Helping the Poor with Tax Dollars: Is it Biblical?

Is it the government's job to care for the poor, or is it only the job of individuals and churches? Phil, Kaitlyn, and Skye explore what the Bible really says about collective responsibility to the most vulnerable, and how we should (and shouldn't) apply it to our modern context. (From Holy Post 677)

Phil: (Quoting) “The children were being saved by a government program funded with tax dollars. The Bible does not command us to save children with tax dollars, so I am free to oppose it—even if it results in the death of children”. Okay? There is no command to use tax dollars—and this was a point he made over and over and over again.

Kaitlyn: That’s true.

Phil: Over and over and over again, he said, “Every command to help the poor is a command to individuals.”

Skye: That’s not true. That is totally untrue

Kaitlyn: One of those things is true. One of those things is not true.

Phil: Yeah. Are we commanded to...? Because I’ve brought this up with many people who say, “The government isn’t supposed to do charity.” It’s a very old trope—“The government is not supposed to do charity.” And I’ve often said, if we’ve decided the best way to solve a problem is by working together, are you saying that displeases Jesus?

Skye: Okay, there are many things here—and Kaitlyn, this is your area, so I’ll let you take it in a second. But if the argument is that the government should not be doling out charity—okay—then let’s hold that value consistently. This gets back to: why are they not objecting to the government giving $50 billion in charity to corporations that drill for oil? Or $30 billion in charity to agriculture? That is government charity. I don’t hear any conservative Christians freaking out about that. But they do freak out when you're talking about children dying of preventable diseases in Africa. Be consistent. 

Okay, sorry Kaitlyn. Give your thoughtful response now.

Kaitlyn: I think there are two things getting conflated here. One: the Bible does not say that the government should fund any particular program via tax dollars. The Bible doesn’t assume anything like a representative democracy. It doesn’t assume taxes the way we use them today. It doesn’t assume international aid the way it happens today.

There’s a big difference, though, between saying, “The Bible does not require the United States to have a government program that funds international aid,” and saying, “Commands to care for the poor and vulnerable are always individual in Scripture.”

They are very rarely individual in Scripture. Israel was given multiple layers of commands to prevent injustice—like allowing the edges of your fields to go unharvested so the poor could gather grain, or requiring land to revert every 50 years to prevent generational injustice. While I don’t believe Old Testament law is binding on modern U.S. nations, it gives us a picture of the kind of communities God desires. Not just for his people—but as a light to the nations. This is what a good, flourishing community looks like: one ordered rightly under God, communal, and with special provisions for the poor and vulnerable. The prophets spend a ton of time condemning God's people—not individuals—for failing to live up to this. Most of the condemnations aren’t “you personally didn’t help the poor,” but “your society is set up in a way that allows injustice.” It happens structurally, not always by personal intention.

The New Testament continues this. Ironically, based on your earlier reference to Romans 13, Christians are called to participate in the larger life of the community—including paying taxes. While the Bible doesn’t describe our modern taxation systems, one of the few explicit Christian obligations in the New Testament is: pay your taxes. Romans 13—read alongside texts like Jeremiah 29—suggests there is good to be sought in the broader community, beyond just the church. You have obligations to the common good.

Phil: Okay. But kids in Sub-Saharan Africa are not in my community. That was his ninth point—they’re too far away to be considered my neighbors.

Kaitlyn: There’s a whole story about this.

Skye: In the book I’m writing now, The World Born in You—which Holy Post Plus subscribers have access to—the first chapter is about empathy. I talk about how empathy is tied to our sense of identity. When you see someone as part of your group, you’re more likely to show empathy. When you exclude someone from your identity, you’re less likely to care. This is exactly what the Good Samaritan story is about. The priest and the Levite pass by the man in need because they don’t consider him part of their community. The Samaritan includes him—and acts. So the idea that we’re not obligated to care for people who don’t belong to us? That’s exactly what Jesus and the entire New Testament argue against.

Kaitlyn: It’s wild to me that people who want to root their faith in “the founding” or when America was a “godly nation” forget this. One of the features—though they did not live up to it—was that early American theology looked to Old Testament law as a picture of a flourishing community. They believed a nation would be judged by how it treated the poor and foreigners. Many early Americans, including some who weren’t even orthodox Christians, believed that no matter how well a nation did financially or militarily, it would be judged by God if it failed to care for the vulnerable.

The other thing about “neighbor” that’s really important is: this is where applying Scripture from a different time and place gets hard. At that time, you couldn’t have known what was happening in another part of the world. But today, we can know—and we have to reckon with that. We also need to recognize different levels of responsibility. Sometimes we take a word given to a persecuted religious minority in Scripture and apply it directly to our modern context, without interpretation or reflection. We’re no longer a persecuted minority. We claim to be a powerful Christian nation. That brings more responsibility.

By the late 19th and early 20th century, many U.S. political leaders were interpreting Scripture to say, not only are we a Christian nation, but as such, we are responsible for caring for the poor in other nations. When they invoked “a city on a hill,” they meant: we shine by caring beyond ourselves. Now, there are good questions about how well they read Scripture, but they at least recognized that being a powerful nation comes with biblical responsibilities. When we read the Bible, we need to pay attention to how God speaks to those with power. It’s not enough to apply comforting words meant for the persecuted. God demands much from those with influence. We have to be thoughtful about what that looks like today. He’s right—there’s no chapter and verse that tells you exactly how to structure a modern aid program. But that doesn’t mean we have biblical grounds to say, “Absolutely not,” for all times and places. That’s just not true.

Phil: Can we put it to a vote and decide whether we want to try a new program? Is that okay? Or does the Bible prohibit that?

Kaitlyn: Prohibit voting?

Phil: Prohibit us from choosing to do that through government?

Kaitlyn: Well, no. Certainly not.

Phil: Because taxation is theft. So you’re using theft.

Kaitlyn:I gotta tell you—the Bible does not think taxation is theft.

Skye: And on the other side, if he wants to make the whole argument that “the Bible doesn’t say this” or “the Bible doesn’t say that”—well, the Bible also doesn’t allow for democracy.