Many Catholics today believe that what God wants from Christians is to help the poor and and less fortunate. That that is the main call for Christians. The problem with that is that we don't need Jesus or even Christianity for that matter to help us. We just need Oprah or any 'good hearted' teacher or even the government to tells us and lead us and we can make the world a better place. They even evidence scripture and saints and to instruct us in the way.
If that is the case, that Jesus came to show us and teach us only how to server the poor and help the downtrodden then why did He not do it? There is no example in the New Testament where Jesus fed the poor or built a house for the poor or gave his coat to the poor or even money to them. He never even told His followers to do this! He did say blessed are the poor in spirit. But that is not those in poverty. In fact He even told Judas when he complained that expensive perfume was being wasted on Him and it could help the poor, Jesus rebuked and said the poor you will always have.
If that is all the gospel is calling us to lets go back in time before the modern era when there was no TV, telephone, cars etc.... which is 99.9% of man's history. Let's say you live in 'town' in the year 900 in what is now Spain and everyone is Catholic. Most people were agrarian, maybe less than 200 people in town and scattered around in nearby farms. there are no other town for 20 miles. Most people never ventured outside the area, which is the case for most people in history. How many 'poor' people did you come in contact with in that town? How about the hungry, the naked. How many prisoners do you think they came in to contact with in their town?, etc. Let's say there were10 poor people there struggling to survive.. If everyone just did a little there would be no one with any physical needs and all is well, now what? There are no more 'poor' people in town. Is my spiritual life over? Have I 'earned' heaven now and can sit back and eat, drink and be merry? Doesn't make sense if this is how people lived through much of human history and the Gospel only requires them to 'help the poor'?
I think modern catholics must be filled with guilt over the poverty in the world today and think and have to reduce Christianity to simply 'help' the poor and their will be peace on earth and good will toward men.
This is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ Jesus came to "heal the broken hearted" and "set captives free". These are the first words He spoke publicly about himself. He also said 'repent and believe in the gospel in one of his first sermons at the beginning of His ministry. He also said He came to be 'crucified'. For what? Sin. This is never a part of the modernist theologians or their followers. He came to free us from the bondage of sin and give us eternal life as children of God. This is the greatest 'poverty' in our world and always has been.
The social justice gospel didn't require the Son of God to die on the cross or even for the church and the sacraments to be instituted. We just need a telethon and a government program to give us heaven on earth.
It's a sad and terrible error in the social gospel. the only sin is not helping the poor or the not accepting the diversity of people and 'let people live' their own lives as they see fit.
Also the 'ones' preaching this are single priests, nuns, theologian etc. Who have no families to take care of or living to earn. They have everything provided for them. They don't face near the difficulties married people face. It rather a good gig in today's world. So they look out on the world and see how easy they have it and see the poor and those treated unjustly and pontificate to us that that is what we must all do. Indeed God is calling us all to do it!
Married people already feed the poor and cloth the naked and heal the sick everyday, all day, towards our children who would die from starvation or sickness or neglect is we didn't tend to them and scrape by financially to do this. WE have nothing left at the end of the day, so according to the social gospel we are terrible Christians cause we are not saving the 'poor'. I think your reading of the gospel is eschewed and maybe guilt ridden. Yes, Jesus can set you free as well if you turn to Him. He
"He never even told His followers to do this!"
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't count Matthew 25?
'Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?' 45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.' 46* And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
You might enjoy this post: here.
ReplyDelete"There is no example in the New Testament where Jesus fed the poor or built a house for the poor or gave his coat to the poor or even money to them. He never even told His followers to do this!"
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the item about sheep and goats, Matthew 7?
And if everyone from Pharisee to Roman was feeding poor and Jesus even mentioned a Pharisee as self righteous for noticing this, perhaps He did and didn't want it noted in the Gospels.
"Most people were agrarian, maybe less than 200 people in town and scattered around in nearby farms. there are no other town for 20 miles. Most people never ventured outside the area, which is the case for most people in history. How many 'poor' people did you come in contact with in that town? How about the hungry, the naked. How many prisoners do you think they came in to contact with in their town?, etc. Let's say there were10 poor people there struggling to survive.. If everyone just did a little there would be no one with any physical needs and all is well, now what?"
ReplyDeleteWonderful point about Catholic Christendom!
However, you might be forgetting about pilgrims.