A Confused Compassion: The Religious Battle over SNAP

on September 27, 2013

In recent days, the nation has fixed its attention on Washington as lawmakers debate the passage of a continuing resolution to fund the government amidst Republican efforts to include language defunding Obamacare. But included in the version that passed the House of Representatives was an equally-contested provision decreasing federal spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The House bill, which is currently before the Senate, reduces spending for SNAP (formally known as food stamps) by $40 billion over ten years.

When large SNAP cuts were first mulled in May, a number of churches and faith groups signed on to a letter demanding lawmakers oppose the cuts, including the Episcopal Church, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, NETWORK (of Nuns on the Bus fame), and Sojourners. Most of the signatories of the May letter, including Sojourners and the US Council of Catholic Bishops, reaffirmed this stance when the continuing resolution passed the House. More recently, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society encouraged United Methodists to contact their representatives “to stand with those struggling in today’s economy” by opposing SNAP cuts.

The religious arguments against cuts to food stamps rely on the Bible’s command that Christians take care of the least among us. “From cover to cover, the Bible is 100 percent clear that God requires us to care for our brothers and sisters in poverty,” argues one critic in The Huffington Post. “Our job, as people of faith, is to protect the poor and to make it politically unsafe for politicians to go after them — to pick on the poor,” writes Sojourners President Jim Wallis. The underlying false assumption is that proponents of the cut simply don’t care about or even hate the poor. In actuality, proponents of the cut are driven by just as strong a love and concern for the poor as its critics.

Critics of cuts to food stamps programs ignore the stated reason for why House Republicans proposed the cuts: food stamp spending is swelling to the point that the program may soon become untenable. Annual spending on SNAP is now around $80 billion, three times as much as we were paying a decade ago and over four times as much as we were paying in 2000. Enrollment and federal spending for SNAP programs continue to increase on a yearly basis despite improvements in the unemployment rate. As the debt ceiling looms and the federal government quickly approaches a landmark $17 trillion in debt, drastic cuts need to be made to most government programs. Without real cuts today and incentives for recipients to return to work, the future stability of SNAP and its millions of recipients is in jeopardy. Even the Democrat-controlled Senate seems to realize as much, given that their proposal also contains cuts to SNAP.

Another flaw in these arguments is the belief that there is only one way to live up to Biblical calls to care for the poor: through government action. There are many different ways and systems of providing care to a population that don’t involve Uncle Sam. Government spending does not exist in a bubble; every tax dollar spent by the federal government providing food stamps is a dollar that could be used for other, more effective methods of caring for the hungry at the local level. Time and time again, it’s been proven that government bureaucracies cannot compare to highly-motivated local congregations when it comes to providing a service.

Most importantly, those who believe that aid to the poor should come primarily from the government miss precisely why the Bible tells us we should give to the poor. While food stamps may feed the physical hunger of many, they fail to address one of the reasons Christ commanded us to care for the poor. Through caring for others, we partake in and recognize the love of God and His will in our lives. Simply providing for others is not enough. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 13:3, “If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” The Bible commands us to give out of love and compassion, which more often than not requires loving, compassionate personal engagement.

Hundreds of millions of Americans contribute to the federal budget that provides for food stamps. But how many of those Americans, as they sign checks to the IRS every April, feel the transformative love of God in their lives? As millions of Americans receive their SNAP assistance on a regular basis, how many of them are filled with gratitude towards their fellow Americans and God? How many are filled instead with gratitude towards the idol of government? Far too few on the first two counts, I fear, and far too many on the third.

There is no Christian compassion when the state, relying on the threat of imprisonment or fines, takes from one man’s wages and gives them to a second man. There is no Christian compassion when men who might give to charity use their contribution to federal programs to justify not doing so. There is no Christian compassion in spending billions more than we can afford taking care of today’s problems and expecting future generations to pay the bill. And there is certainly no Christian compassion in making millions of Americans dependent on bureaucrats in Washington, instead of teaching them to forge their own God-given destinies.

A paternalistic government welfare system robs all Americans of the positive spiritual growth that comes with personally caring for the poor, but it also robs the church of one of its most important responsibilities. Increasingly, the services traditionally provided by religious institutions (caring for the poor, education, moral upbringing, overseeing marriage, etc.) are being absorbed by their secular counterparts. Religious institutions risk becoming increasingly irrelevant as they withdraw from public life and allow government agencies to fill the roles they’ve filled for millennia. Ironically, the same denominations that act puzzled as their local congregations dwindle continue to egg on Big Government as it outsources their own jobs.

  1. Comment by Christian on September 27, 2013 at 3:26 pm

    Caring for the poor is a personal, communal, and governmental responsibility commanded by God through scripture.

    Advocating for cutting SNAP and taking food out of the mouths of working families because of an irrational fear of “big government” is to disobey what God commanded.

    In the prophets, like Amos, God, through them, rebukes individuals for their lack of compassion and their exploitation of the poor. Additionally, in Amos, then God’s anger is turned towards the nation as a whole for those who see their neighbor in need yet turn a blind eye and tacit acceptance of the systemic injustice visited on the poor.

    This attempting to somehow twist scripture to justify cutting social programs that care for the poor is inexcusable.

  2. Comment by Norma on September 28, 2013 at 12:22 pm

    There is no cut in SNAP, only a smaller increase than what Democrats proposed. Only liberals would call an increase a cut.

  3. Comment by Greg Paley on September 29, 2013 at 9:20 am

    Wow, one liberal cliche piled up on top of another, just like an archaeological dig.

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