Although retired, I still earn a little extra buying vegetables from the Amish and reselling to a retail store. At this time of the year, the prices have dropped to almost nothing and so I pick up a few extra boxes to give to a local food bank. A church down the street from my house began giving away food on Wed and since it was closer, I dropped by today to drop some off tomatoes. I ran into the pastor and since he was running late, I asked if I could come back and talk to him about a project of mine to raise the minimum wages at the local level (www.Our-Voice.Us).
He immediately countered that the problem was industry would just raise prices and so the effort would not be effective. He went on to state that our present government was at fault for the way things are. I should have countered, but he was late and I was immediately reminded of a conversation I had had some 10 years ago with a lady. She did not believe in any welfare for the poor. Her argument was that it would be better to teach a man to fish, and then he could feed himself.
Here I am, an atheist in today’s definition of traditional religions, and I am pointing out to her that Jesus taught for us to give to the poor, without conditions. In addition, the Bible is full of teachings about treating the poor fairly and teachings on fair wages. Yet, this fundamentalist Christian who believes in the Bible being the direct word of God ignores some of the basic teachings.
I can agree with this thought on teaching a man to fish or in today’s world a trade of some sort so he can make a living. The problem is that to do so requires education (teach) and the Republican Party with its conservative religious base, doesn’t want to fund education either. And the wage should be a living wage. To top it all off, my original pastor I referred to above doesn’t want to recognize that the last president (Bush) was the one who destroyed our economy. In addition, our current president would like to do more to create jobs, but it is the Republican controlled congress that is doing and preventing anything from getting done.
The very liberal leaning church I am currently connected with would be concerned with the poor and those without jobs. The difference is that they believe that if we all have a positive attitude, then everything will somehow be righted. This is a really good excuse for not expending much effort.
I have volunteered with the Red Cross, marched with the workers wanting better wages and walked in picket lines. With many efforts going on at the present time, I think it is rather strange that most are happening without prayer or any mention of God.