Next time I'll suggest we switch to a theocracy, but for now...

by DC

As much as I love debating whether God (indirectly) commands us to work to change government policy to help the poor, the fact is that the government is involved in helping the poor. So the question is, what are we going to do to help?

Or, if you're obstinately on the other side of the debate, I'll put it to you a different way: Whether the government helps the poor or not, God still told us to help the poor. What are you going to do to follow that command?

I don't want to hear about the abstract and theoretical things we should be doing, I want to hear concrete actual things that you are going to commit to doing tomorrow, or 3 days next week, or once a month for the next year. Jesus certainly never told his followers to go sit around, debate, and hypothesize. You care enough to read this. What else do you care enough to do?

I want to see people put a commitment in a comment here and then come back in a reasonable amount of time and tell us how it's going (or how it went). Accountability is an important thing in any Christian community. Are you willing to be accountable for something you think is important?

I'll give you a couple examples to get you started:

1) [easy, political] "I'm going to write to my congressman and say that I care about people in this country having enough to eat and a place to sleep and I'm willing to pay more taxes to make that happen"

2) [medium, non-political] "For the next year, I'm going to commit to volunteering 1 day a week at a local place that benefits the poor."

3) [hard, political] "I'm going to run for local government office and then do everything I can to shift our local policies in ways that will help the poor"

If you're already doing something, I encourage you to sign up for something that's one step more commitment. And hey, if you shoot high, try hard, and screw it up, God'll still be happy about it - and so will we.