Lamentations: Quick Summary

This is a short book with a collection of five poems that discuss the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of its citizens to Babylon. The book both laments the faithlessness of the people of Judah and looks forward to the restoration of Jerusalem and God's people. While passages can be very heavy with imagery of pain and suffering, there is a repeated thread of optimism that all is not lost forever and that the strife the exiles were experiencing would only be temporary.

Christian Libertarianism: Direct vs Indirect Charity

As a libertarian with a lot of friends who are left-of-center, I'm frequently put in a position where I have to defend why my being a libertarian doesn't mean that I'm a selfish bastard. My biggest struggle with this is one of the icons of libertarianism - Ayn Rand. That woman did so much to illustrate the empowering aspect of minimizing governmental involvement and yet was a very...er, not-nice...author of melodramatic novels and screenplays who surrounded herself by a cult of followers that overlooked her hypocritical actions.

Thus, I found myself going into complete and utter mental distraction today when I read an article on CNN.com about Jesus vs Ayn Rand. For the most part, I agree that one cannot consider themselves a Christian and a firm believer in Rand's philosophy of objectivism. However, that is not to say that a Christian can't be a libertarian.

Libertarianism says that the best government is one that sticks to a few basic roles and otherwise leaves other matters to the marketplace and/or individual citizens (or to a more local government in the case of federal libertarianism). Libertarians do vary in how far is too far with deregulating business, but a minority go to the extreme as Rand advocated of complete government withdrawal from the marketplace. As Rand was forming her philosophy of objectivism, she added a motivation that isn't required in libertarianism - selfishness (as the article goes into detail about). It is that motivation that has always separated libertarianism from objectivism for me.

I believe that libertarianism isn't contradictory to my Christianity; instead it allows me to be a better Christian. Jesus wants us to love our neighbor and to help those in need. My friends on the left say that is done by everyone paying taxes and having government programs do those tasks. In that scenario, I feel we are no longer helping the poor, but paying someone else to do it for us. While I understand their intent, I feel that putting the responsibilities of loving our neighbor and helping the poor on our government is shunning our own individual commitments to God to do those things. I believe it is more spiritually rewarding to give to charities myself, to volunteer my time and materials to actively interact and experience what it is that the neighbors and the poor go through instead of sitting back and letting some government employee do it.

I believe that each citizen of our country would become less selfish and create a greater connection with our community by spending more time doing charitable work. But high taxes and some laws and regulations discourage that sort of individual charity. Cheap patriotism has stolen our sense of community in exchange for a government that assuages our guilt for not helping others by adding a program to address whatever concern a person might have. Whether that concern is being addressed by the government becomes how people define how much we care as individuals on those concerns. Paying taxes has become a penance for not helping people directly in our own lives.

When I see families that lose their homes in natural disasters or poor begging for handouts or read about an elderly person that died from lack of power during heatwaves or blizzards, I don't think, "The government needs to do something about it." Instead I think, "What can I do to help?" or "What can me and my community do to alleviate the suffering or solve a problem?" Is that thinking of mine selfish?

If you haven't done any charitable work lately (more than tossing a dollar in a bucket or donating the stuff you couldn't sell at your yard sale), please find some time to do something to help a charitable or non-profit organization in your area. Learn about homelessness by serving them food; handing out clothing; or assisting in educational, health, or morale- focused programs. Help the sick by visiting strangers in the hospital, assist organizations on creating and putting on fundraisers, or tell everyone you meet about the disease/illness/handicap of your choice and what they can do to help prevent that disease/illness/handicap from robbing people of happy lives. Experience what it is to address that problem and then share that feeling with others so they, too, may get a greater understanding of the rewards of charity. I wish Ayn Rand had that kind of experience.