Drinking Root Beer From Brown Bottles

Drinking Root Beer From Brown Bottles

Adam Graham points out that, for all the hazards of legalism, the problem that most churches have now is quite the opposite:

To say the subject of morals in the church is a sensitive topic would be an understatement. An element in many churches is legalistic, placing demands on people that scripture does not place. I was in one church where we were told not to drink root beer from brown glass bottles because people would think we were drinking alcohol. Never mind that even drinking alcohol is never strictly forbidden in the scriptures, though drunkenness is.

Some elements demand pastors prescribe rules on courtship and schooling found nowhere in scripture. These preachers focus on cleansing the outside of the cup through external rules, rather than letting God work to change hearts. Many have been spiritually abused by such legalists and my heart goes out to these wounded souls.

Yet I’m reminded of the passage of the Screwtape Letters where Screwtape advises Wormwood to get Christians to focus on the exact opposite of their most pressing problem. Legalism is a minor problem compared to the church’s refusal to stand for biblical truth.

There is a maxim: “Where the scriptures speak, we will speak. Where the scriptures are silent, we will be silent.” Yet in many cases, where the scriptures speak, churches are silent. Issues such as divorce and cohabitation are rarely preached on from most pulpits. In a select few pulpits is the issue of abortion discussed.

Churches often appeal to Matthew 7’s command to, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” In the context of scripture, when one reads the whole passage, it’s clearly about hypocrisy. Religious post-modernists turn it into a requirement to abandon all moral judgment about many things scripture speaks to. In other words, they use it, ironically, as a pretext to judge as acceptable what the bible condemns as sin.

I'm gratified to report that my pastor is preaching increasingly serious sermons calling people to consider fully the morality of their lives. Adam points out that many pastors are reluctant to call people to Biblical lives for fear of losing too much of the congregation. I've seen this a lot. We're reaching the point where many churches either need to start preaching the importance of following Jesus, or stop pretending.

I'm also pleased to see Adam's coverage of this Declaration of American Values by a group of conservatives in Denver recently. There's nothing that I can fundamentally disagree with, but I am pleased to see this point made early on, both because liberals pretending to be Christians have been hammering away at this for some time, and because it Scriptural:

Every person is made in the image of God and it is the responsibility and duty of all individuals and congregations to extend the hand of loving compassion to care for those in poverty and distress.

While I understand the reluctance to acknowledge the government's role in this "responsibility and duty," the fact is that it is part of the American tradition from the beginning of settlement here for the government to play a role.

Defining Poverty

Professor Volokh tells us that the Los Angeles Times recently ran an editorial that claimed that "In our America, 60 million people survive on $7 a day." That's an astonishing number: he points out that this means 20% of the population is living on $2555 per year. The number isn't just astonishing, but wrong, based on misreading of a New York Times story about income reported to the IRS--and of course, excluding "the value of government benefits like food stamps, the earned-income tax credit for working families and subsidized medical care." And of course, a fair number of people--including poor people--work off the books, and so don't report all of their income.

Okay, no surprise: the Los Angeles Times is a bunch of liberal journalists who aren't very good at checking facts, and are so innumerate that they can't immediately spot something suspicious about this number.

More interesting is that one of the commenters pointed to this Heritage Foundation report that discusses the nature of poverty in America. There are two points that they are making, and depending on what emotional reaction to the concept of poverty that you bring to the table, you may react to one of their points, and miss the other. The first point:

For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 37 million per­sons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity.

In short: there is serious suffering out there--but the government's definition of "poverty" includes a lot of people that aren't what most of us think of as "poor". The report points out that of the 37 million Americans considered "poor" by the government:

Forty-three percent of all poor households actu­ally own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio....

Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning....

Only 6 percent of poor households are over­crowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person....

The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)...

Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

The second point:

Most of America's "poor" live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest-income one-fifth (or quintile) of house­holds equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.

For most of America's "poor," they are only poor by comparison to the rest of America. The report points out that not only by measures of material possessions, but also by measures of malnutrition, most of America's poor aren't particularly miserable:

While the poor are generally well nourished, some poor families do experience temporary food shortages. But even this condition is relatively rare; 89 percent of the poor report their families have "enough" food to eat, while only 2 percent say they "often" do not have enough to eat.

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrig­erator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had suf­ficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

The next time that Senator Edwards gives his "two Americas" speech, keep this in mind.

I find myself wondering at times if the government's definition of poverty may be so expansive that resources and money have been diverted to people that are doing okay, and might be better spent on the desperately poor--the 2% that reported that they "often" did not have enough to eat, or that lacked shelter, or were unable to obtain medical care.

Strange Notion of Poverty

Fairfax County, Virginia, has public housing for those who are too poor to afford to live in unsubsidized housing. But it seems to be a rather strange notion of poverty at work, according to this September 30, 2007 Washington Post article:

Hundreds of families living in housing subsidized by Fairfax County taxpayers exceed income caps designed to ensure that only the neediest receive assistance, a review of county records shows.

In the most extreme cases, Fairfax is underwriting rents for families making well into six figures: One household getting help makes more than $216,000 a year; another, $184,000. Dozens of others -- making $60,000, $70,000, $90,000 -- exceed eligibility caps. And they do so with the tacit approval of county housing administrators, who do little to encourage occupants to move on when their fortunes improve.

These tenants live in housing intended for families at the bottom of the county's economic spectrum. They are in the federally subsidized public housing program, the Fairfax rental program and the county's senior housing program. The county's Department of Housing and Community Development will spend about $4.5 million this year running these programs.

I am sympathetic to governmental attempts to help the poor. But what happens when "the poor" include households making more than four times the national average ($46,326 per year in 2005)?

The rest of the article goes on to say that you know, housing is really expensive in Fairfax County, and that's part of why people with six figure incomes aren't moving out of government subsidized housing. But I think there are some people who have good reasons to be upset about this:

1. People who are struggling--without government subsidies--to make house payments on $40,000 a year household incomes in much of the United States.

2. People who are struggling to put food on the table or provide health care for their children on $15,000 a year in much of the United States.

When government generosity for "the poor" is being funneled into six figure income households, it discredits the notion of governmental help to the poor.