restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
Two Cheers for Alabama!
Now that the people of Alabama have spoken, Im wondering if anybody besides Gov. Riley has gotten the message: Dont you Republicans try to raise taxes, at least not as undiplomatically as Gov. Bob tried. Especially if you use the Its-your-Christian-obligation argument.
Politicians in Alabama are now facing the unthinkable: reducing the states budget and cutting services. But if history holds any lessons, this head-in-the-sand approach is doomed to failure also. The reason is simple: government is not the solution to the fiscal woes in Alabama; it is the problem.
Yes, people are fed up with the way politicians in Montgomery spend their hard-earned money. But nowhere is it being suggested that perhaps the state government ought to divest itself of certain functions it has assumed. Proposals to devolve activities to the private sector (such as charities or church-run relief organizations) are sloughed off as so much conservative drabble.
I believe that Alabamans have an unprecedented opportunity to move beyond merely debating where to cut their states budget. The time is ripe for considering the only solution that will actually work in the long run, whether were talking about Alabama or any other state: shrinking government back to its biblical and constitutionally legitimate functions. The crisis in Alabama is fundamentally an issue of the states exorbitantly high level of government spending. The best solution to this problem is to cut many if not most government programs and return government to its limited, constitutional duties.
Gov. Riley has decried the fact that budgetary cuts could end nursing home care for hundreds of elderly citizens and curtail prescription drug medicines for the mentally ill. He is right; the consequences of irresponsible government have finally caught up with the states politicians. But the governors complaint is based on a misreading of the real source of the profligacythe fact that churches and private individuals have allowed the government to step in and do what the Bible tells them is their responsibility.
It is precisely at this point that Gov. Riley can properly appeal to the sympathy and compassion of the Christians in his state, not by saying it is their duty to support a tax increase, as he did prior to yesterdays referendum, but by asserting the biblical principle that those who are financially bereft are to be given care, sympathy, and even financial support by the church (please read 1 Timothy 5). Especially widows who are truly helpless are to be supported by their families. According to Paul, caring for parents or grandparents is not only acceptable to God but is a reverent (eusebein) action and therefore cannot be lightly treated. Jesus Himself emphasized the importance of this obligation in Mark 7:9-12. Furthermore, for children to shirk this responsibility places them in a position even worse than the unbeliever, for even unbelievers assent (in principal at least) to the filial obligation being urged by Paul.
Gov. Riley can remind Christians that the early church practiced charity and that believers were eager to share their possessions with one another (Acts 2:44-45). They literally kept on having all things in common (the imperfect tense in Greek is used). For these early Christians, social responsibility was inseparable from spirituality. Within the Christian community existed a spirit of generosity and great joy, and outside it the believers enjoyed great goodwill among the people, who must have been awestruck at the way Christians truly cared for one another. Note that there was no compulsion involved here, no sense of Communism; the communal purse remained an individual and voluntary matter, motivated simply by the love of Christ.
Here would be a clear example of government doing something right for the right reason. Its right because government has no business redistributing the peoples wealth to care for its neediest citizens when the church and private charities are duty bound to step up to the plate. Thats called self-responsibility, something Americans of an earlier generation actually knew and valued.
In the final analysis, economics is not the real issue in Alabama. Morality is important too, even vital. Gov. Riley was right in appealing to the Christian conscience of the people of Alabama but wrong in his application. People in the Yellowhammer State need social services and health care, dont they? Of course they dowhich is precisely why the church and the private sector must stop looking to a failed government system to do for them what it was never designed to do in the first place.
I say Two cheers for Alabama! for soundly rejecting their governors tax hike proposal. Now if Christians would only get serious about fulfilling their God-given assignment of caring for the needy in society, I will make that a hearty Three cheers!
September 10, 2003
David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.