The Church vs. The Department of Labor
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Visit Ann’s blog: "Technically, That's Illegal"
In general, I’m against entitlement programs. I believe that if the government took less or none of our money and served minimal function, we would “fill in the gaps” so to speak concerning services that they currently offer. I also believe that we could, generally do a better job of providing those services.
I also believe that people wind up in jail and prison for a lot of trivial reasons these days. I’ve documented it over and over again in my book and on my blog. If you follow it, you might become outraged or upset about some of the things that people are getting into trouble for, and you might also realize that each of us is only one bad day away from being in prison ourselves.
Often, the people leaving prison find it difficult to rejoin society. They are shunned because of our judgmental attitudes, and often end up finding acceptance amongst a crowd of people who consider it a badge of honor to have been imprisoned. I think Jesus told his followers to visit people in prison because he knew that they needed help and support. They need to know that we will be there for them when they get out.
Anyway, we do a dismal job of visiting prisoners and helping them when they get out. For that reason, I waver in my support of programs like this where the Department of Labor offers grants to organizations that help former prisoners find work. I don’t want to like it because I wish these programs didn’t exist. I think many Christians these days (myself included) don’t do the work that they should because they think that someone else is going to do it, namely government. We think that since our tax money is giving grants to these people, we are doing our part. I wonder if we stopped all of these programs if the church would rise up and do her job. Part of me is scared to find out, so I continue to reluctantly support the government in certain circumstances when I feel that my tax money is being used in a moral way. (Of course, it’s not really “moral” when it is basically stolen from people).
I wish that we didn’t imprison people for soft “crimes” and turn them into hardened criminals in the process. I wish the rest of us didn’t assume that people leaving prison are dishonest and lazy just because they have broken the law. I wish that I didn’t think that the Department of Labor was going to waste all of that money with incompetence. That particular department has already been found to be lax in their oversight of grants. The article states that the Department of Labor “often failed to ensure the public was getting something for its tax dollars.” That’s not ideal.
I want to encourage Christians to do their part to support prisoners. In general, forced support through taxation isn’t the ideal way to accomplish this. The money and effort will, sadly, be mostly fruitless. On one hand, we could say that these programs exist because the church isn’t doing her job. On the other hand, we could say that the church isn’t doing much about this problem because we can’t compete with the government’s programs in terms of money and pre-existing infrastructure. Unfortunately, we’ll never really know whether the chicken or the egg came first in this scenario. In any case, we should take the words of Jesus seriously when he talked about supporting prisoners. Remember, that Jesus’ followers were imprisoned at one time just for following him.
About The Author
Ann Sattley
I am a stay-at-home mom of two wonderful boys. I am a Christian. My husband is a microbiologist. I have a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling. I grew up in rural southern Michigan with two wonderful parents and siblings. I survived a traumatic car accident when I was 20 years old. Somehow all of these things have melded together to make me one very unconventional mommy blogger. You can read more about my life and philosophies in my book, Technically, That's Illegal. I maintain a blog by the same name.
drewdsnider Frankly, we are guilty in the church of simply not being aware. Much of the needs we could/should fill in our communities are going unnoticed.
jeremysarberdrewdsnider
not just the needs, but the ability we have as individuals to meet them. We think we're incapable or inadequate, whereas God sees our capabilities and fits them into His plan. http://revdowntown.blogspot.com/2011/04/working-on-our-own-little-room.html
Another area in which Christians are similarly lacking is in ministering to the urban poor -- the homeless, drug-addicted, "street people". In Vancouver BC, where I'm one of the pastors at a Mission on Skid Row, there are many publicly-funded organizations that provide food, shelter, "treatment" (note the quotation marks) and other services and I believe as a result of this, many churches outside the downtown area feel the urban poor are taken-care-of. But if you look at the programs provided, you'll see they're very much geared towards treating people in the situation they're in now, with less emphasis on getting them out of there. And that's not God's Will at all. Jesus commanded us (Acts 1:8) to be His witnesses in Samaria, and Skid Row is the modern-day equivalent of that region; in fact, if you read Acts 1:8 as a specific order of operations, we're supposed to be witnesses in Samaria BEFORE looking at the far-flung parts of the earth. In other words, Christians do tend to drop the ball when it comes to witnessing to the unlovely, be they street people or ex-cons; especially when it looks like "The Man" has it covered. Most often, he hasn't.
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