Are Christians Today Anti-Poor Unlike Jesus?

[ElCodeMonkey]

I perceive that the vast majority of "right-wing" people are "Christian" and that all non-Christians I know are "left-wing" (though I presume some cross over, of course). The right-wing is known for hating wellfare for the poor and the left-wing the opposite. It seems the atheistic left-wing cares to help the poor while the Christian right-wing likes to demonize them as lazy and thus do nothing. Yet at the same time, it's the churches who tend to do soup kitchens and homeless shelters yet they're the same ones who seem to dislike the handouts and abhor the idea of giving them actual places to live if they don't work to earn it. Jesus never made anyone earn anything as far as I recall. So what's the deal these days? Do Christians hate the poor? Matthew, Mark, and Luke seem to show the poor as nearly the main reason Jesus came to teach and suddenly they get a back burner by most Christians simply calling them lazy. Am I off base here?

[marco]

Do Christians hate the poor? Matthew, Mark, and Luke seem to show the poor as nearly the main reason Jesus came to teach and suddenly they get a back burner by most Christians simply calling them lazy. Am I off base here?

Well Jesus wasn't all that keen on giving to the poor if he didn't get it first. He shows some selfishness in:

"The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them whenever you want. But you will not always have Me." Mark 14: 7

I don't see see the point of identifying Christian and atheist with right and left wing politics. One might say right wing are intellectuals; left wing not so. It does seem that left wing lecturers at universities have greater density than their right wing counterparts, but maybe that's an entirely false impression, based on pronouncements.


As for Jesus he was for the poor on Sunday and for himself on Monday. True, he occasionally stopped and made a blind man see or a deaf man hear. But maybe that was just him showing off - it got him good publicity.