Modernity and Medievalism

A thought coming together by reading Angels in the Architecture and I'll Take My Stand at the same time is the crisis of modernity. It really matters very little if we put it as Wilson and Jones do (Modernity vs. Medievalism), as the Southern Agrarians do (Industrialism vs. Agrarianism), or as we moderns would likely phrase it (liberalism vs. conservatism), the end result is the same.
The main thing each group is talking about is a level of responsibility. In Angels and I'll Take My Stand, both groups are arguing that responsibility is local.
The modern world wants responsibility to consist entirely of the rights and privileges of life, if they acknowledge its existence at all. They want to cut it short of the duties and labors of life. We have seen this most obviously in the creation of the welfare state. Growing up in Middle Tennessee, I worked at a grocery store while still in high school. I remember moms who would give their children a dollar food stamp each to buy a pack of gum or piece of candy. Then they would collect the change (food stamps always had cash value once they got below a dollar) and buy cigarettes (which you couldn't spend food stamps on). The welfare state has created this image. If the medieval, conservative, agrarian conception of life were still in place, we would know better.
The medieval, conservative, agrarian conception of life, its worldview, would state that an individual is responsible for himself or herself. That responsibility could and would be gladly shouldered by an entire community of like-minded folks, but never the state. Prior to Reconstruction, men say it was possible to go one's entire life without seeing evidence of the federal government. Now it is impossible to make it through a single day without their hand being felt.

Why Welfare Systems Don't Work

The Puritans had much to teach concerning social action, as did godly Christian leaders from before their time and after. John Calvin, for example, created a "welfare system" in Geneva that upheld the biblical demands to feed the poor and care for the widow and the orphan, and all within the god-given structure of the Church. The Puritans understood the value of working for the common welfare of the community and men like William Ames instructed believers to have a "living religion" not one that was mere empty words. Works of piety and charity were often commended by the Puritans. As recently as the nineteenth century, Thomas Chalmers, through his tireless actions, reduced Glasgow's welfare budget needs to nothing by the careful and directed actions of the local church.
Modern welfare movements will fail for a couple of reasons. For one thing they are trying to do the impossible. Contrary to modernist assumptions Christ has told us that we will always have poor people among us. Therefore any attempt to eradicate poverty through welfare systems or socialism is doomed to failure. Another reason, however, is that the wrong agency is doing the deeds. It should shame us that the state is doing the deeds of the local church. The state was not meant to feed the hungry or clothe the naked. This is the job of the Church and to the extent we have let the state get involved, we have abdicated our responsibility.
Until the Church stands up and takes responsibility for mercy ministry, we will continue to see the state's destructive policies tearing families apart. Many families never make it out of poverty or abject living conditions through state welfare systems. That is because they come devoid of proper instruction. Part of mercy ministry is instruction in righteousness.
I'll get down from the soap box now.