The raft of executive orders aimed at scaling back government support for non-defense programs like welfare, health care, and foreign aid has led to everything from emotional stress to physical suffering and mortality for program dependents, as well as everything from criticism to contempt from those who consider those services the moral duty of government.
Similar convulsions are resulting from Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, border control, and bans on social service benefits to undocumented residents, including those that would restrict their children from public school education. The human impact of these actions underscores the need for a national conversation on the proper roles of the Church and state in humanitarian affairs.
Historical perspective
During theocratic rule of Israel, authority over the moral and civil order of the nation was united under the religious leadership. Under that rule, the Israelites and their leaders had a duty of care to the widow, orphan, poor, and alien residing “in the land” but not to those outside of the land.
When that period ended and Israel became subject to the Gentiles, civil governance was taken over by the “state” which, the apostle Paul suggested, is divinely ordained to restrain evil and promote good for the service of social order and public well-being. Although the state granted limited civil authority to the religious leaders, responsibility for moral order and compassionate care remained with the religious establishment.
In the Christian era, that responsibility was carried out by the Church as Christians, individually and corporately, cared for the sick, the disadvantaged, and the displaced though the creation and operation of hospitals, poor houses, and food distribution centers. This continued into the founding of America. In Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Thomas Jefferson wrote,
The poor, unable to support themselves, are maintained by an assessment on the tithable persons in their parish. This assessment is levied and administered by twelve persons in each parish, called vestrymen, originally chosen by the housekeepers of the parish…
This is a reference, as Thomas West points out, “to the pre-Revolutionary Southern practice of assigning care of the poor to the local Anglican church.” As an early American example of subsidiarity, social matters were handled at the level they arose and by the institutions closest to them—that is, community governments, churches, volunteer associations, and other “mediating” institutions. From the early Church up until 1935, humanitarian aid was a local concern that was locally addressed.
Domestic aid
The year 1935 marked the passage of the Social Security Act (SSA). According to the Social Welfare History Project, the SSA authorized federal “financial participation in a system of state administered public welfare programs (i.e., Aid for the Aged, Aid for the Blind, and Aid for Dependent Children).” The introduction of federal involvement in social services gave birth to a government care industry of ever-expanding scope that created ever less demand for subsidiarity.
The introduction of federal involvement in social services gave birth to a government care industry of ever-expanding scope that created ever less demand for subsidiarity.Tweet ThisBy 2025, that industry grew to require over 60 percent of a $7 trillion federal budget for Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, and other programs that were nonexistent prior to the 20th century. What’s more, since the 1950s, during an over three-fold growth in spending, the rate of poverty was barely halved while the number of people in poverty remained virtually unchanged. For too many people, the centralized programs that were intended to lift them out of poverty instead held them in an orbit of dependence.
The inefficiency and the impersonal nature of government aid programs highlight the need for a restored and expanded role of subsidiarity. In contrast to government bureaucracies that are locally and emotionally remote from those they serve, the Church and other mediating institutions are situated to know the needs in their communities and address them while helping the able-bodied poor become employable and self-reliant by providing for themselves and their families.
For example, at the parish or diocesan level, churches can prioritize compassion care opportunities through consultation with city councils, county commissions, and police departments. Pursuing those opportunities might involve starting ministries that don’t exist, contributing parish resources and manpower with those that do, or partnering with other churches and mediating organizations.
Let’s say the most pressing issue in their area is temporary housing for people in transition from divorce, domestic abuse, or loss of employment. While a large church may have space that could be dedicated for such use, a smaller church may not. However, the smaller church could partner with the larger one by providing meals and personal services (e.g., transportation to job interviews, help with housing applications, counseling, prayer, Bible study, etc.) to the temporary residents.
Strategically and incrementally, the Church, in partnership with other mediating groups, can be an effective compassion provider that restores subsidiarity and reduces the demand for state involvement in social service.
This is not to suggest that the state has no role to play during nation-wide emergencies (e.g., the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, Hurricane Helene); but for widespread disruptions, state involvement in humanitarian care should be augmentary, limited, and temporary.
Immigration policy
For decades, the lack of a comprehensive immigration policy, coupled with years of “open borders,” has led to an unauthorized, undocumented population of over 16 million people that poses risks to public and national security, as well as a financial burden of over $110 billion per year on U.S. taxpayers.
Because government exists by the consent of, and for the benefit of, the governed, the duty of the government, constitutionally and biblically, is to its citizens. Given the limited resources of any nation, part of that duty is to determine a rate of immigration it can responsibly govern, as well as requirements for citizenship that are conducive to social harmony and cohesion.
When, in the interests of its citizens, the state decides it needs to deport or deny services and benefits to noncitizens, a humanitarian opportunity is created for the Church and local community. While it is right and dutiful to influence the state’s immigration policies and enforcement actions through the political process, it is unlawful and unbiblical to obstruct the state in carrying out its obligations by hiding or harboring unauthorized residents, shielding them from enforcement actions with sanctuary policies, or inappropriately vetting them as “refugees.”1 Rather, mediating groups should serve as a resource to educate noncitizens on their rights, obligations, and legal recourses, while providing the care they need for the term of their residency.
Again, this might mean starting up new ministries and developing partnerships with churches, faith-based organizations, and philanthropic groups. For example, in the case that undocumented children are denied access to public education, those partnerships could create tutoring programs or scholarships to church schools and private schools or educational opportunities in home schools while they are resident.
Foreign aid
The record of governmental foreign aid is concerning, at best. In Africa, for example, despite billions of dollars in aid over decades, one in five children dies before the age of five, millions have no access to health care or primary education, and the average life expectancy is less than 50 years.
Foreign aid has been not only ineffective, it exacerbates Africa’s problems by increasing its dependence on first-world largesse, often tying it to the “carrot stick” of modern secular values that have nothing to do with uplifting the needy but, instead, promote the pathologies of population control, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
Government-run care economies always run the risk of being used to serve the interests of the state—foremost, national security and socio-economic stability. When the state deems that its interests are threatened by concepts of well-being it disagrees with, government aid can be a useful mule for social engineering.
The interest of the Church, on the other hand, is the material and spiritual welfare of the person. When that welfare is threatened, the Church cares for the person with material needs, as well as practical instruction and moral encouragement in adopting practices, lifestyles, and family structures that are conducive to human flourishing.
That’s not to say that foreign aid has not provided some limited, short-term relief to needy countries. Rather, it’s that the solution to the perennial needs of any impoverished region is not foreign money tethered to unbiblical values but assistance in transitioning from a dependence economy to a market-based economy. To that end, support from the global Christian community, in subsidiarity with other groups, could include interim financial aid, as well as business acumen in creating markets for indigenous products and services. That’s a kingdom project for every parish.
For instance, parishes, individually or collectively within a diocese, could “adopt” a church in the developing world to come alongside in creating and managing an infrastructure for material, intellectual, and spiritual well-being for the community. This could involve the export of technical expertise, manpower, and/or resources for planting churches, building schools, starting businesses, establishing trade networks, digging wells, repairing facilities, operating clinics, or whatever.
As an example of what is possible, there is Anglican pastor Jonathan Golden.
In 2007, Golden founded Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee (LOTH) to help Rwandans in the aftermath of the civil war. Starting with a single coffee roaster and washing station in the Ruli farming region, LOTH, today, helps over 10,000 farmers earn a living wage and start their own businesses. But, perhaps most importantly, LOTH coffee bean washing and sorting stations have become centers of reconciliation, bringing Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa groups together restoring relationships as they work side by side producing coffee.
Participation in subsidiarity is limited only by the imagination. Whether it’s addressing a need in an underserved community alone or in partnership with other churches and organizations, or supporting a ministry like LOTH that already serves a need, any parish of any size can be involved.
The spirit of subsidiarity is that we, not the state, are our brother’s keeper, reaching across pews, parishes, and provinces to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and comfort the afflicted.
The recent reductions in federal support for social services present a great need and opportunity for the Church, private citizens, and civilian associations to expand their participation in compassion care so that the demand for state-run programs is diminished until they are no longer needed.
There are no comments yet.