Self-Righteousness & Exploitation: The Welfare State

A question I have been thinking upon: Should we take Jesus description about the one who does his good works to impress others at face value?

Here is the passage:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4, ESV)

By itself this is a straightforward instruction. However, the people Jesus singled out for us to be sure we do not emulate did more than trumpet their help for the poor. They also exploited the poor and looted from them to add to their own wealth.

And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” (Luke 20:45-47, ESV/ also Mark 12.40; some MS have it also in Matthew 23).

So the hypocrisy of trumpeting how you help people is much more obvious once your realize that they are victimizing this same group of people, becoming wealthy off them, and then offering them a pittance, and expecting to be thanked and praised for their generosity.

The application to the US welfare state with its political interventions in the economy is obvious: What Jesus attributes to scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, is official US policy. The US government cripples the impoverished and then offers them dependence on measly aid, most of which is used to give a cadre of social welfare bureaucrats a job. (No, I’m not saying it is sinful to apply for a job in a social welfare agency; that kind of legalism would lead to the same kind of traps Jesus diagnosed in Pharisaism.) One example among many can be found by looking at how regressive the Social Security system is. College graduates typically are getting a great deal of largess from the working class, who typically begin working much earlier and dying sooner than college graduates.

Or one can consider the activists leading the campaign for minimum wage law are typically going to be the relatively educated who won’t be forced into unemployment by the change. And as unemployment increases, the same group will lobby for, or boast in, other forms of government aid.

The US economy systematically hurts those in or closer to poverty and officially boasts in the anemic “help” provided by those who benefit from this damage.

Of course, just like in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy with the talking cow that presented its body parts for the menu, and then went into the kitchen to slaughter itself, exploiters find ways to train the exploited to cooperate with them and be grateful to them for the privilege. It seems to me we something close to this in Mark’s Gospel:

And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Mark 12.38-13.2, ESV)

So notice the sequence:

1. Scribes condemned for devouring widows’ houses
2. Widow said to give more than others because she gave all she had to Temple.
3. Temple condemned to destruction.

While Jesus believed the widow was righteous, the way the text reads does not indicate that he was happy with widows being further impoverished for the sake of the Temple. At face value she devoured what was left of her own house to give to God’s house in the presence of others who got credit for more but actually gave less.

My basic take away from this is that the propaganda of the Religious Left, supporting the welfare state and other economic interventions, is all condemned by Jesus as rank hypocrisy. It is not appealing to generosity or asking for charity. It is offering spiritual pride while it defends and lobbies for the expansion of a system that exploits the victims it boasts in helping.

The fact that such “socially conscious Christians” accuse those who uphold property rights, peace, and voluntarism of “selfishness” is just another layer of hypocrisy shoveled on top of a pile of it.<>racer game daownloadметоды интернет рекламы