Government as Religion?

At risk of alienating a large part of my fan base, I would like to ask those of you peeps out there who bristle at Barack Obama's suggestion that he would include faith-based initiatives in federal policy were he to be elected President: Is that really any worse than asking the federal government to assign tax dollars to charity or social assistance? People fear the blending of church and state, when in actuality, faith institutions for ages have taken care of people in the community at least as well as government agencies, in many instances, and people have been served, and the notion of State has not been compromised.

I know, I know: They will give you help if you will convert to Their Religious Convictions. And you don't want to be told what to believe. But if you want the government to dispense the soup, you could be waiting a long time. And I'm not saying our tax dollars shouldn't be spent on that kind of thing instead of killing our young people, and innocents, in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Those of you who know me know I am passionate about where I think the money and effort should go, if we have to rely on government. I'm suggesting that we think carefully about to whom or what we assign a higher power in our lives and why.

Government, ideally, is about the public welfare. But the people in government don't represent a large number of us, it seems to me. Of course, that's my opinion. I've heard more than enough people claim to be versus various federal decisions, including continuing to throw money and people at war, to feel justified in maintaining that bias. Meanwhile, there are people out there on a non-profit and non-governmental level, offering food and shelter and assistance to those who are in need, for whatever reasons, including that the government has ignored socio-economic divides in this country and perpetrated a decreasing budget to the government agencies and programs designed to help those who are facing economic adversity, making charity closer to home more and more necessary, like back before the government offered up in the first place.

Jesus wandered around a lot of area with little if anything he owned personally, at least according to the stories we have read and heard. He dispensed charity and healing to those in need at the same time. Even if you don't believe in miracles, surely you can extend creative thought to imagine he found the resources somewhere, whether through sweet talking diplomacy or outright trickery of the bloated. Was he really trying to convince people to believe in God the Father, some giant human figure hanging around in the skies waiting to smite us or bring us home to sit on clouds and strum harps? Or was he preaching a message to not be selfish and help each other out? We have the power to decide for ourselves, regardless of what people of various religious faiths insist. In the meantime, we are asked- expected?- over and over again to trust a bunch of people in positions of power to make decisions in our best interest. Presumably they will do so because we voted for them, elected them, assigned to them that power. I'm hard-pressed to see how this situation is less threatening to my personal liberties than asking me to believe in God. Not a lot has happened lately there that has been something I would have decided, personally.

However it happens, there are plenty of people out there in our own country, right now, who need a little help. And I, for one, am made a little more comfortable to see people reaching out, whether they do it through their churches or in their non-profit, third sector work, or through their commitment to civic duty. I am not holding my breath for the latter; I don't trust us as people in the guise of Government much. In fact, sometimes it would be easier to believe that God Himself, the fatherly figure with a beard and bushy eyebrows, might decide to come out and sit at my table and have a conversation with me than that anyone I vote for might walk into office and work with other similarly inclined people who have been elected, to change the fact so many of us are ignored.