Leviticus 19:9–10
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We live in an age that worships at the altar of efficiency. Our entire economic system is geared toward maximizing yields, squeezing every last drop of productivity out of every resource, and ensuring that nothing, absolutely nothing, is wasted. From the corporate boardroom to the automated checkout line, the great goal is to streamline, to optimize, and to let nothing fall through the cracks. And when this mindset turns its attention to the problem of the poor, it produces the modern welfare state. The welfare state is the ultimate attempt at an efficient, centralized, bureaucratic solution to poverty. It is an engine designed to collect resources through the coercive power of taxation and redistribute them according to a data-driven formula. It is impersonal, it is vast, and it is a complete and utter failure. The reason it fails is that it is a rival god, a humanistic counterfeit of true charity.