What Will We Do?

There are some who long to return to the days of the kind of government which prevailed under the reign of our founding fathers, with few regulations and no income tax. If you are an adult, white male of at least average intelligence, that might work out for you, but for anyone who doesn't fit into that entire description, it might not be so enjoyable.

Let's consider the good old days: Women could not only not vote, but had most other rights sharply curtailed. Anyone who was poor, down on their luck, mentally incapacitated or either too old or too young to take care of themselves and had no relatives, had few options and usually become little more than indentured servants, or, slightly later in our history, were at the mercy of supposedly charitable organizations who answered to no one and were quite often less about charity than about abuse of those in their care.

Children were treated as property and were used as their parents (and others) saw fit. There were no child labor laws, no mechanisms in place to prevent the abuse of children, and the results were tragic. If you were a person of color, any color that would not match the skin tone of someone from a socially-acceptable European country, of course your plight was worst of all.

I am fairly certain most of us believe government regulations and tax codes have gotten out of hand. But do we believe it is possible and practical to return to the days when government intervention in the lives of individual Americans barely existed?

There is a solution, but it requires those who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus to unite and become serious and creative in our approach to those living in sorrow and poverty around us. There are certainly enough resources in the hands of churches and individuals to address the ills of society (and the world) in spectacular fashion.

But the question is: Christians, are we ready to mobilize to take care of all of the children currently in foster care, the elderly in nursing homes with Medicaid paying the bill, those who are struggling with mental illness, living with domestic violence, with addiction issues, with poverty and pain? If we are, then let's not ask corporations and billionaires to contribute to government coffers, and let's cut social programs.

The Church has been at the forefront of social change throughout our nation's history. Now may be the time for our generation to answer the call. If the current political course continues, we'll find out if we're ready.