“It is not merely a commendable thing for a man to be kind and bountiful to the poor, but our bounden duty, as much a duty as it is to pray, or to attend public worship, or anything else whatever. And the neglect of it brings great guilt upon any person. This is a duty to which God’s people are under very strict obligation.”
Jonathan Edwards penned those remarkable words over 250 years ago in a sermon called “Christian Charity.” And despite sitting through 5000+ sermons over the past six-plus decades, I was today years old before I ever encountered such forceful instruction about attending to the needy. All my life I’ve been taught that prayer, church attendance, and daily bible reading formed the foundation of Christian living. Such disciplines formed the path of faithfulness and kept us from going astray. They were non-negotiable.
Being “kind and bountiful to the poor” fell into the “should do” bin, not the “must do.” It wasn’t a first-order mandate like prayer and devotions. Yes, “good Christians” donated to the poor. But a failure in this matter was like a venial type of sin. It wasn’t crippling to the faith, such as a failure to read the Bible.
Edwards’ sermon is long and full of scripture, drawing heavily from both the Old and New Testaments. The first half of the sermon lays out the Christian obligation to needy individuals. The second half deals with 11 objections “sometimes made against this duty.” Here are some of his main points in Edward’s own words.
Our charitable obligation goes beyond family, community, and nation to include strangers and sojourners.
“Here by thy poor brother is to be understood the same as in other places is meant by neighbor…to mean not only those of their own nation, but even strangers and sojourners…The Pharisees indeed interpreted it to signify only one of their own nation. But Christ condemns this interpretation.”
Loving your neighbor means bearing burdens and sharing the afflictions of all, even pilgrims and strangers.
“The rule of the gospel is that when we see our brother under any difficulty or burden, we should be ready to bear the burden with him…When our neighbor is in difficulty, he is afflicted; and we ought to have such a spirit of love to him, as to be afflicted with him in his affliction. And if we ought to be afflicted with him, then it will follow that we ought to be ready to relieve him. Because if we are afflicted with him, in relieving him, we relieve ourselves.”
“We should behave ourselves one towards another as brethren that are fellow travelers. For we are pilgrims and strangers here on earth, and are on a journey. Now, if brethren be on a journey together, and one meet with difficulty in the way, doth it not become the rest to help him.”
A lack of generosity to the needy comes from the wickedness of our hearts and is equal to embezzling from God
Men are exceedingly apt to make objections against such duties, which God speaks of here as a manifestation of the wickedness of their hearts…[and] he hoards up his master’s goods for himself, guilts of robbing his master and embezzling his substance.”
(Just as an aside, I have heard dozens if not hundreds of sermons about “robbing God” over my lifetime. But all of those sermons connected robbing God with a failure to pay tithes to the church. And having served on church boards much of my life, the Venn diagram intersection between attending to the needy and paying tithes is, in my experience, pretty small.)
Our wickedness causes us to hide our eyes, to choose not to see poor and needy individuals.
“But the uncharitable are very unapt both to see the proper objects of charity, and to see their obligations to this duty. The reason is, that they are of that sort spoken of here by the wise man, they hide their eyes. Men will readily see, where they are willing to see. But where they hate to see, they will hide their eyes.”
It’s important to stop and note that Edwards was perhaps the most famous theologian/pastor of our nation’s history. He is best known for his formative role in the religious revival known as the “Great Awakening.” He helped launch the age of Protestant missionary expansion in the 19th century.
Edwards also owned slaves. Multiple slaves, in fact. Some say that Edwards was merely a man of his age. George Whitefield, one of Edwards’s few peers, not only owned slaves but strongly advocated for slavery. Yet other famous theologians of that time like John Wesley and Charles Spurgeon spoke out strongly against slavery. Although English in residence, their influence ranged widely including the American colonies prior to the Revolutionary War.
Later in life, despite still owning slaves, Edwards began a journey towards abolitionism. He began to understand how it was wrong to “disfranchise” people born free. He began to read the Bible differently, seeing theological arguments in defense of slavery as wrong. He began to extend the biblical concept of “neighbor” to all. Although he never completed that journey, his son Jonathan Jr. and protégé, Samuel Hopkins did and became important figures in the abolitionist movement.
It’s ironic that Edwards, who spoke out against an unwillingness to see the poor, had a profound inability to see the disenfranchised African Americans who lived around him and in his home. He attributed a failure to see as being willful, something people choose. But he never recognized his lack of seeing until late in life.
Perhaps that’s because “not seeing” is more often an unconscious part of our human nature than a willful decision. Our experience tells us Walter Lippman’s observation rings true: “For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define and then see.” Like Edwards, we’re susceptible to being blinded by our culture and we don’t know it.
Our obligation to charity isn’t canceled because an individual isn’t completely indigent
“It doth not answer the rules of Christian charity, to relieve those only who are reduced to extremity, as might be abundantly shown…we are commanded to love and treat one another as brethren…Now is it the part of brethren to refuse to help one another, and to do anything for each other’s comfort, and for the relief of each other’s difficulties, only when they are in extremity?”
Our obligation isn’t cancelled by an ill and ungrateful spirit of a poor individual
Suppose you run across a person who “deserves not that people should be kind to him. He is of a very ill temper, of an ungrateful spirit, and particularly, because he hath not deserved well of them, but has treated them ill, has been injurious to them, and even now entertains an ill spirit against them. But we are obliged to relieve persons in want, notwithstanding these things, both by the general and particular rules of God’s Word.”
Our obligation isn’t cancelled just because a poor individual’s shortcomings and/or failings are his/her own fault
Edwards rejected the argument “He has brought himself to want by his own fault” as a reason to deny benevolence. Our obligation to give, he asserted, wasn’t canceled by the lapses or misjudgments of the poor. A rigid ideology of “personal responsibility” didn’t trump the gospel. Our obligation to give wasn’t canceled if the need arose from a person’s laziness or wastefulness – as long as there’s been a stop to such behavior. And even if there hasn’t been a stop, we’re still on the hook for family members since they are innocent. Here are Edward’s words.
“If we should forever refuse to help men because of that [an oversight or failing], it would be for us to make their inconsiderateness and imprudent act, an unpardonable crime, quite contrary to the rules of the gospel, which insist so much upon forgiveness…if they are come to want by a vicious idleness and prodigality, yet we are not thereby excused from all obligation to relieve them, unless they continue in those vices.”
Our obligation isn’t cancelled even if an individual’s need for help should be addressed by others
“if a man have children or other relations, to whom it most properly belongs to relieve him, yet if they will not do it, the obligation to relieve him falls upon others. So for the same reason [e.g., the Good Samaritan teaching of Christ] we should do the more for the relief of the poor, because others neglect to do their proportion, or what belongs to them.”
In Summary
- Being kind and bountiful to the poor is our bounden duty, as much as it is to pray, or to attend public worship, or anything else in our Christian faith.
- Our charitable obligation goes beyond family, community, and nation to include strangers and sojourners.
- Loving your neighbor means bearing burdens and sharing the afflictions of all, even pilgrims and strangers.
- Failure to be charitable comes from the wickedness of our hearts and is equal to embezzling from God.
- Our wickedness causes us to hide our eyes, to choose not to see the poor.
- Our obligation to poor individuals doesn’t depend upon whether or not:
- they are completely indigent;
- they exhibit an ill and ungrateful spirit;
- their need if their fault, arising as a result of their significant shortcomings and/or failings;
- their need for help should be better addressed by others.
WWES (What would Edwards Say)?
Since, 1987, the Times Mirror Company and then the PEW organization have conducted 11 separate in-depth and large-scale surveys of the American political spectrum. These surveys are intended to yield typologies, a set of voter profiles that identify specific segments of the electorate. The 2021 survey found nine distinct groups of voting profiles: four leaning Democratic, four leaning Republican, and one independent.
About 10% of the public and 23% of republicans comprise the far-right typology. PEW labels them Faith and Flag Conservatives as they are highly conservative and highly religious voters. About half are white evangelicals and the median age is 57. Most support school prayer while opposing abortion and same-sex marriage. They believe the United States “stands above all other countries in the world” and military solutions should trump diplomatic ones. They reject the notion of white privilege and believe that white Americans face more discrimination than African Americans. Illegal immigration tops their chart of national issues. Not far behind, however, is their belief that the government should provide less benefits to the needy.
I wonder how Edwards would react to this data. Would he once again exhibit a culturally formed blindness like he did with slavery? Or would he burst forth with righteous authority, spouting out phrases like wickedness in heart and robbing God as he did in his 1732 sermon? I’d put my money on the latter. I can even imagine him writing a new sermon called “Selfish Christians in the Hand of an Angry God.”
Yet the animus against immigration isn’t just from the extreme right. It’s a feature, not a bug for most white evangelicals – those, who, according to the National Association of Evangelicals, “take the Bible seriously and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.”
Yet it’s heartening to see that nearly half or 49% of white evangelicals (my tribe) disagree with this statement. Many have not bent or bowed to this sort of polarizing narrative.
Many take the Bible seriously, practicing the open-handedness of Deuteronomy 15:7-8 – a verse quoted by Edwards in the opening paragraph of his sermon: “If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need.”
Many see open-handedness as inclusive of those outside of tribe and nation, like in scripture. They see some form of a pro-immigration posture as merely consistent with Christ’s condemnation of the Pharisee’s restrictive application of Leviticus 25:35 to those solely within one’s nation: “And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner.”
Last Thoughts
Immigration is a topic I repeatedly come back to in my blog as it sits in the middle of a tug-of-war for the future of the American Church. I believe our immigration posture is an indicator of the state of American Christianity. And perhaps even an indicator of the state of one’s heart.
I realize there any many serious concerns with current immigration policies, even by some with hearts culturally unencumbered. A new thoughtful policy that weighs competing interests, values, and operational challenges is needed.
But how we approach this issue is a tell. Are we willing to engage with each other, listening to the arguments of either side? Are we evidence-based, willing to think for ourselves, and then change our beliefs when the data debunks tribal narratives? Are we willing to challenge our tribal identity and the resultant worldview that owns our cultural narratives about immigration? Are we willing to privilege gospel verities, putting the thumb on the scale of Christ’s teachings? Are we willing to become like Jesus, showing the world what our God is like?