Inside: A vivid childhood memory of a good Christian family friend telling me why she always voted Republican – and never for socialist Democrats. Because if the government met people’s basic needs, would they ever need Jesus?
When I was a child, we were visiting a family friend, and somehow politics came up.
I must have innocently asked why this family friend was against the government providing things like healthcare and food stamps.
Silly old me, I wanted to know why they voted Republican when that party was against things it seemed like Jesus would be for.
Her answer?
“The church should be providing those things.”
Maybe Forcing People to Church Out of Desperation Is Wrong?
I don’t remember her supporting the argument further, but at the time, deeply indoctrinated baby Christian that I was, I agreed.
Of course!
Jesus would want desperate people to come to the church for help. And if they got the help they needed from the church, then they might turn to Jesus!
And if they turn to Jesus, they’ll be saved from the ultimate horror: eternity in hell.
Only a few years ago did a crazy thought occur to me: what if someone doesn’t want help from a church? What then?
Isn’t it quite possibly manipulative to cut people off from collective help (like taxes collected by and distributed by the government to those who need it most because a stable, happy society is good for everyone) and force them to only one choice: churches?
It’s a little bit like the idea that God gives us a “choice”: eternal heaven with Him (and no fiery flames of endless torture) or eternal hell without Him and WITH the torture.
If someone is holding a gun to your head with those two choices, is it really a choice? Does that sound like love to you?
If it does…you might have a really messed up definition of love. I get it: so did I for most of my life.
After a LOT of deconstruction, I ultimately came to the conclusion that to vote against collective aid in the form of government provided benefits and to force people to go to the church to get their needs met (where they will also manipulate them into giving 10% of their meager income – for life) is not only wrong, but it’s also inhumane.
People shouldn’t be forced to come to the church because it’s their only option. They should have a choice – a real one, not a last resort.
Maybe this approach to politics is “biblical”? But if you’re being asked to do something you believe is morally wrong because it’s “in the Bible”…can it really be right?
And if it cannot be right, well then, there must be something wrong with how you’re reading the Bible. Or with the God you think you know.
Because the Jesus I knew? He would have voted to feed the poor and house them and give them healthcare. That sounds pretty pro-life to me.
Not breaking people through inhumane government policies and making them so desperate that when they encounter you on their darkest day, they’ll take the version of Jesus you offer them, the one you believe they need more than food or housing or healthcare.
I *think* they call that grooming?
But I’m just a former Christian who left the church because she couldn’t find Jesus there anymore. A child who was raised to believe that Christians only ever vote Republican – never ever Democrat.
So what do I know?
And don’t even get me started on how they sold an entire generation on being “pro-life” and rallied the evangelical church to vote based on a single issue – no matter what. How I walked away from the pro-life movement and became fiercely pro-choice is another story for another day.
Read Next: This is How Deconstruction Starts (Maybe Don’t Pull That Thread?)