Christianity: Are there limits to charity?

“What does a moral society owe to the have-nots?” asked Bill O’Reilly in the New York Post. This is the time of year when liberals will tell you that “the baby Jesus wants us to ‘provide’ no matter what the circumstance.” That’s the kind of thinking behind President Obama’s push to extend unemployment benefits yet again, and it’s a prime reason our national debt has risen to almost $14 trillion. Compassion is fine within reason, but if there are no limits, charitable impulses “can cause disaster”; open your home to the homeless and “you will not have a home for long.” The Lord helps those who help themselves, and the American government should limit itself to doing the same. The “cold truth” is that we can’t afford to endlessly support the millions of Americans who lack personal responsibility and a strong work ethic. “Being a Christian,” I know that Jesus promoted charity, but “he was not self-destructive.”

O’Reilly is one very confused Christian, said Andrew Sullivan in TheAtlantic.com. Christ’s “radical” message was that we are all our brothers’ keepers. In the Gospels, he commands us to give what we have to the needy without limit or condition. “If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. In Jesus’ teachings, the prodigal son is the one most beloved, and a rich man must relinquish his belongings to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus, in fact, enjoined his followers to live like he did, as vagrants. This is not the angry, judgmental Christianity promoted by the “Christianist Right,” but it’s the one Jesus actually taught.

I’m tired of hearing leftists attack capitalism “on moral grounds,” said David Limbaugh in Townhall.com. Capitalism and the protection of private property have produced “the greatest prosperity in world history,” consistently “delivering the greatest good to the greatest number of people.” So-called “social justice” Christians, meanwhile, are in thrall to supposedly morally superior socialist systems that yield nothing but “misery, poverty, tyranny, and subjugation.” There’s a great irony here. We Christian conservatives are often accused of mixing politics with theology; yet when “social justice” liberals want to seize people’s money and property and give it away, they are fond of citing Scripture to justify the theft. In this Christmas season, may liberals spare us their empty sermons.

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