What's the Score?

Are we doing what the Master of the house said?

Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you. -Ezekiel

Sojourners, orphans, and widows are the archetypes of the poor and helpless who are specially protected by God. He intervenes on their behalf when they are wronged. He demands that the righteous look after them as he looks after them. He punishes societies who abuse them. So, how are American Christians doing? What does the scoreboard say?

Sojourners

American Christians pay lip service to welcoming immigrants, but on balance, are idolaters and tyrants. 0 points awarded.

Orphans

American Christians are good at adopting already born orphans. They distinguish themselves from pagans in this regard. Those who do it will be rewarded.

1 point.

Unfortunately, American Christians are abysmal at adopting unborn orphans. In fact, our favorite social justice movement, the pro-lifers, actively resist attempts by Christians to impose God’s laws on the land to make abortion murder, condemning countless unborn to death by their rebellious and ungodly deception of the church.

0 points.

Balance: 0.5 points.

Widows

There is no systematic study on how effectively American Christians care for their widows, so we have to rely on anecdotal information.

First, we have to understand exactly what widow-abuse means in the bible. The widow who gave to temple everything she had was praised by Christ because of her self sacrificial giving; but the temple she was giving to was about to be torn down by Christ! So the question remains: was she giving to something good?

No; in fact he had just cursed the religious system and said that the leaders of the temple were devouring widow’s houses. So the faith of the widow was admirable in its intent, but useless in its outcome.

This means that widows are especially vulnerable to religious charlatans. We see this in the American church today. Frauds like Paula White and other prosperity gospel criminals routinely take in millions of dollars from poor widows and elderly.

This does not bode well. But surely this hellbound section of the American church is an anomaly, not a representative sample? Where else can we look?

Paul says that anyone who does not provide for his own family is worse than an unbeliever. In the USA, the god of social security is the means whereby Americans justify taking money from their neighbors to care for their vulnerable elderly, rather than do it themselves. So, our entire system is already worse than unbelievers.

But how do Christians deal with this system? Do we eschew it? Are we better than the unbelievers?

Laughably, our IRS allows our priests and pastors—but not us, the laypeople--to take a conscientious objection to social security (ah, America. Land of the free). We don’t know for sure how many of them exercise this option, but anecdotal information indicates it’s rare.

And, polls indicate that Christians in general have no problem with social security as a concept.

So, the score on widows: 0

Out of 3 possible points, we score ½ point.

America has existed for 250 years. By comparison, the wicked land of the Amorites survived at least 430 years between the event of God’s promise to Abraham of inheriting that land, and God’s slaughter of those wicked people.

That’s good news! God is slow to anger, for normal people. But his wrath is quickly kindled against leaders. Since the age of monarchy is gone, and the average American is more akin to a political leader than the peasants of old, we had better take heed. The clock is ticking.

We may have some time to improve our score. But we shouldn’t tarry, or presume. The sojourners, widows, and orphans are the meek in the land who will inherit the earth. It would be far better for us to join them in that inheritance, than be the people who have it all taken away.

Jesus knew the heart of the widow and he honored her, even though he also knew she was wasting her money by giving it to worthless men. We should be like the widow in our faith, but we should avoid being like her in her naivete.

Of course, if you don’t agree that how we treat widows, sojourners and orphans is the correct way to score how American Christians are doing, there are always alternate scoring systems available.

In truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.