03-29-2005, 04:38 AM
A good data point.. This faith business in action..... Would be interesting to draw up a case study based on happenings and events in India..
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Faith - Charity Initiative and the American Experiment.
by Gordon L. Anderson </b>
Gordon L. Anderson is the secretary-general of Professors World Peace Academy International. He lives in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
When George W. Bush became president, he quickly set up the White House Office on Faith -Based and Community Initiatives for the purpose of helping religious people provide social services to the needy. This was one of the first expressions of Bush's "compassionate conservatism," a way to streamline government while still serving the needs of the poor. His intentions seemed sincere. One might have expected a protest from the Left, especially those who favor the welfare state or view religion as a tool of oppression. Many were surprised when Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other members of the religious Right became the most vocal opponents of the plan.
Are these evangelists sore losers? After all, their ministries focus on teaching the word of God, not social services. Many of the more liberal churches and Catholic charities would stand to gain; some already receive federal funds for providing social services. Are leaders on the religious Right bigots threatened by the prospect of their tax dollars going to religions they do not like? Robertson accuses the Unification Church of "brainwashing," and Falwell accuses the Nation of Islam of being a "hate group." Or are they concerned about the fundamental relationship of church and state in the United States? Clark Morphew, religion editor of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, argues that despite the noblest of intentions, the faith - charity initiative would lead to government bursars playing favorites; public funds would have strings attached, which would allow the government to invade or manipulate church finances. In either case, he says, the initiative violates the separation of church and state.1
These issues are not easy to sort out because the criticisms have some legitimacy. Competition for federal funds may serve to pit religious groups against one another. In Europe, many religions have their hands tied by governments that play favorites. The state churches do not want other groups to receive funds they now receive. New religions in Germany, France, and Russia have suffered bitter persecution in recent years because traditional religions have used their political power to retain their cultural hegemony. This is a far cry from the free expression of religion most Americans cherish. Religious freedom helps a culture stay dynamic and adapt to new challenges, whereas those societies with official religions tend to be more stagnant and backward looking.
Here I want to look at government support of faith -based charity in the context of the evolving roles of religion and freedom in Western civilization. It is my opinion that social welfare should return to the local level in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, meaning that any governmental or public policy initiatives should be carried out at the lowest level that has the ability to accomplish it.
<b>SIMPLE SOCIETIES </b>
In simple societies, there was no division between politics and culture. Their language had no word for what we now call "religion." There were no laws that guaranteed "freedom." The world was an immediate consciousness, derived from sense perception and the teachings of elders of the family, tribe, or clan who had some memory of those who lived before. Of course in such simple or "primitive" societies, there is culture, even if undifferentiated, which contains elements we now ascribe to religion.
Unlike other species, humans complete much of their neurological development outside the womb, becoming who they are by learning from and adapting to their environment.2 Family and culture are the second womb for human development. In the words of anthropologist Clifford Geertz,
"The apparent fact that the final stages of the biological evolution of man occurred after the initial stages of the growth of culture implies that "basic," "pure," or "unconditioned," human nature, in the sense of the innate constitution of man, is so functionally incomplete as to be unworkable. Tools, hunting, family organization, and later, art, religion, and "science" molded man somatically; and they are, therefore, necessary not merely to his survival but to his existential realization.3"
<b>TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND AXIAL SHIFTS IN CULTURE </b>
Just as individuals develop, so does culture. The human consciousness embodied by culture is carried forward by each successive generation. While this process has occasionally suffered setbacks from disaster and war, human consciousness has evolved over the seven millennia of our recorded history.
The philosopher Karl Jaspers noted that human cultural evolution involved an "axial" shift in consciousness from roughly 800 to 200 b.c. This is described by philosopher Ewert Cousins as follows:
"The Axial Period ushered in a radically new form of consciousness. Whereas primal consciousness was tribal, Axial consciousness was individual. "Know thyself" became the watchword of Greece; the Upanishads identified the atman, the transcendent center of the self. The Buddha charted the way of individual enlightenment; the Jewish prophets awakened individual moral responsibility. This sense of individual identity, as distinct from the tribe and from nature, is the most characteristic mark of Axial consciousness. From this flow other characteristics: consciousness that is self-reflective, analytic, and that can be applied to nature in the form of scientific theories, to society in the form of social critique, to knowledge in the form of philosophy, to religion in the form of mapping an individual spiritual journey. This self-reflective, analytic, critical consciousness stood in sharp contrast to primal mythic and ritualistic consciousness.4"
The world's major cultural spheres emerged from primal clan and tribal societies. While Jaspers refers to major figures who openly preached a critical consciousness characteristic of the world's great religions, this axial shift did not simply occur because these leaders arose. It is most likely that these axial teachers and reformers arose because of developments in technology and the rise of the ancient cities and empires from Egypt to Babylon.
We can trace the roots of the Ten Commandments back to the Code of Hammurabi. Civilization flourished under Hammurabi, the sixth king of the first Babylonian dynasty.5 People were free to farm their own land and run their own business as long as they did not infringe on the rights of others. The code had laws regarding marriage, property rights, murder, violence, theft, taxes, and slavery. When people obeyed the code, they were protected by the king and allowed to prosper, and Babylon prospered as well. Here we find an ancient example of a large- scale society that flourished when laws were obeyed and relative freedom was enjoyed. Babylon was not a democracy, but the Code of Hammurabi defined clear relations between citizens and the government. Many religious practices were left to families, and families were expected to rear their children to be responsible and law abiding. Babylon had a successful combination of personal responsibility and freedom not known in other civilizations two millennia before Christ.
<b>THE DEVELOPMENT OF FREEDOM </b>
As religious consciousness has evolved, so has the desire for freedom. But the acquisition of freedom has not been easy. People with power do not give it up easily. It is commonplace to hear the phrase "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."6 This applies to both religious and political authorities. Most of recorded human history has involved power struggles for the control of land, resources, and people. No one enjoys being under the yoke of an oppressor, being forced to sacrifice one's own dreams for the sake of another.
Throughout Western history, freedom has advanced through the gradual development of checks and balances. Such checks and balances have often come unwittingly or with the great reluctance of those in power. This was true of the Roman Empire, where the Church became a check on the power of the emperor. In the words of Lord Acton:
"Constantine, in adopting [Christian] faith intended neither to abandon his predecessor's scheme of policy, nor to renounce the fascinations of arbitrary authority, but to strengthen his throne with the support of a religion which had astonished the world by its power of resistance; and to obtain that support absolutely and without a drawback he fixed the seat of his government in the East, with a patriarch of his own creation. Nobody warned him that by promoting the Christian religion he was tying one of his hands, and surrendering the prerogative of the Caesars.7"
In Rome, society was differentiated into political and religious spheres. A term developed to describe the empire's numerous groups with their various rituals and beliefs, which came to be referred to as religio.8 In the first century b.c., Lucretius' poem De rerum natura welcomed scientific materialism as liberating people from the terror of religion.9 Cicero, in De natura deorum, connected the term religio to the divine.
The proliferation of pagan cults and barbarian hordes made the Roman Empire difficult to govern. Lactantius used the terms vera religio and falsa religio to express the belief that Christian worship is true and other forms false.10 The union of church and state was seen as the only way to govern the empire, and most "pagans" were rapidly being converted. After persecuting Christians for nearly three centuries, Rome reversed its position and adopted Christianity as the official religion of the empire.11 Saint Augustine's City of God spelled out a relationship between two powers, the sacred and the secular, or the Church and the emperor. The domain of the Church was moral and spiritual, while the domain of the emperor was temporal and political. Each had a legitimate domain, and appeal could be made by one to check misuse of power by the other. After Rome fell, the lack of religious and intellectual freedom led to the Dark Ages.
In the Holy Roman Empire, while the spiritual and temporal authorities each exercised, at least in theory, a check on the power of the other, each power was absolute within its own domain and could be ruthless.
<b>THE MAGNA CARTA </b>
In England, the monarchy's near absolute power was opposed by the feudal lords, who rebelled at taxes levied from their districts and soldiers being drafted from their men to fight petty wars or interests of the king. In 1215, King John set his seal on the Magna Carta, a document that evolved into the symbol of the primacy of the law over the king in the British Parliament.
The rise of the merchant class and towns in Europe following the Crusades also served as a check on the power of the feudal landholders. People migrated from the country to the towns, where they were relatively untrammeled by the feudal machinery. According to Lord Acton:
"When men found a way of earning a livelihood without depending for it on the good will of the class that owned the land, the landowner lost much of his importance, and it began to pass to the possessors of moveable wealth. The townspeople not only made themselves free from the control of prelates and barons, but endeavoured to obtain for their own class and interest the command of the state.12"
The fourteenth century was characterized by struggle between various forms of democracy and feudalism. Many free cities arose along the Rhine, in central Germany, and Belgium. Their governments were experimental and often failed to serve the suffering poor. Insurrections were quelled by the armies of the monarchs, who reasserted their authority. In the Middle Ages, forms of representative government, unknown in the first millennium a.d., were almost universal.13
The Protestant Reformation ushered in developments that would have profound consequences for Europe, for Christendom, and especially for what would be instituted later in America. Martin Luther (1483--1546) began to loosen the Catholic Church's monopoly over religious life in the West. His protest against the papacy led to the establishment of an independent church in Saxony. About the same time, Henry VIII declared the Church of England free from the Church of Rome. John Calvin, in Geneva, carried on a reformation there. Each of these divisions led to religious denominations that were state churches. But the era just before and during the Reformation saw the rise of religious groups that explicitly denied that they should be allied with state power, such as the Albigensians in France at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the Anabaptists in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. In 1568 the Netherlands instituted religious freedom after the revolt led by Prince William of Orange. But a real flowering of both religious and political freedom had to wait for the social experiment that took place in America.
<b>THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT </b>
Two factors were required for the American experiment to work. First, the people had to be self-sufficient and possess a general respect for the law, and, second, adequate checks and balances had to be put into place to prevent new tyrannies from arising. If they did, the people needed the means to put an end to them.
Colonial America was made up of self-sufficient people who were ripe for democracy. Early settlers risked great hardship to create new lives for themselves. Many had fled some form of oppression in Europe. These immigrants farmed the readily available land or brought the means to establish their own business. The Puritan way of life was a rigorous form of Protestantism that promoted self-reliance. Early America did not have much of a welfare class. It was a land for the self- sufficient. Those who were timid or dependent on others remained in Europe.
Aristotle wrote that democracies work best among agricultural and pastoral people, because they are capable of maintaining themselves.14 He argued that where people are hirelings or laborers, dependent upon others, or gathered in mobs in cities, democracies will not work. The problem for such populations is that the majority will pass laws to maintain themselves at the expense of the few who are productive and successful. Thomas Jefferson must have read Aristotle, among other political theorists, for in a letter to James Madison in 1778 he wrote, "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."[FR 15]}15
Religion played a more important role than Jefferson had considered; it served as a basis for responsible and independent action even after the people began to crowd into cities and work in industries. The Protestant work ethic, which by the nineteenth century had become the "American work ethic," embodied a type of moral self-governance suited for a republican form of democracy.16 The Protestant churches had instilled the idea that all work was for the glorification of God. The result was a work ethic, a tremendous quality and quantity of work, and little need for supervision, a prescription for prosperity. The American belief in personal responsibility and the work ethic was the source of the personal self-governance and self-sufficiency required by democracy.
Even those Americans who had not fled tyranny in Europe came to see the imposition of taxes on the colonies under the reign of King George III as unbearable. After the Boston Tea Party, even the old colonial aristocracy began to support the pietists in their bid for American independence.17 The framers of the Constitution sought to devise a system of government in which no person and no portion of the government could impose some form of tyranny. Thomas Jefferson wrote "a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth."18
The founders had an unprecedented opportunity to establish their government with many checks and balances on power. Very few citizens wanted to see a central government with power to do anything beyond providing them freedom and physical protection from those who would encroach on that freedom. Hence, the founders created a constitutional and representative democracy, with a tripartite government, the largest body of which was elected by citizens. Systems of majority votes, vetoes, and veto overrides added to the protection of the citizens.
A further development was the practical necessity of establishing religious liberty in the United States, because nearly every state was ethically and religiously diverse. In The Lively Experiment, Sidney Mead noted:
"On the question of religious freedom for all, there were many shades of opinion in these churches, but all were practically unanimous on one point: each wanted freedom for itself. And by this time it had become clear that the only way to get it for themselves was to grant it to all others...."
"Most of the effectively powerful intellectual, social, and political leaders were rationalists, and these men made sense theoretically out of the actual, practical situation which demanded religious freedom. They gave it tangible form and legal structure. This the churches, each intent on its own freedom, accepted in practice but without reconciling themselves to it intellectually by developing theoretical defenses of religious freedom that were legitimately rooted in their professed theological positions.19"
The disestablishment of state religions (Massachusetts was the last state to abolish an official state church in 183320) meant that the people had to be persuaded to join churches--they could no longer be coerced. The result was a flurry of revivals and awakenings previously unknown in Christendom and a more active participation in churches than occurred in nations with state churches.21 Americans, regardless of religious background, were prompted to feel that each person is responsible for his own spiritual destiny.
In the end of his presidency, Thomas Jefferson said, "We have solved by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to laws."22 Historian Sidney Mead referred to the pietists and rationalists as the "heart" and "head" of the revolution; in his view, the American experiment depended upon the cooperation of these two groups, which are traditionally at odds with one another.23 The pietists educated citizens for personal responsibility, and the rationalists established the protection of freedoms and rights necessary for the free exercise of responsibility. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s, he commented:
"Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion--for who can search the human heart?--but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.24 "
Thus, the American experiment was based on two factors: virtuous, self- sufficient citizens raised in the private sector and freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. Over time both these factors were weakened.
<b>THE SOCIAL GOSPEL MOVEMENT </b>
A major blow was dealt to the American experiment by the mainline churches themselves through the adoption of state welfare in a movement known as the "Social Gospel." In the 1870s a pastor of the Congregational Church, Washington Gladden, and an economist at Johns Hopkins University, Richard T. Ely, began to promote the view that the state could better handle social welfare than the churches. They made a good case; many unchurched Americans were falling through the social cracks and were not being cared for by the churches.
The Social Gospel arose at a time when mainstream Christianity had become "Christocentric" and evangelical, without sufficient concern for social welfare. If the state governments took a major responsibility for social welfare, church leaders believed, the churches could focus their efforts and financial resources on evangelism and the care of souls. The Social Gospel became increasingly popular by the turn of the twentieth century and was canonized in Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) and A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917) by Walter Rauschenbusch.25 It became part of the theological landscape of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ, USA, organized during the first decade of the century. The Social Gospel did not concern itself with the issues of separation of church and state, and the lines became blurred in American consciousness. The mainline churches were pleased to hand the traditional social responsibilities of religion over to the state.
Early Americans did not believe in income taxes. (They were used briefly to pay for the Civil War, however.) Only in 1913 did the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution give Congress legal authority to tax income of both individuals and corporations, and, thereafter the income tax became a permanent fixture in the United States. The establishment of such authority reduced the checks and balances on political rulers that had been instituted by the founders, for it meant that the people in charge of levying taxes (Congress) also determined their own salaries and office expenses. When the Social Security Tax Act was instituted in 1935 a tax of 2 percent (1 percent paid by the employer and 1 percent withheld from the employee's paycheck) was quite modest, and the benefit of a social safety net was widely appreciated.
With the legal right to tax and spend on social welfare established, the U.S. government gradually expanded its bureaucracy and social services. By 1980, it was not uncommon for citizens to be paying more than 50 percent of their income as some type of tax. What began as modest discomfort had become a noose around the neck. Progressive taxation also virtually wiped out the possibility of amassing private fortunes that could be set aside for philanthropy, as had been done during the nineteenth century. Progressive taxation and the welfare state greatly restricted an individual's freedom to determine his own destiny.
The Social Gospel ultimately contributed to the declining influence of mainline churches on American society. There was irony in the fact that no income was left in citizens' pocketbooks for the traditional 10 percent tithing. Further, with the welfare of citizens firmly in the government's hands, replacing the traditional social role of the churches, many people felt less moral obligation to support churches. By the 1960s, a number of liberal Christian thinkers began to endorse the secularization of religion and the demise of the traditional church. Harvey Cox's controversial 1965 best-seller, The Secular City, was a celebration of "the progressive secularization of the world as the logical outcome of Biblical religion."
<b>RESTORING RELIGION'S ROLE </b>
The American experiment was based on the premise that people are able to achieve their own happiness if given the freedom to do so. Before the Social Gospel movement made protecting citizens' welfare government's duty, it was handled by families, churches, and communities. No king or government could perfectly identify each person's needs, find the perfect job for each person, prescribe the perfect medical treatment, and levy the perfect amount of taxes from each person. Yet, by the 1960s, a culture had been fashioned, with the encouragement and blessing of established Christian churches, which essentially said that the government is responsible for the welfare of its people. Was this the logical outcome of biblical Christianity? Did it lead to God's Kingdom on Earth? Are the religious fundamentalists merely throwbacks to a more primitive past? Was the American experiment flawed and the welfare state necessary? Did the whole evolution of freedom in the West and the increased system of checks and balances on power that developed go too far? Should the American experiment be considered a failure?
The election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980 was, in part, a revolt against the welfare state, which had led to double-digit inflation and economic stagnation in the United States. Even theologian Michael Novak, trained in the theology of the secular city, began to champion a move toward "democratic capitalism," arguing that the welfare state was choking off the productive incentive for Americans to work. The prosperity that followed the "Reagan revolution" led to a continual effort to shrink the federal government, reduce taxes, and return the role of welfare to the American people and private organizations over the last two decades. The faith - charity initiative of President George W. Bush should be seen as the outcome of this movement.
Asking the American people to increase private philanthropy when federal and state taxes take up to 50 percent of wages is unreasonable. The government is still gobbling up the money formerly available for religious groups and philanthropy. Thus, there is a move to dole out federal funds to do the job. Does this make sense, or is the use of taxation still coercion? Will federal distribution become corrupted? Is it inefficient to tax and redistribute? Is this simply another way for the welfare state to masquerade as a religious society? Will we witness the creation of a new welfare bureaucracy with different players?
<b>TOWARD THE PRINCIPLE OF SUBSIDIARITY </b>
When de Tocqueville visited America, families, churches, and towns were organized to look after the needs of community members. Nevertheless, as society became pluralized and many people remained unchurched, it needed to devise a means of caring for the indigent that did not wholly rely on churches. The major problem was that American churches and citizens asked the government to handle the welfare of all citizens. The welfare state became more than a safety net for a few people who fell through the cracks. Social security became viewed as a right for all. This was a contradiction to the philosophy of the American founders.
If we can understand social policy in terms of its ultimate objective, then we can devise strategies to undo the damage that has been done. I believe that ultimate objective should be the principle of subsidiarity. Let's refer to the well-articulated statement by Pope Pius XI on the principle of subsidiarity:
"It is true, as history clearly shows, that because of changed circumstances much that formerly was performed by small associations can now be accomplished only by larger ones. Nevertheless, it is a fixed and unchangeable principle, most basic in social philosophy, immoveable and unalterable, that, just as it is wrong to take away from individuals what they can accomplish by their own ability and effort and then entrust it to a community, so it is an injury and at the same time both a serious evil and a disturbance of right order to assign to a larger and higher society what can be performed successfully by smaller and lower communities. The reason is that all social activity, of its very power and nature, should supply help [subsidium] to the members of the social body, but may never destroy or absorb them."
"The state, then, should leave to these smaller groups the settlement of business and problems of minor importance, which would otherwise greatly distract it. Thus it will carry out with greater freedom, power, and success the tasks belonging to it alone, because it alone is qualified to perform them: directing, watching, stimulating, and restraining, as circumstances suggest or necessity demands. Let those in power, therefore, be convinced that the more faithfully this principle of subsidiary function is followed and a graded hierarchical order exists among the various associations, the greater also will be both social authority and social efficiency, and the happier and more prosperous too will be the condition of the commonwealth.26"
As larger-scale social units grew in the United States, many individuals and smaller social units handed over responsibility for social maintenance to larger units. This injurious act was built on the fiction of receiving more by doing less. Their dependency reflected a passive faith that someone else would take care of their needs, an attitude inconsistent with a postaxial religious impulse, the Protestant work ethic, or the present-day teaching of the Catholic Church.
For Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Jefferson, political theorists of three different ages, the ultimate success of any political system depends upon the same thing: moral virtue and good education. Leaders of a society must have the well-being of the entire society at heart. Whether the society is organized as a monarchy, aristocracy, or polity, the need is the same. For anything to survive and be strong, it must be nourished rather than emptied. This is true of a person, a house, or a nation. The goodness and nobility in people that calls them to serve others cannot be legislated. It cannot be created by freedom alone. The glue that holds a society together is rooted in love. Acts of heroism and personal sacrifice for the well- being of others are required for social cohesion. They derive from one's character, which has been shaped by parents, schools, and general cultural values. Thus larger society depends on smaller society. A state, in principle, is incapable of maintaining itself.
Without citizens of good character, any society will crumble. A danger today is that a government cannot govern itself if it employs people who cannot govern themselves. For example, our government seems incapable of providing the type of fiscal transparency and accounting it requires of its citizens. Further, it seems incapable of using taxes raised for highways to maintain the highways, or Social Security taxes to further social security. This is a reflection of individual citizens, who are raised by an inadequate culture and, as adults, are unable to control themselves. The principle of subsidiarity encourages responsibility at the lower levels of social organization, and thus the cultivation of the type of citizens that good government requires.
<b>CONCLUSIONS RELATED TO FAITH - CHARITY LEGISLATION</b>
What conclusions can be drawn from this discussion regarding the faith - charity initiative proposed by President George W. Bush?
1. That the impulse toward faith - charity legislation and character education is an attempt to address actual failings of the liberal welfare state.
The impulse to institute faith - charity legislation and character education in schools is based on the recognition that the American welfare state became a Leviathan and could no longer maintain itself. The rise of religious conservatism and the decline of liberal Christianity indicate that the "secular city" represented the acquiescence of religion, not its logical outcome.
2. That federally funding faith -based groups would at best be a patch on a flawed system and, at worst, the further growth of the Leviathan.
If the federal government supports with hard dollars groups that promote social welfare, it does little to shrink the size of the budget. Efficiency may be increased by farming out welfare services, but a bureaucracy will still be required to determine who gets what. Corruption and favoritism are inevitable, and tax dollars are still used to pay for the services. This approach does not place more responsibility on lower levels of government, nor does it move society toward the principle of subsidiarity. Such a system would not make more private money available for freewill tithing and philanthropy. It would not encourage the development of self-sufficient individuals or religious communities, or be consistent with the principle of subsidiarity. One can understand objections to this proposal coming from conservative Christians.
3. That the government can enact legislation which would genuinely encourage the faith - charity initiatives and restore subsidiarity through tax credits and deductions.
Tax credits and deductions, unlike cash handouts, do not encourage the accumulation and redistribution of funds at the federal level. Rather, they can be used to eliminate the collection of taxes for social services already being performed. They ensure the shrinking of the federal government in proportion to the amount of services it really needs to provide. Tax credits are thus a guarantee against favoritism, corruption, and the inefficiency of tax collection and redistribution. They are a genuine encouragement for lower-level groups to organize, because citizens might find it less expensive to take care of many welfare-related needs at lower levels of social organization. Such legislation would be a bitter pill for any government to adopt, and a push from citizens would be needed to secure it.
4. That Social Security and health insurance reforms could also increase subsidiarity and efficiency.
Social Security was originally intended to serve as a safety net. Legislation that allows individuals to opt out, if they prove they are investing a minimum amount for their own retirement, would make people feel more in control of their own future, as well as provide a guarantee to the government that they would not be indigent in old age. Similarly, legislation that gave tax credits to those who purchased their own health insurance would encourage people to establish lifelong plans. Employers could be given incentives to fund their employees' plans and relieved of a major problem in the health industry: third- party funding of health plans that inhibits the normal efficiency of the market.
5. That some government safety net will probably always be necessary, but a huge reduction in the U.S. welfare budget is quite possible.
In a system of government that encourages the principle of subsidiarity, there will always be some people who lose their families, do not belong to a church, or otherwise fall through the cracks. However, given the fact that 95 percent of Chileans, for example, opted for private social security when given the opportunity, it would be reasonable to expect that most people in United States, especially younger people, would do the same.
The Christian churches and the private sector failed, in the nineteenth century, to deliver minimal social welfare to all people. This was unacceptable to the American conscience. Asking the government to do what individuals, families, churches, and communities could do is an abdication of personal and social responsibility. We discovered that too much reliance on the welfare state is destructive to both personal freedom and the economy. Personal freedom and responsibility lead to greater happiness and social prosperity. We must expect, however, that a minimal government role will be required when people are incapable of helping themselves.n
1.Clark Morphew, "Government Can't Help but Play Favorites in Faith - charity Initiative," Saint Paul Pioneer Press, 17 March 2001.
2.There is of course the "nature vs. nurture" debate. The social aspect of brain development is supported by neurobiology, however. Neurobiologist Jose M.R. Delgado, for example, has discussed this in the International Journal on World Peace 4, no. 2 (April--June 1987): 55.
3.Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 82--83.
4.Ewert Cousins, "Jesus' Challenge to World History," Third Millennium & Jubilee Year 2000 (Washington, D.C.: Paper submitted to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference, 1997). Available on the Internet at http://www.nccbuscc.org/jubilee/publicatio...97/session2.htm.
5.W.W. Davies, The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses (Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, 1905), 7--9.
6.This famous quote comes from John Emerich Edward Dalbert Acton's letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, which is found in Selected Writings of Lord Acton, ed. J. Rufus Fears, volume II (Liberty Fund: Indianapolis, 1985), 385. When Creighton wrote A History of the Papacy During the Period of the Reformation in 1887, Acton reviewed it, complaining that certain papal actions were not judged with sufficient moral rigor. This initiated a correspondence, in the course of which Acton wrote as follows:
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means."
7.John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, "The History of Freedom in Christianity," The History of Freedom (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Acton Institute, 1993). Available on the Internet at http://www.acton.org/publicat/books/freedo...ristianity.html.
8.Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 19--23.
9.Smith, End of Religion, 21.
10.Smith, End of Religion, 27.
11.Acton, History of Freedom.
12.Acton, History of Freedom.
13.Acton, History of Freedom.
14.Aristotle, Politics, Book VI, chapter 4.
15.The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 12, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958), 442.
16.The classic text cited is Max Weber, Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism. It was amplified by R.H. Tawney in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1926).
17.Many people wrongly assume that the intellectual class brought about the American Revolution. Actually, religious people were the driving force behind the rebellion, and only after it had begun did the aristocrats feel pressured to support independence. This case is well argued in Alan Heimert, Religion and the American Mind: From Great Awakening to Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966).
18.Heimert, Religion and the American Mind, 440.
19.Sidney Mead, The Lively Experiment: The Shaping of Christianity in America (New York: Harper, 1976), 35--36.
20.Sidney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, vol. 1 (New York: Image Books, 1975), 461.
21.Mead, The Lively Experiment, 35--36
22.Cited in Mead, The Lively Experiment, 59.
23.Mead, The Lively Experiment, chap. iv.
24.Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, chap. XVII.
25.Robert Handy, ed., The Social Gospel in America, 1870--1920: Gladden, Ely, and Rauschenbusch (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).
26.Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno, issued in 1931. Cited by George Weigel, "Catholicism and Democracy" in Morality and Religion in Liberal Democratic Societies, ed. Gordon Anderson and Morton Kaplan (New York: Paragon House, 1992), 232.
<i>COPYRIGHT 2001 News World Communications, Inc.; COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group </i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Faith - Charity Initiative and the American Experiment.
by Gordon L. Anderson </b>
Gordon L. Anderson is the secretary-general of Professors World Peace Academy International. He lives in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
When George W. Bush became president, he quickly set up the White House Office on Faith -Based and Community Initiatives for the purpose of helping religious people provide social services to the needy. This was one of the first expressions of Bush's "compassionate conservatism," a way to streamline government while still serving the needs of the poor. His intentions seemed sincere. One might have expected a protest from the Left, especially those who favor the welfare state or view religion as a tool of oppression. Many were surprised when Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other members of the religious Right became the most vocal opponents of the plan.
Are these evangelists sore losers? After all, their ministries focus on teaching the word of God, not social services. Many of the more liberal churches and Catholic charities would stand to gain; some already receive federal funds for providing social services. Are leaders on the religious Right bigots threatened by the prospect of their tax dollars going to religions they do not like? Robertson accuses the Unification Church of "brainwashing," and Falwell accuses the Nation of Islam of being a "hate group." Or are they concerned about the fundamental relationship of church and state in the United States? Clark Morphew, religion editor of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, argues that despite the noblest of intentions, the faith - charity initiative would lead to government bursars playing favorites; public funds would have strings attached, which would allow the government to invade or manipulate church finances. In either case, he says, the initiative violates the separation of church and state.1
These issues are not easy to sort out because the criticisms have some legitimacy. Competition for federal funds may serve to pit religious groups against one another. In Europe, many religions have their hands tied by governments that play favorites. The state churches do not want other groups to receive funds they now receive. New religions in Germany, France, and Russia have suffered bitter persecution in recent years because traditional religions have used their political power to retain their cultural hegemony. This is a far cry from the free expression of religion most Americans cherish. Religious freedom helps a culture stay dynamic and adapt to new challenges, whereas those societies with official religions tend to be more stagnant and backward looking.
Here I want to look at government support of faith -based charity in the context of the evolving roles of religion and freedom in Western civilization. It is my opinion that social welfare should return to the local level in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, meaning that any governmental or public policy initiatives should be carried out at the lowest level that has the ability to accomplish it.
<b>SIMPLE SOCIETIES </b>
In simple societies, there was no division between politics and culture. Their language had no word for what we now call "religion." There were no laws that guaranteed "freedom." The world was an immediate consciousness, derived from sense perception and the teachings of elders of the family, tribe, or clan who had some memory of those who lived before. Of course in such simple or "primitive" societies, there is culture, even if undifferentiated, which contains elements we now ascribe to religion.
Unlike other species, humans complete much of their neurological development outside the womb, becoming who they are by learning from and adapting to their environment.2 Family and culture are the second womb for human development. In the words of anthropologist Clifford Geertz,
"The apparent fact that the final stages of the biological evolution of man occurred after the initial stages of the growth of culture implies that "basic," "pure," or "unconditioned," human nature, in the sense of the innate constitution of man, is so functionally incomplete as to be unworkable. Tools, hunting, family organization, and later, art, religion, and "science" molded man somatically; and they are, therefore, necessary not merely to his survival but to his existential realization.3"
<b>TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND AXIAL SHIFTS IN CULTURE </b>
Just as individuals develop, so does culture. The human consciousness embodied by culture is carried forward by each successive generation. While this process has occasionally suffered setbacks from disaster and war, human consciousness has evolved over the seven millennia of our recorded history.
The philosopher Karl Jaspers noted that human cultural evolution involved an "axial" shift in consciousness from roughly 800 to 200 b.c. This is described by philosopher Ewert Cousins as follows:
"The Axial Period ushered in a radically new form of consciousness. Whereas primal consciousness was tribal, Axial consciousness was individual. "Know thyself" became the watchword of Greece; the Upanishads identified the atman, the transcendent center of the self. The Buddha charted the way of individual enlightenment; the Jewish prophets awakened individual moral responsibility. This sense of individual identity, as distinct from the tribe and from nature, is the most characteristic mark of Axial consciousness. From this flow other characteristics: consciousness that is self-reflective, analytic, and that can be applied to nature in the form of scientific theories, to society in the form of social critique, to knowledge in the form of philosophy, to religion in the form of mapping an individual spiritual journey. This self-reflective, analytic, critical consciousness stood in sharp contrast to primal mythic and ritualistic consciousness.4"
The world's major cultural spheres emerged from primal clan and tribal societies. While Jaspers refers to major figures who openly preached a critical consciousness characteristic of the world's great religions, this axial shift did not simply occur because these leaders arose. It is most likely that these axial teachers and reformers arose because of developments in technology and the rise of the ancient cities and empires from Egypt to Babylon.
We can trace the roots of the Ten Commandments back to the Code of Hammurabi. Civilization flourished under Hammurabi, the sixth king of the first Babylonian dynasty.5 People were free to farm their own land and run their own business as long as they did not infringe on the rights of others. The code had laws regarding marriage, property rights, murder, violence, theft, taxes, and slavery. When people obeyed the code, they were protected by the king and allowed to prosper, and Babylon prospered as well. Here we find an ancient example of a large- scale society that flourished when laws were obeyed and relative freedom was enjoyed. Babylon was not a democracy, but the Code of Hammurabi defined clear relations between citizens and the government. Many religious practices were left to families, and families were expected to rear their children to be responsible and law abiding. Babylon had a successful combination of personal responsibility and freedom not known in other civilizations two millennia before Christ.
<b>THE DEVELOPMENT OF FREEDOM </b>
As religious consciousness has evolved, so has the desire for freedom. But the acquisition of freedom has not been easy. People with power do not give it up easily. It is commonplace to hear the phrase "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."6 This applies to both religious and political authorities. Most of recorded human history has involved power struggles for the control of land, resources, and people. No one enjoys being under the yoke of an oppressor, being forced to sacrifice one's own dreams for the sake of another.
Throughout Western history, freedom has advanced through the gradual development of checks and balances. Such checks and balances have often come unwittingly or with the great reluctance of those in power. This was true of the Roman Empire, where the Church became a check on the power of the emperor. In the words of Lord Acton:
"Constantine, in adopting [Christian] faith intended neither to abandon his predecessor's scheme of policy, nor to renounce the fascinations of arbitrary authority, but to strengthen his throne with the support of a religion which had astonished the world by its power of resistance; and to obtain that support absolutely and without a drawback he fixed the seat of his government in the East, with a patriarch of his own creation. Nobody warned him that by promoting the Christian religion he was tying one of his hands, and surrendering the prerogative of the Caesars.7"
In Rome, society was differentiated into political and religious spheres. A term developed to describe the empire's numerous groups with their various rituals and beliefs, which came to be referred to as religio.8 In the first century b.c., Lucretius' poem De rerum natura welcomed scientific materialism as liberating people from the terror of religion.9 Cicero, in De natura deorum, connected the term religio to the divine.
The proliferation of pagan cults and barbarian hordes made the Roman Empire difficult to govern. Lactantius used the terms vera religio and falsa religio to express the belief that Christian worship is true and other forms false.10 The union of church and state was seen as the only way to govern the empire, and most "pagans" were rapidly being converted. After persecuting Christians for nearly three centuries, Rome reversed its position and adopted Christianity as the official religion of the empire.11 Saint Augustine's City of God spelled out a relationship between two powers, the sacred and the secular, or the Church and the emperor. The domain of the Church was moral and spiritual, while the domain of the emperor was temporal and political. Each had a legitimate domain, and appeal could be made by one to check misuse of power by the other. After Rome fell, the lack of religious and intellectual freedom led to the Dark Ages.
In the Holy Roman Empire, while the spiritual and temporal authorities each exercised, at least in theory, a check on the power of the other, each power was absolute within its own domain and could be ruthless.
<b>THE MAGNA CARTA </b>
In England, the monarchy's near absolute power was opposed by the feudal lords, who rebelled at taxes levied from their districts and soldiers being drafted from their men to fight petty wars or interests of the king. In 1215, King John set his seal on the Magna Carta, a document that evolved into the symbol of the primacy of the law over the king in the British Parliament.
The rise of the merchant class and towns in Europe following the Crusades also served as a check on the power of the feudal landholders. People migrated from the country to the towns, where they were relatively untrammeled by the feudal machinery. According to Lord Acton:
"When men found a way of earning a livelihood without depending for it on the good will of the class that owned the land, the landowner lost much of his importance, and it began to pass to the possessors of moveable wealth. The townspeople not only made themselves free from the control of prelates and barons, but endeavoured to obtain for their own class and interest the command of the state.12"
The fourteenth century was characterized by struggle between various forms of democracy and feudalism. Many free cities arose along the Rhine, in central Germany, and Belgium. Their governments were experimental and often failed to serve the suffering poor. Insurrections were quelled by the armies of the monarchs, who reasserted their authority. In the Middle Ages, forms of representative government, unknown in the first millennium a.d., were almost universal.13
The Protestant Reformation ushered in developments that would have profound consequences for Europe, for Christendom, and especially for what would be instituted later in America. Martin Luther (1483--1546) began to loosen the Catholic Church's monopoly over religious life in the West. His protest against the papacy led to the establishment of an independent church in Saxony. About the same time, Henry VIII declared the Church of England free from the Church of Rome. John Calvin, in Geneva, carried on a reformation there. Each of these divisions led to religious denominations that were state churches. But the era just before and during the Reformation saw the rise of religious groups that explicitly denied that they should be allied with state power, such as the Albigensians in France at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the Anabaptists in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. In 1568 the Netherlands instituted religious freedom after the revolt led by Prince William of Orange. But a real flowering of both religious and political freedom had to wait for the social experiment that took place in America.
<b>THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT </b>
Two factors were required for the American experiment to work. First, the people had to be self-sufficient and possess a general respect for the law, and, second, adequate checks and balances had to be put into place to prevent new tyrannies from arising. If they did, the people needed the means to put an end to them.
Colonial America was made up of self-sufficient people who were ripe for democracy. Early settlers risked great hardship to create new lives for themselves. Many had fled some form of oppression in Europe. These immigrants farmed the readily available land or brought the means to establish their own business. The Puritan way of life was a rigorous form of Protestantism that promoted self-reliance. Early America did not have much of a welfare class. It was a land for the self- sufficient. Those who were timid or dependent on others remained in Europe.
Aristotle wrote that democracies work best among agricultural and pastoral people, because they are capable of maintaining themselves.14 He argued that where people are hirelings or laborers, dependent upon others, or gathered in mobs in cities, democracies will not work. The problem for such populations is that the majority will pass laws to maintain themselves at the expense of the few who are productive and successful. Thomas Jefferson must have read Aristotle, among other political theorists, for in a letter to James Madison in 1778 he wrote, "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."[FR 15]}15
Religion played a more important role than Jefferson had considered; it served as a basis for responsible and independent action even after the people began to crowd into cities and work in industries. The Protestant work ethic, which by the nineteenth century had become the "American work ethic," embodied a type of moral self-governance suited for a republican form of democracy.16 The Protestant churches had instilled the idea that all work was for the glorification of God. The result was a work ethic, a tremendous quality and quantity of work, and little need for supervision, a prescription for prosperity. The American belief in personal responsibility and the work ethic was the source of the personal self-governance and self-sufficiency required by democracy.
Even those Americans who had not fled tyranny in Europe came to see the imposition of taxes on the colonies under the reign of King George III as unbearable. After the Boston Tea Party, even the old colonial aristocracy began to support the pietists in their bid for American independence.17 The framers of the Constitution sought to devise a system of government in which no person and no portion of the government could impose some form of tyranny. Thomas Jefferson wrote "a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth."18
The founders had an unprecedented opportunity to establish their government with many checks and balances on power. Very few citizens wanted to see a central government with power to do anything beyond providing them freedom and physical protection from those who would encroach on that freedom. Hence, the founders created a constitutional and representative democracy, with a tripartite government, the largest body of which was elected by citizens. Systems of majority votes, vetoes, and veto overrides added to the protection of the citizens.
A further development was the practical necessity of establishing religious liberty in the United States, because nearly every state was ethically and religiously diverse. In The Lively Experiment, Sidney Mead noted:
"On the question of religious freedom for all, there were many shades of opinion in these churches, but all were practically unanimous on one point: each wanted freedom for itself. And by this time it had become clear that the only way to get it for themselves was to grant it to all others...."
"Most of the effectively powerful intellectual, social, and political leaders were rationalists, and these men made sense theoretically out of the actual, practical situation which demanded religious freedom. They gave it tangible form and legal structure. This the churches, each intent on its own freedom, accepted in practice but without reconciling themselves to it intellectually by developing theoretical defenses of religious freedom that were legitimately rooted in their professed theological positions.19"
The disestablishment of state religions (Massachusetts was the last state to abolish an official state church in 183320) meant that the people had to be persuaded to join churches--they could no longer be coerced. The result was a flurry of revivals and awakenings previously unknown in Christendom and a more active participation in churches than occurred in nations with state churches.21 Americans, regardless of religious background, were prompted to feel that each person is responsible for his own spiritual destiny.
In the end of his presidency, Thomas Jefferson said, "We have solved by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to laws."22 Historian Sidney Mead referred to the pietists and rationalists as the "heart" and "head" of the revolution; in his view, the American experiment depended upon the cooperation of these two groups, which are traditionally at odds with one another.23 The pietists educated citizens for personal responsibility, and the rationalists established the protection of freedoms and rights necessary for the free exercise of responsibility. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s, he commented:
"Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion--for who can search the human heart?--but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.24 "
Thus, the American experiment was based on two factors: virtuous, self- sufficient citizens raised in the private sector and freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. Over time both these factors were weakened.
<b>THE SOCIAL GOSPEL MOVEMENT </b>
A major blow was dealt to the American experiment by the mainline churches themselves through the adoption of state welfare in a movement known as the "Social Gospel." In the 1870s a pastor of the Congregational Church, Washington Gladden, and an economist at Johns Hopkins University, Richard T. Ely, began to promote the view that the state could better handle social welfare than the churches. They made a good case; many unchurched Americans were falling through the social cracks and were not being cared for by the churches.
The Social Gospel arose at a time when mainstream Christianity had become "Christocentric" and evangelical, without sufficient concern for social welfare. If the state governments took a major responsibility for social welfare, church leaders believed, the churches could focus their efforts and financial resources on evangelism and the care of souls. The Social Gospel became increasingly popular by the turn of the twentieth century and was canonized in Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) and A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917) by Walter Rauschenbusch.25 It became part of the theological landscape of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ, USA, organized during the first decade of the century. The Social Gospel did not concern itself with the issues of separation of church and state, and the lines became blurred in American consciousness. The mainline churches were pleased to hand the traditional social responsibilities of religion over to the state.
Early Americans did not believe in income taxes. (They were used briefly to pay for the Civil War, however.) Only in 1913 did the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution give Congress legal authority to tax income of both individuals and corporations, and, thereafter the income tax became a permanent fixture in the United States. The establishment of such authority reduced the checks and balances on political rulers that had been instituted by the founders, for it meant that the people in charge of levying taxes (Congress) also determined their own salaries and office expenses. When the Social Security Tax Act was instituted in 1935 a tax of 2 percent (1 percent paid by the employer and 1 percent withheld from the employee's paycheck) was quite modest, and the benefit of a social safety net was widely appreciated.
With the legal right to tax and spend on social welfare established, the U.S. government gradually expanded its bureaucracy and social services. By 1980, it was not uncommon for citizens to be paying more than 50 percent of their income as some type of tax. What began as modest discomfort had become a noose around the neck. Progressive taxation also virtually wiped out the possibility of amassing private fortunes that could be set aside for philanthropy, as had been done during the nineteenth century. Progressive taxation and the welfare state greatly restricted an individual's freedom to determine his own destiny.
The Social Gospel ultimately contributed to the declining influence of mainline churches on American society. There was irony in the fact that no income was left in citizens' pocketbooks for the traditional 10 percent tithing. Further, with the welfare of citizens firmly in the government's hands, replacing the traditional social role of the churches, many people felt less moral obligation to support churches. By the 1960s, a number of liberal Christian thinkers began to endorse the secularization of religion and the demise of the traditional church. Harvey Cox's controversial 1965 best-seller, The Secular City, was a celebration of "the progressive secularization of the world as the logical outcome of Biblical religion."
<b>RESTORING RELIGION'S ROLE </b>
The American experiment was based on the premise that people are able to achieve their own happiness if given the freedom to do so. Before the Social Gospel movement made protecting citizens' welfare government's duty, it was handled by families, churches, and communities. No king or government could perfectly identify each person's needs, find the perfect job for each person, prescribe the perfect medical treatment, and levy the perfect amount of taxes from each person. Yet, by the 1960s, a culture had been fashioned, with the encouragement and blessing of established Christian churches, which essentially said that the government is responsible for the welfare of its people. Was this the logical outcome of biblical Christianity? Did it lead to God's Kingdom on Earth? Are the religious fundamentalists merely throwbacks to a more primitive past? Was the American experiment flawed and the welfare state necessary? Did the whole evolution of freedom in the West and the increased system of checks and balances on power that developed go too far? Should the American experiment be considered a failure?
The election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980 was, in part, a revolt against the welfare state, which had led to double-digit inflation and economic stagnation in the United States. Even theologian Michael Novak, trained in the theology of the secular city, began to champion a move toward "democratic capitalism," arguing that the welfare state was choking off the productive incentive for Americans to work. The prosperity that followed the "Reagan revolution" led to a continual effort to shrink the federal government, reduce taxes, and return the role of welfare to the American people and private organizations over the last two decades. The faith - charity initiative of President George W. Bush should be seen as the outcome of this movement.
Asking the American people to increase private philanthropy when federal and state taxes take up to 50 percent of wages is unreasonable. The government is still gobbling up the money formerly available for religious groups and philanthropy. Thus, there is a move to dole out federal funds to do the job. Does this make sense, or is the use of taxation still coercion? Will federal distribution become corrupted? Is it inefficient to tax and redistribute? Is this simply another way for the welfare state to masquerade as a religious society? Will we witness the creation of a new welfare bureaucracy with different players?
<b>TOWARD THE PRINCIPLE OF SUBSIDIARITY </b>
When de Tocqueville visited America, families, churches, and towns were organized to look after the needs of community members. Nevertheless, as society became pluralized and many people remained unchurched, it needed to devise a means of caring for the indigent that did not wholly rely on churches. The major problem was that American churches and citizens asked the government to handle the welfare of all citizens. The welfare state became more than a safety net for a few people who fell through the cracks. Social security became viewed as a right for all. This was a contradiction to the philosophy of the American founders.
If we can understand social policy in terms of its ultimate objective, then we can devise strategies to undo the damage that has been done. I believe that ultimate objective should be the principle of subsidiarity. Let's refer to the well-articulated statement by Pope Pius XI on the principle of subsidiarity:
"It is true, as history clearly shows, that because of changed circumstances much that formerly was performed by small associations can now be accomplished only by larger ones. Nevertheless, it is a fixed and unchangeable principle, most basic in social philosophy, immoveable and unalterable, that, just as it is wrong to take away from individuals what they can accomplish by their own ability and effort and then entrust it to a community, so it is an injury and at the same time both a serious evil and a disturbance of right order to assign to a larger and higher society what can be performed successfully by smaller and lower communities. The reason is that all social activity, of its very power and nature, should supply help [subsidium] to the members of the social body, but may never destroy or absorb them."
"The state, then, should leave to these smaller groups the settlement of business and problems of minor importance, which would otherwise greatly distract it. Thus it will carry out with greater freedom, power, and success the tasks belonging to it alone, because it alone is qualified to perform them: directing, watching, stimulating, and restraining, as circumstances suggest or necessity demands. Let those in power, therefore, be convinced that the more faithfully this principle of subsidiary function is followed and a graded hierarchical order exists among the various associations, the greater also will be both social authority and social efficiency, and the happier and more prosperous too will be the condition of the commonwealth.26"
As larger-scale social units grew in the United States, many individuals and smaller social units handed over responsibility for social maintenance to larger units. This injurious act was built on the fiction of receiving more by doing less. Their dependency reflected a passive faith that someone else would take care of their needs, an attitude inconsistent with a postaxial religious impulse, the Protestant work ethic, or the present-day teaching of the Catholic Church.
For Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Jefferson, political theorists of three different ages, the ultimate success of any political system depends upon the same thing: moral virtue and good education. Leaders of a society must have the well-being of the entire society at heart. Whether the society is organized as a monarchy, aristocracy, or polity, the need is the same. For anything to survive and be strong, it must be nourished rather than emptied. This is true of a person, a house, or a nation. The goodness and nobility in people that calls them to serve others cannot be legislated. It cannot be created by freedom alone. The glue that holds a society together is rooted in love. Acts of heroism and personal sacrifice for the well- being of others are required for social cohesion. They derive from one's character, which has been shaped by parents, schools, and general cultural values. Thus larger society depends on smaller society. A state, in principle, is incapable of maintaining itself.
Without citizens of good character, any society will crumble. A danger today is that a government cannot govern itself if it employs people who cannot govern themselves. For example, our government seems incapable of providing the type of fiscal transparency and accounting it requires of its citizens. Further, it seems incapable of using taxes raised for highways to maintain the highways, or Social Security taxes to further social security. This is a reflection of individual citizens, who are raised by an inadequate culture and, as adults, are unable to control themselves. The principle of subsidiarity encourages responsibility at the lower levels of social organization, and thus the cultivation of the type of citizens that good government requires.
<b>CONCLUSIONS RELATED TO FAITH - CHARITY LEGISLATION</b>
What conclusions can be drawn from this discussion regarding the faith - charity initiative proposed by President George W. Bush?
1. That the impulse toward faith - charity legislation and character education is an attempt to address actual failings of the liberal welfare state.
The impulse to institute faith - charity legislation and character education in schools is based on the recognition that the American welfare state became a Leviathan and could no longer maintain itself. The rise of religious conservatism and the decline of liberal Christianity indicate that the "secular city" represented the acquiescence of religion, not its logical outcome.
2. That federally funding faith -based groups would at best be a patch on a flawed system and, at worst, the further growth of the Leviathan.
If the federal government supports with hard dollars groups that promote social welfare, it does little to shrink the size of the budget. Efficiency may be increased by farming out welfare services, but a bureaucracy will still be required to determine who gets what. Corruption and favoritism are inevitable, and tax dollars are still used to pay for the services. This approach does not place more responsibility on lower levels of government, nor does it move society toward the principle of subsidiarity. Such a system would not make more private money available for freewill tithing and philanthropy. It would not encourage the development of self-sufficient individuals or religious communities, or be consistent with the principle of subsidiarity. One can understand objections to this proposal coming from conservative Christians.
3. That the government can enact legislation which would genuinely encourage the faith - charity initiatives and restore subsidiarity through tax credits and deductions.
Tax credits and deductions, unlike cash handouts, do not encourage the accumulation and redistribution of funds at the federal level. Rather, they can be used to eliminate the collection of taxes for social services already being performed. They ensure the shrinking of the federal government in proportion to the amount of services it really needs to provide. Tax credits are thus a guarantee against favoritism, corruption, and the inefficiency of tax collection and redistribution. They are a genuine encouragement for lower-level groups to organize, because citizens might find it less expensive to take care of many welfare-related needs at lower levels of social organization. Such legislation would be a bitter pill for any government to adopt, and a push from citizens would be needed to secure it.
4. That Social Security and health insurance reforms could also increase subsidiarity and efficiency.
Social Security was originally intended to serve as a safety net. Legislation that allows individuals to opt out, if they prove they are investing a minimum amount for their own retirement, would make people feel more in control of their own future, as well as provide a guarantee to the government that they would not be indigent in old age. Similarly, legislation that gave tax credits to those who purchased their own health insurance would encourage people to establish lifelong plans. Employers could be given incentives to fund their employees' plans and relieved of a major problem in the health industry: third- party funding of health plans that inhibits the normal efficiency of the market.
5. That some government safety net will probably always be necessary, but a huge reduction in the U.S. welfare budget is quite possible.
In a system of government that encourages the principle of subsidiarity, there will always be some people who lose their families, do not belong to a church, or otherwise fall through the cracks. However, given the fact that 95 percent of Chileans, for example, opted for private social security when given the opportunity, it would be reasonable to expect that most people in United States, especially younger people, would do the same.
The Christian churches and the private sector failed, in the nineteenth century, to deliver minimal social welfare to all people. This was unacceptable to the American conscience. Asking the government to do what individuals, families, churches, and communities could do is an abdication of personal and social responsibility. We discovered that too much reliance on the welfare state is destructive to both personal freedom and the economy. Personal freedom and responsibility lead to greater happiness and social prosperity. We must expect, however, that a minimal government role will be required when people are incapable of helping themselves.n
1.Clark Morphew, "Government Can't Help but Play Favorites in Faith - charity Initiative," Saint Paul Pioneer Press, 17 March 2001.
2.There is of course the "nature vs. nurture" debate. The social aspect of brain development is supported by neurobiology, however. Neurobiologist Jose M.R. Delgado, for example, has discussed this in the International Journal on World Peace 4, no. 2 (April--June 1987): 55.
3.Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 82--83.
4.Ewert Cousins, "Jesus' Challenge to World History," Third Millennium & Jubilee Year 2000 (Washington, D.C.: Paper submitted to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference, 1997). Available on the Internet at http://www.nccbuscc.org/jubilee/publicatio...97/session2.htm.
5.W.W. Davies, The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses (Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, 1905), 7--9.
6.This famous quote comes from John Emerich Edward Dalbert Acton's letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, which is found in Selected Writings of Lord Acton, ed. J. Rufus Fears, volume II (Liberty Fund: Indianapolis, 1985), 385. When Creighton wrote A History of the Papacy During the Period of the Reformation in 1887, Acton reviewed it, complaining that certain papal actions were not judged with sufficient moral rigor. This initiated a correspondence, in the course of which Acton wrote as follows:
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means."
7.John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, "The History of Freedom in Christianity," The History of Freedom (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Acton Institute, 1993). Available on the Internet at http://www.acton.org/publicat/books/freedo...ristianity.html.
8.Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 19--23.
9.Smith, End of Religion, 21.
10.Smith, End of Religion, 27.
11.Acton, History of Freedom.
12.Acton, History of Freedom.
13.Acton, History of Freedom.
14.Aristotle, Politics, Book VI, chapter 4.
15.The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 12, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958), 442.
16.The classic text cited is Max Weber, Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism. It was amplified by R.H. Tawney in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1926).
17.Many people wrongly assume that the intellectual class brought about the American Revolution. Actually, religious people were the driving force behind the rebellion, and only after it had begun did the aristocrats feel pressured to support independence. This case is well argued in Alan Heimert, Religion and the American Mind: From Great Awakening to Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966).
18.Heimert, Religion and the American Mind, 440.
19.Sidney Mead, The Lively Experiment: The Shaping of Christianity in America (New York: Harper, 1976), 35--36.
20.Sidney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, vol. 1 (New York: Image Books, 1975), 461.
21.Mead, The Lively Experiment, 35--36
22.Cited in Mead, The Lively Experiment, 59.
23.Mead, The Lively Experiment, chap. iv.
24.Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, chap. XVII.
25.Robert Handy, ed., The Social Gospel in America, 1870--1920: Gladden, Ely, and Rauschenbusch (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).
26.Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno, issued in 1931. Cited by George Weigel, "Catholicism and Democracy" in Morality and Religion in Liberal Democratic Societies, ed. Gordon Anderson and Morton Kaplan (New York: Paragon House, 1992), 232.
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