Last night at Bible Study at the small Midwestern church I go to, I was treated to - as usual - a long prayer about Donald Trump. This after a recent Sabbath service in which the sermon started with playing a recording of Trump speaking about faith, then continued on into a praise of his administration.
Understand, that while I feel that praying for politicians - any politicians - to have wisdom and goodness and courage is a good thing, and to pray that they draw nearer to Christ is a good thing, I do feel that lines can be crossed.
Like when the prayer (or a sermon) leaves off those general good wishes, and is more along the lines of "And we pray that Congress will see the wisdom of the wall Trump wants, so that those caravans trying to come in to hurt us will know to stay behind, and only come in legally, or better stay home and fix their problems."
Now maybe you personally believe that, and maybe you don't, but for me, whether I could agree with such or not (I don't) I find it distasteful that this is put in a public prayer to the Almighty.
I also find it distasteful in a Bible Study to be studying about a person healed by Jesus - who was then told not to sin again, lest the ailment come back worse - and hear that among other reasons for a person not wishing to be healed, maybe a reason could be that they want to keep drawing government welfare.
But such sermons, such prayers and such assessments can be made, and it raise no eyebrow. But when I heard the minister speak about how the crippled of some foreign nation had to beg in the streets, I did raise an eyebrow.
By calmly pointing out that those other nations had beggars in the streets as there were none of those socialistic welfare payments being made to them. And that our own streets would be as clogged, if we stopped disability checks, and checks for the elderly and aid to children.
Oh, you could have heard a pin drop then.
And yet it is true. We all pay taxes and we'll all always pay taxes and even if those programs were stopped, it's not like the government is going to send us all fat refund checks. Our choice is not then whether we live in a Capitalistic Ayn Rand Utopia or give welfare, but whether we are taxed for some welfare, or taxed the same rate for more "Congressional fact finding missions" to vacation paradises or billion dollar bailouts for Wall Street.
I'll choose the welfare payments.
I like social security to help the elderly. And no, the old folks did not earn it, they are receiving other people's taxes, not their own. I like disability checks to the blind so they don't have to hold a cup on a street corner. I like that the crippled get apartments and wheelchairs. I like that 12 year old kids do not - like when "Huckleberry Finn" was wrote in non-Socialist 19th century America - grow up smoking and drinking and running around malnourished and not knowing how to read.
We are a big enough and wealthy enough nation to provide public roads to all and street lights to all. And none who complain about welfare ever imagine that such means that, too. And thus the nation that can provide free bailouts to billionaires and free roads and lamps to the middle class can certainly stop complaining about providing free aid to the poor, the elderly, the sick, the orphan.
And really, when Jesus was here on Earth, was he busy granting favors to the rich? Help to the middle class? Complaining about taxes? Advocating for one Caesar or another? Or was He giving aid to the very classes of people that we are told to forsake now?
Can I get an "Amen"?
