Government Expands Where the Church Fails
More than 200 people have now lost their lives due to Hurricane Helene, which wreaked havoc across the southeastern United States at the end of September. Helene has become the deadliest mainland hurricane since Katrina in 2005.
After more than a week of little progress, criticism of the Biden administration’s response began to grow from local residents and volunteers on the ground. With hundreds still missing and inadequate recovery resources in place, elected officials around the country labeled the federal response a complete failure. Florida now faces yet another major hurricane, and questions continue to mount about the administration’s focus and ability to respond to these disasters.
Despite the lack of response from government, the best hope for storm victims has been found in their neighbors. Churches, communities, citizens, and companies across the country have activated to rescue, aid, and provide resources to those impacted by the devastation in North Carolina and elsewhere.
It’s a beautiful reminder that the heart of our nation is not found in an institution, but rather, the individual.
As a believer, I would contend that it’s also an opportunity to reflect on the role that Christians should play in the world we live in. Over the past week, America has witnessed the failure of government to respond to the destruction across the East Coast and the ability for churches and others to lead the way in meeting the needs of our fellow Americans. However, all too often, the opposite is more visible in our culture. When the Church fails to step up, other institutions – like government – step in.
In fact, government expands where the Church fails.
From defining moral standards for our society to taking care of our neighbors, the modern Church has delegated so much to institutions like government. Hollywood, academia, technology, and the state have all tried to replace the role that biblical truth and the Body of Christ are meant to play in our world. Yet, any objective observer will conclude that these institutions fail time after time to solve the problems of our day.
While Western society has largely turned their back on biblical truth, the humanist revolution has only left our culture with more questions, more depression, more anxiety, and less fulfillment than ever in human history. Despite turning against capitalism and the Christian work ethic to avoid the darkness of greed and to pursue the idol of equality, our culture is plagued with a lack of purpose and is still filled with envy. Plus, Americans overwhelmingly turn to government to ensure the financial and physical sustainment of the masses through varying levels of wealth redistribution, yet no amount seems to be enough – our safety nets have closed in to become traps, keeping generations of citizens in a cycle of poverty.
The state can fill a belly, at least for a while. However, it can never end the cycle that caused the hunger in the first place. Nor can it provide the meaning that can only be found when our provision comes from the hand of our Creator – through our own toil and that of our neighbor. Furthermore, the state can make laws banning bad behavior, but it can never address the reason why men choose those behaviors in the first place. That is an issue of the soul.
In sum, government fails to make lasting progress in these areas, because we have wrongly relied on an incapable institution to fill the void left by an absent Church.
The instinct of Americans in the mountains and hills of North Carolina was to act when they saw their fellow man in need. If they had waited on government, certainly more lives would have been impacted or lost. Our nature as Christians should be the same.
We cannot wait for politicians to save us. We have the Truth. We have the remedy for all the ills impacting our broken world today. All that is needed is for God’s people to act.