Bible says your policies make Jesus sad, so insist left-wingers and right-wingers

One of the most contentious issues that divides people on the political left and right in our country is the question of what role, if any, the government should have in providing taxpayer-financed assistance to the poor. A good example of the view from the left, that the government should take an active role in providing help to low-income Americans, could be seen in a letter to the editor that appeared on this page last week from Sister Joan Serda.

In her letter, Sister Joan took Republican U.S. House Rep. Austin Scott (whose district includes many of us in the Middle Georgia area) to task for supporting proposed changes to the new farm bill that would likely reduce future spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The proposed changes to SNAP would dramatically increase work requirements for those who receive benefits and increase penalties levied against recipients who don’t meet those requirements. It’s been estimated that nearly 2 million people who currently receive help buying food under the program would have their benefits reduced or eliminated if the new requirements were to take effect.

And that’s why Sister Joan had a problem with Scott and his Republican cohorts who are pushing for these changes. As a Christian she does not believe it is acceptable to take these crucial benefits away from some of our poorest citizens, many of whom are parents who rely on SNAP to feed their children.

Interestingly enough, she took a page out of the right-wing playbook and quoted scripture to support her argument. She cited the well-known passage from the book of Matthew that begins with Jesus saying, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.”

I’m familiar enough with right-wing Christian political thinking to know that her use of this passage in this context surely went over with them like a lead balloon. They would undoubtedly point out that the call to help the less fortunate is a personal one that Christians as individuals are called to heed. But they would vehemently disagree that this call to service mandates support for any specific government program.

Many politically conservative Christians believe, in fact, that if the government ended programs like SNAP and returned the money spent on them to taxpayers much of that money would make its way to private charitable programs that assist the poor. And they believe that private charities are much more efficiently run than big government programs, so the poor might be better off under this scenario as well.

I have my doubts about that theory. Although some of the money from a tax cut resulting from a sudden end to all government assistance to the poor would undoubtedly make its way to charitable organizations, it seems unlikely that private groups would be able to assist all the needy people who currently depend on government assistance to get the basic necessities of life. People who live in lightly populated, rural areas, for example, would be especially challenging to reach without the resources of the federal government.

And let’s be real here – there is no way that the elimination of all forms of public assistance is going to happen in this country. It would be political suicide to even suggest it.

Just look at how much heat Scott and his GOP colleagues are absorbing just for trying to tinker with SNAP in a way that would result in reduced spending on the program. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that the House will back off these changes and leave the program unchanged when all is said and done.

I’ll crawl out even further on that limb and predict that partisans on both sides of the political aisle will continue to cherry pick Bible verses to attack the policies and practices of their adversaries on the other side, especially here in the Bible Belt. There’s no better way to cast your political adversary in a bad light than by claiming that their policies make Jesus sad.

Bill Ferguson is a resident of Warner Robins. Readers can write him at fergcolumn@hotmail.com.