{"id":4670,"date":"2011-04-25T04:10:41","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T11:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4670"},"modified":"2011-04-25T04:10:41","modified_gmt":"2011-04-25T11:10:41","slug":"would-churches-care-for-the-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/25\/would-churches-care-for-the-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Would Churches Care for the Poor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to many Republican politicians and pundits, caring for the poor is the job of the churches, not the government.  Now Franklin Graham, son of the famed evangelist, is claiming that churches no longer care for the poor, because government stole that role from them.  I lave a load of that to fertilize the front lawn!<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"25franklin\"I can’t help wondering why Franklin Graham isn’t preaching an Easter Sunday revival instead of showing up on Christiane Amanpour’s show to make political statements, or to be more accurate, pronouncements. Some pronouncements, however, should not be allowed to stand unchallenged, and the following is one of them.<\/font><\/p>\n

AMANPOUR: We in this country and around the world are living in very dire times right now. Dire financial times, economic crisis, the gap between rich and poor is growing, not only here, but all over the world.<\/font><\/p>\n

What can the church do to fill that gap and to step into that gap?<\/font><\/p>\n

GRAHAM:<\/font> Christiane, a hundred years ago, the safety net, the social safety net in the country was provided by the church.<\/strong><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

If you didn’t have a job, you’d go to your local church and ask the pastor if he know somebody that could hire him. If you were hungry, you went to the local church and told them, "I can’t feed my family." And the church would help you. And that’s not being done.<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

But the government took that. And took it away from the church. And they had more money to give and more programs to give, and pretty soon, the churches just backed off.<\/font><\/p>\n

And as a result, now you have generation after generation of pastors in churches that have not done that. And you would have to teach them again how to do it.<\/font><\/p>\n

Well, Reverend Graham, that is somewhat true but mostly not<\/a><\/font>, because of course, churches rely upon the gifts of their congregation. Churches, like everyone else, suffered the effects. Many had debt obligations on their church buildings and were forced into default as offerings fell away, causing them to have to close the doors entirely\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Crooks ans Liars<\/a>><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the video.  After the statement above, it\u2019s mostly a rehash of religious right dogma.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Now, lets get to the lie.  It is mostly true that, at one time, churches fulfill that rose, and some still do.  However, for the vast majority of American churches, especially the pseudo-Christian of Republican Supply-side Jesus (not the real Jesus), the focus switched to foreign missions that created more notches on soul belts, churching the unchurched, and catering to rich congregants to help build cushier churches.  Helping the poor fell by the wayside without government help.  Added to that, the prosperity doctrine became popular that wealth is God\u2019s blessing for piety, while poverty is God\u2019s punishment for sin.  The poor became the new lepers.  Government stepped in to help provide a safety net, because the churches were not taking care of the poor.  There is no credible evidence to support the idea that, if government steps back, the churches will step forward to care for the poor.  For Graham to imply otherwise is a lie.  Government is not at fault for Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian greed.<\/font><\/p>\n

That said, to those authentic Christians, who do all they can, thank you.  This does not apply to you.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to many Republican politicians and pundits, caring for the poor is the job of the churches, not the government.  Now Franklin Graham, son of the famed evangelist, is claiming that churches no longer care for the poor, because government stole that role from them.  I lave a load of that to fertilize the front […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion","category-5-id","category-47-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}