Does the size of government really matter?

The expansion of government. We've seen a lot of that lately. But does it really matter? Does the size of government really affect the way people view more important things-like their spiritual life?

Jim Tonkowich, from The Institute on Religion and Democracy, did a great job of answering this question in his article entitled "Rights, Religion, and the Soul of the Nation" which we have posted below:

“[T]he president’s audacious plans for the expansion of government—from the stimulus to health-care” writes University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox in a recent Wall Street Journal article, “are likely to spell trouble for the vitality of American religion.” Defending that thesis, Wilcox cites a recent study indicating that religiosity defined as “religious attendance, affiliation and trust in God” is inversely proportional to the size and scope of government. Large welfare states such as the Scandinavian countries of Sweden , Norway , and Denmarkhave empty churches. By contrast, the United States , the Philippines , and Brazil with more limited governments have large church-going populations.

Wilcox writes:

Public spending amounts to more than [50%] of the GDP in Sweden , where only 4% of the population regularly attends church. By contrast, public spending amounts to 18% of the Philippines ’ GDP, and 68% of Filipinos regularly attend church.

It seems axiomatic: if the government will give us this day our daily bread, why would we bother asking God to provide it? And why would we thank God for the things of life if we rely on the government’s apparent largess instead?  Prayer , thanks, and praise have no place in a worldview that sees government as the solution to all life’s problems. 

It is precisely this worldview, reliance on government that we are facing today. Wilcox observes:

A successful Obama revolution providing cradle-to-career education and cradle-to-grave health care would reduce the odds that Americans would turn to their local religious congregations and fellow believers for economic, social, emotional and spiritual aid. Fewer Americans would also be likely to feel obliged to help their fellow citizens through local churches and charities.

Put another way, as Georgetown University ’s James V. Schall has written, “Grace and charity have no place in a socialist world, the kind our current leaders seem partial to, even when they deny it.” Schall points out that in a socialistic world, everyone is owed everything by rights. Health care? It is a right. A college education? It is a right. An abortion? It is a right. A comfortable retirement? It is a right. Owning a home? That is a right too even if it is clear that you are a bad credit risk. That being the case, the thinking goes, denying health care, a college education, an abortion, a comfortable retirement, or a mortgage to purchase the home of choice is a breach of justice. “There ought to be a law!” and it seems that Congress and the Obama administration are only too happy to comply. If people have a right to these and assorted other things, justice demands that someone be required to fork them over. 

In a socialist world, no charity can exist because there can be no need that is unfulfilled by the commonality’s duty. It is a world in which there can be no gratitude. I can thank someone for giving me what is really his. I cannot thank him for giving me what is by rights already mine.

This is precisely the worldview we deplore in our children. Two-year-olds come with a highly developed sense of personal rights as standard equipment. A toddler’s “Mine!” proclaims his or her belief in a solipsistic universe where there is only one being in the universe—the toddler—and that all things revolve around his or her needs, wants, and desires. But the idea that all things are mine by rights is infantile, something that we are supposed to grow out of on the way to adulthood where “my rights” take their appropriate place alongside my responsibilities and the rights of others. Wise parents challenge and eventually break the childish habit of demanding. They insist on “please” and “thank you.” They diligently teach their children to distinguish between “mine” and “my sister’s,” seeing to it that property rights are respected while sharing is encouraged. It is no small task, but the only alternative is toddler as tyrant.

George Will wrote in Statecraft as Soulcraft, “Democratic government must be a tutor as well as a servant, because citizenship is a state of mind.” The lessons being taught by our elected leaders today pose a clear and present danger to citizenship, religion, and, thus, to the soul of the nation.

Sincerely,

Jim Tonkowich