(THE CHURCH AND POLITICS {1} [continued])[4th April 1987]

[Redbook3:107-108][19870404:1821b](THE CHURCH AND POLITICS {1} [continued])[4th April 1987]

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[continued]

I thought at first that the Moderator* was referring to Jesus' sheep and goats division**:

'I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat:

I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in:

naked, and ye clothed me not:

sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.'

'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these,

ye did it not to me.'

This is much more suggestive of a desire to see the outer inequities of the World put right, and a readiness to tell others to do it when one is not necessarily doing it oneself. Jesus' own role was to preach the Gospel, I believe: not himself to do these specific*** things he listed here (so far as I know there is no record of him having done them himself)****. He preached this to Individuals, specifically to his Disciples: not to Governments, not even to the leaders of the Jews as a group#. The emphasis seems to be on individual action and the consequences for the individual of not taking it: virtually the whole Chapter is about the consequences for the individual of not doing what should be done. I suspect that even if there had been a welfare state then (as we have now#*), one where the State really did take care of everyone's serious needs (as ours does not), Jesus would still have preached these words: because they have to do, not with the material inequalities of Society, but with the inner condition of a Man.

Not all of the items on the list are wholly remediable by political action (e.g. sickness); all of the actions are attributed to individuals. The result may be the same, but the emphasis is different: in fact, given the creaking and monolithic inefficiency of much of our Welfare State, the effect of the whole population of Individuals operating according to these principles would probably be far greater and more beneficial to the poor, 'the deprived and the destitute'#**. Conversely, there might be #*** no unemployed, no underprivileged (how underprivileged?), no deprived and no destitute; and Individuals could still end up on the wrong side of the division between sheep and goats, because they had not lived in the Spirit of those words.

*[Of the Free Church Federal Council: see last previous entry.]

**Matthew XXV.31-46.

***(outer)

****(except healing)

#Mt.XXIII comes close. <890930>

#*[in the United Kingdom.]

#**This is a million miles away from Mrs. Thatcher's partial rejection of the Welfare State in favour of 'charity'. <890930>

#***{i.e in a theoretical society.} [<890930>?]

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