The Church in this country has not realised how conditions have changed, and that what was once good has now become destructive. Government and the welfare state were the outworking of Christian concern for the nation and in particular the poor. But over recent decades they have changed into something else. They have become a huge burden weighing down on the economy, and crushing the hopes and ambitions of our working people. The state monopoly on health provision and education is taking so much out of the economy that they are preventing it from growing. They are preventing us from providing services for one another and so from providing for ourselves. It is weighing down on all of us, and in particular it is holding back the energies of the young. It is taking away from them the resources by which they could invest, and start new businesses and hope to support themselves in future years. It has become a monster, in which one generation (now retired and elderly) is confiscating resources from its children’s and grandchildren’s generation. It is now spending significantly beyond what we have earned and saved. It is dependent on borrowing, and so on borrowing from overseas and so on increasing our national burden of debt, and those each year it is adding to the amount of our national product that we have to spend on the interest on that debt, and it is detracting the amount that we have left to spend on anything else, like investment for the future. It is doing so in an attempt to prolong life for one generation at the expense of the living standards and life expectancy of subsequent generations. People are desperate to prolong their lives is because they are no longer confident of the promises of God. Loss of faith means that a generation fearful of age and death and reluctant to let go, and is demanding that the health service give them more years of life, and this is bankrupting their own children.
The state and government are good when they are small. They become counter-productive when they become too great, and take too large a proportion of our savings out of the economy. They are counter-productive when they intervene even when we do not need them to. We do not want to be helped all the time. We want to help ourselves. We all want to be independent. Anything that intends to keep us dependent, is holding us back and frustrating our desire to be free. We do not want to be suppliants, always applying for more funding and in paralysis until it comes.
Who will release us from this bind?
Any and every Christian disciple who points this out to us will help us here. And anyone who prays, Father, forgive us our debts...