Rejecting Charity as a Nation, Postscript
And then today I had this verse in my devotional reading:
Proverbs 17.5a:
Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker
May God grant that we be a people of compassion, of true charity, of Christlike humility, that we may live out God’s reign here in the midst of the nations.
In Christ,
Amen.
Rejecting Charity as a Nation
This weekend we watched all four episodes of the documentary The Century of the Self, which discusses the way Freudian ideas were imported into British and American culture through Freud’s daughter and nephew. The final volume looks at the impact on politics, especially on the Reagan/Thatcher revolutions and the later Clinton/Blair victories.
One thing in particular chilled me: In discussing Reagan’s rise to power, he says that Reagan found favor with the American middle-class by giving them permission to reject calls to charity (e.g., the welfare system) and instead to blame lower-classes for their own situations.
Is this really what a “Christian nation” is supposed to do? How can we continue to associate Reagan conservatism with Christianity?
