those alms. Surely all
reasonable people would condemn (say) a Salvation Army officer who robbed
banks in order to feed the homeless. In actuality, when the government
uses its power to tax to transfer wealth from one set of people who earned
it to another set who did not, this collective entity has no
more moral standing to do so than private individuals. Democratic
political processes are perverted when poorer people vote for
statist politicians who promise to transfer their richer neighbors'
income into their pockets. Majority rule does not morally
sanitize the theft committed.
After all, taxes aren’t voluntary, but altruism should be or it can
easily become an excuse for tyranny. The Eighth Commandment (Exodus
20:15), "You shall not steal," should not be overridden when
some people have urgent needs for help. In short, Robin Hood,
who legendarily robbed the rich to give to the poor, was wrong.
So although Christians are commanded to
help the poor who live in poverty for reasons completely beyond or partially
beyond their control, it shouldn’t be done by government action.
Eric Snow
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