There has been much discussion during this election season about the role of our government. Between Governor Romney’s 47% remark and the president’s relentless campaign built on class warfare, food stamps, unemployment and healthcare seem to dominate the headlines. President Obama even famously declared, “It is that fundamental belief – I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper – that makes this country work.”

But where do we draw the line? As Christians, it often seems that liberals wish to replace the Church with the State, and that we are being compelled to offer our tithe to the First Church of the IRS. The government knows best, after all, and it can regulate charity for us.

Except that this was never supposed to happen this way.

This is not a recent development. In fact, recall the story of Jesus and the Pharisees, when they asked Him if it was lawful for Caesar to take a poll-tax. He asked them for a coin, and one was duly brought. When He asked whose picture was on the coin, they answered that it was Caesar’s. “And Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God.’” (Mark 12:17, New American Standard Bible) The government has its sphere. The church has its sphere.

Charity was always supposed to be a personal matter, never a matter of a large, impersonal government that was rife with waste and could not maintain accountability. In fact, a recent Senate report showed that up to a quarter of all Social Security cases were improperly awarded. Considering that the average lifetime award is $300,000, this could prove to be a huge loss of money. Most of us have anecdotal tales of seeing people pay for steaks with Electronic Benefits Cards, which are now accepted at most fast food restaurants (and Papa Murphy’s!). I don’t begrudge anyone a Whopper or an occasional steak, but it’s hard to justify when they’re paying for it with taxpayer money.

Beyond even relegating charity away from being a personal matter, is it even within our government’s purview to begin with? While it could be argued that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution (the “Spending Clause”) gives Congress the right to use taxpayer money as charity, our Founding Fathers would take umbrage with this interpretation. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both agreed that Congress’s powers were spelled out exactly as they should be in the Constitution and that the Spending Clause only was a means to achieve those ends.

Bastiat once famously wrote,

“Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in. If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true that the law plunders nobody. But this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no money.”

When a disaster strikes, the government is there. But if the government’s sole purpose is to protect people and property, to solely prevent injustice, is it really the government’s place to replace your home if you build it in a hurricane or flood or (insert natural disaster) zone? When you need help paying for food, the government is there. But is it the federal government’s place to buy your dinner and allot money for your child to attend school? Is healthcare really something the government should provide?

Charity should be personal. It begins in your home, in your neighborhood and in your community. It was never meant to be something that was issued down from on high, from such a distant place as Washington, D.C. so that generations could live a subsistence life and never look for anything better. There should be accountability and a personal exchange. And it is something that whole parts of America have mostly delegated away as something the government will handle for us, and it is something that we are missing as a nation. If the churches and citizenry reassumed blessing others with charity, reinstating the accountability that comes with personal contact, perhaps our brothers on the other side of the aisle would begin seeing it as we do — less of a handout and more of the hand-up that it was supposed to be.

Image: Das Almosen. Signiert unten Mitte: A. J. Lamme. Öl auf Holz. 73 x 63 cm.; Kunsthaus Lempertz;{Creator:Ary Johannes Lamme; public domain