God & Food Stamps

This week there was a congressional conversation about the deity’s stance on work requirements for food stamps (SNAP).  An initial Washington Post report, later amended after criticism, but widely echoed on the Internet in its earlier version, portrayed a Republican congressman quoting a biblical admonition against food for the ostensibly lazy.

The congressman in a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Nutrition was responding to testimony from a Jewish advocacy group evidently opposed to the current work requirements for able bodied food stamp recipients without dependent children.  That testimony said:

In Jewish tradition—and across all faith traditions—there is a fundamental value of taking care of the most vulnerable among us. In Leviticus, we are commanded to leave the corners of our fields and the gleanings of our harvest and vineyards for the poor and the stranger. This commandment is a clear expression of our collective responsibility for each other. Its wisdom respects the dignity of those who are poor and gives them a role in taking care of their needs by harvesting the corners of the fields themselves. We are not to judge those who are poor, nor should we assume to know the circumstances of their lives.

The congressman responded:

I did hear, Mr. Protas, your opening remarks where you quoted Leviticus, I believe, and I think that’s a great reflection on the character of God and the compassion of God’s heart and how we ought to reflect that compassion in our lives. But, there’s also, the scripture tells us in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “For even when we were with you we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’” And then he goes on to say, “We hear that some among you are idle.” I think that every American, Republican or Democrat, wants to help the neediest among us. And I think it’s a reasonable expectation that we have work requirements. I think that gives more credibility quite frankly, to SNAP. Tell me what is a reasonable and responsible work requirement as part of the SNAP program? In Jewish tradition—and across all faith traditions—there is a fundamental value of taking care of the most vulnerable among us. In Leviticus, we are commanded to leave the corners of our fields and the gleanings of our harvest and vineyards for the poor and the stranger. This commandment is a clear expression of our collective responsibility for each other. Its wisdom respects the dignity of those who are poor and gives them a role in taking care of their needs by harvesting the corners of the fields themselves. We are not to judge those who are poor, nor should we assume to know the circumstances of their lives.

Both the testimony and the congressman’s response were thoughtful and cited scripture respectfully. Quoting scripture in politics is often unhelpful if it claims infallibly divine counsel for policy specifics. But broadly appealing to scriptural aspirations for justice is leavening for any democracy that rests on transcendent claims.

Many liberal religious advocacy groups have long equated scriptural justice with the welfare state, opposing any restriction on spending growth as an assault on the vulnerable. Their assumptions are often materialistic and assume that poverty is strictly the result of greed and parsimony for which the solution is always more government expenditure. To what extent that expenditure is ineffective and even destructive by potentially perpetuating poverty is rarely considered by these liberal religious advocacy groups.

Conservative critics of liberal religious enthusiasts for the welfare state often respond that the Bible commands personal and church help for the poor but doesn’t admonish the state to conduct transfer payments to the needy. It’s true that scripture doesn’t outline detailed public policy specifics for poverty alleviation. So experience and prudential judgment are needed.

For much of the history of Christendom the church was the primary delivery agent of charity for the poor. But the church was also established as a partner of the state. In colonial Virginia, as in the mother country, the Church of England by law collected tithes from all, part of which helped the poor, administered by each parish’s elected vestry, which typically included the region’s most prominent men.  George Washington and George Mason, for example, served together on the vestry of Truro Parish in Fairfax County. The vestry determined who needed and deserved help. Widows with children, the chronically ill, the elderly and the disabled were deemed “deserving” poor. Able bodied men who imbibed too much or gambled away their inheritance were deemed undeserving.

When the church was disestablished in Virginia and other colonies, tithes were no longer mandatory, and church vestries no longer the primary agents of relief. Counties often established poor farms where the indigent could reside and, if able, participate in farm work. Within living memory, one northern Virginia county’s sheriff would routinely at harvest time arrest the drunks of the county seat so they could assist, after a sobering night in jail, with work at the poor farm.

The federal welfare state has displaced much of the charity once exclusively conducted by local jurisdictions and churches. The right calibration of private, local and federal assistance for the needy is not directly provided by scripture, of course. Christian tradition certainly stresses the central vocation of the church to help the poor. But Christians and other religious traditions should be reluctant to caricature different public policy views about poverty as unbiblical.