Some have argued that by increasing assistance to the poor available from the U.S. And when Paul makes his appeal for generosity toward the church at Jerusalem, saying that “our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality,” the redistribution of wealth that he is advocating is the result of voluntary giving by Christians, not government coercion (2 Corinthians 8:13).
When Jesus explains what it means to love our neighbor, he tells the story of a Samaritan who assists a man who had been assaulted on the side of the road to Jericho and offers his own financial resources to the innkeeper to care for him (Luke 10) the exemplary good neighbor does not call the governor and ask for a hospital to be built at taxpayer expense. Nowhere in the New Testament, they would note, does it suggest that Christ-followers should lobby the government for increased spending for the poor: the repeated command to Christ’s followers is that we-the Church, not necessarily a secular government-“should continue to remember the poor” (Galatians 2:10). Many individuals who take a conservative view of the role of government argue that is the primarily the role of the Church, not the State, to provide assistance to the poor.
Christians do not uniformly agree, though, on what role the government ought to have in caring for the poor, as evidenced by recent dueling campaigns between a group called the “ Circle of Protection”-Christians advocating for programs for the poor to be protected in the federal budget-and “Christians for a Sustainable America,” which has been organized in response, arguing for minimized funding for some of these programs. All Christians agree that we are called to care for those who are poor and vulnerable: the Scriptures are replete with statements both of God’s love for the poor and of his explicit command that his people love, protect, and seek justice for those who are impoverished or oppressed.
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