I mentioned last week in our chapel service at World Vision’s U.S. headquarters about a recent Christianity Today article I read that I can’t seem to get off my mind.
In the article, a recent survey (pdf) by the Pew Research Center showed that American evangelicals were more in favor of cutting federal spending to “aid the world’s poor” than any other area. Second and third to cutting foreign aid were “government assistance for the unemployed” and “environmental protection.”
As World Vision urges Congress right now to reconsider its possible budget cut that will greatly affect foreign disaster assistance by more than two-thirds, I wonder how Christians in Jesus’ day would poll in a survey of this same sort.
From Polling Evangelicals: Cut Aid to World’s Poor, Unemployed on Christianity Today:
The top choices among evangelicals for the chopping block are economic assistance to needy people around the world (56 percent), government assistance for the unemployed (40 percent), and environmental protection (38 percent).
In each of these categories, evangelicals were more supportive of decreasing spending than are other Americans. In fact, evangelicals were more supportive of funding cuts in every area except military defense, terrorism defense, aid to veterans, and energy.
Cutting foreign aid and support for the unemployed while favoring increases in defense and police are not priorities of all evangelicals.
Robert Zachritz, government relations director for World Vision in the U.S., said in a statement that U.S. programs help save lives worldwide.He said 8 million children die each year — lives that could be saved with low-cost aid programs to provide malaria bed nets or child immunizations.
“World Vision recognizes the need to make tough decisions addressing the present fiscal crisis, including budget cuts, but these should not fall disproportionately on the poorest of the poor,” Zachritz said. “Congress is considering an overall budget reduction of 8.8 percent from the FY2011 presidential request, with cuts disproportionately made to the most cost-effective humanitarian programs saving children’s lives.”
Join World Vision’s fight to preserve funding for humanitarian programs that save lives. Contact your members of Congress today.
For more from World Vision on U.S. Budget Cuts that threaten the poor:
World Vision shame on you for taking the taxpayers hard earned money from the federal government. You part of the problem if u are and ur making Americans poorer. Yes I dont agree with most Christians view in this poll but most are not aware of whats really going on in the world and how globalist occultists are running things. Google Bohemian Grove to see what our leaders are practicing the the redwoods of Cali.
Must comment here. If World Vision thinks it is the job of the government to aid the poor then I might stop my sponsorship with you and go to another agency that understands the gospel. It is not the job of governments to care for the poor. It is the job of individuals, namely Christians. Jesus never said that the government should care for the poor. He said we should as individuals.
Stop asking the government to give more. Ask individuals to give more. I wish I could sponsor more than one child. I cannot afford it partly because of high taxes on things that I buy. But hey, if the government stopped sending that money and let us do it, we would do a better job and actually be fulfilling the commands of Christ.
I am not anti-government or anti-tax, but I am tired of the church asking the government to do the work of the church. Stop asking the government to be a Christian. It is not. Individuals and churches should rise up and give more.
As for the pracitcality of it all, our government is broke. If we as a nation keep giving all this aid we will soon be in the same mess as the other countries. Then where will the assistance for the poor come from?
Kingdom Focused
John Fulper
I am so sorry to hear these statistics but not surprised. Here’s an observation from my area of the U.S. – the beach. People eat in restaraunts several times a week, fast food is the norm for the kids in my neighborhood, new cars, big homes. Life is good here but I can’t seem to get ANYONE to sponsor a child for just $35 a month. I not giving up. Maybe I will pass out “clean” water at the grocery store some warm Saturday afternoon to raise awareness of the children loosing their life simply by drinking dirty water.
The world’s poor should be close to the top of the list. We waste so much money here as a government. Our own poor should also be better supported. If Ron Paul had his way, our banking and money system would get overhauled and THEN major changes and improvements would come. But now we are a debtor nation, all of our money is borrowed, instead of being printed by ourselves as was the original intent. Vote for Ron Paul if he runs in 2012. If God is gracious to us, we will yet have more time.
According to the results of the poll, evangelicals support our government spending money on things the government SHOULD be supporting. The top three are things that we, the Church, should be taking care of on our own. Reading the other comments, I see I am not alone in understanding that our government cannot continue to spend as if money grows on trees. We have a responsibility to care for the poor and needy, on the other hand, our government has been given the job of taking of our country. We as citizens are the ones that should do the work of charity.