In this week’s Acton Commentary, “Commodifying Compassion,” I look at the instinct to judge a mitment to charity by the level of material expenditure, particularly by the government. One of the things I think is true in this conversation is that our mitments do show something about our spiritual concerns. So I can agree with Brian McLaren, then, that “America’s Greatest Deficit is Spiritual, Not Merely Financial.”

But where I can’t go with him is to the conclusion that changing levels of material assistance by definition has some kind of spiritual consequence or cause. Thus, even while McLaren writes that we need to “face our basic spirituality deficit,” he still judges the passion deficit” in terms of cutting material “services to the poor, the elderly, the sick, minorities, and to children.”

Over at The French Revolution, David French asked pointedly in this regard, “Does more spending equal passion?” He focuses particularly on the “how” question of social spending:

All too often it seems that the religious left virtually takes for granted that the hundreds of billions of dollars spent fighting poverty and funding education (to take two examples) represent money well spent and that cutting that funding is “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor” or “sacrificing our children’s future.”

French makes some very good points, particularly about the cultural (rather than merely material) aspects of poverty.

But in my piece this week I also focus on the “who” and the “why” questions of material assistance. I contend, “An EBT card issued by a government official shouldn’t be judged to be the same as a ‘cup of cold water’ given by a Christian in the name of Jesus Christ.” I also conclude by examining what the case of the widow’s offering (Luke 21:1-4 NIV) teaches us.