G. Erdner writes:
The ELCA's attempts to shift responsibility to caring for people over to the government is a constant source of embarrassment to me.
I comment:
Well, as I rather naively understand it, in our fine political system, the "government" is "us." And we delegate people - representatives of "us" - to do what we think will serve our neighbor. So in asking the "government" to help the poor, we are not "shifting" anything, but directing our people to do what we want them to do.
The theory is that we are the government. In actual practice, the bloated and inefficient Federal bureaucracy has become a self-serving entity unto itself, operating for the sake of perpetuating its own existence. The theory might be that government programs are intended to provide the same kind of help to those who need it that traditionally had been the work of the organized church, but the actual fact is that those well-intentioned programs seldom provide the kind of help they intend to provide, and that the unintended consequences of their poor management tends to make the very problems that they seek to fix worse instead of better.
As stewards of God's resources, it behooves us to not only strive to see those resources put to their best use in helping those in need, we also are obliged to see that the resources are used as efficiently and effectively as possible. Lutheran Relief does a far, far better job in being good stewards of the resources it has to provide help for those in need than any agency of any level of government in the entire United States -- Federal, State, or Local.
Besides, if you're going to operate under the premise that we the people are the government, then you should also accept that our government is limited in what it is permitted to do by the document that defines it. Just as the Augsburg Confessions defines who Lutherans are, the US Constitution defines what the Federal government can and cannot do. It outlines specific responsibilities and rights reserved for the government, and responsibilities and rights reserved for the states or for the people. Going by the written rules of the secular kingdom, providing charitable aid to individuals is the responsibility of the people acting on their own, not through any of the three branches of the Federal Government.
If we are to honor all those set in rightful authority over us, that means we are to honor the laws of this nation as they are written in the Constitution. Which means letting the government so what it's supposed to do, and for all establishments of religion to do what they are supposed to do.
It's no wonder the ECLA is in decline. One of the reasons for establishments of religion to exist is to coordinate individual acts of Christian charity with good order. Instead, we have built a publiclly perceived reputation for simply letting the government take over what should be our job.
