without faith it is impossible to please God

"It is for the king to ensure justice, and the saint to ensure charity." G. K. Chesterton Scripture designates the role of government as an institution designed to punish wickedness. Over the last one hundred years in the United States, the government has usurped the role of the church, offering "charitable benefits" in the form of many social programs. Robbing Peter to pay Paul secures the vote of Paul, it's been observed. Moreover, government "benevolence" ensures that the bloated monstrosity of bureaucracy grows unchecked, thereby acquiring ever more power and less accountability with its citizens. The government increasingly is revealing itself hostile to the nation's Christian roots, and slack on crime. Meanwhile, the trend of modern evangelicalism has become "Justice."