Do you really think the emotions raised by an encounter with a beggar are/were all that much different in social-democratic Paris, liberal New York, conservative Baton Rouge, pagan first-century Rome, or Christian ninth-century Constantinople?
Over on The Christian Prophet blog today Jesus takes Christian socialism seriously to task.
I haven't been in Europe in twenty-three years. Perhaps things have changed. From your description, however, they have not. We noticed that the governments in Brittain and on the Continent took care of things that most people could do for themselves, while leaving more serious matters to voluntary contributions. An example would be disabled veterans. There was a one day collection , in October, I think, for disabled vets of the air force. Still, ordinary people could go to their GP for nothing. (And they did! Colds, hangnails, whatever kind of nothing they had, they went to the doctor's office. If they had acne, the NHS bought them a sunlamp.)People on the dole got their gas and lights paid directly, without even getting a bill. Their was a big scandal, at least on the TV news, about some woman getting her lights turned off in November, becauuse their was a minor foul-up, she got a bill, and did nothing about it. Very serious newcasters would look intently into the camera and tell people that if they got a light bill, they shouldn't ignore it, but take it to their welfare office right away. I could sort of fake my way through Italian, using my Spanish and French, and I saw similar things in Italy, and, of course, in France. It was certainly the beginning of our re-education.
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