Paying with Fire

Glenn Beck and his sidekick in this video defend the action of the fire department that refused to fight a fire because the homeowner had not paid an annual $ 75 fee. What makes the video particularly chilling is a portrait of Ben Franklin with the word "CHARITY" printed on the poster in Beck's radio studio. I mean, it is almost like a SNL spoof it is so awfully ironic.

Ben Franklin was the first to start an all-volunteer fire department and that is what makes this debate so historically hot. Can the public good survive and an era of me first? Beck should have a portrait of himself in his studio with the title AVARICE. Also ironic that Beck is losing his eyesight. Maybe his eyes are starting to burn from fumes of his idealogical indignation.

Charity, to be charity, is the doing of good to others without renumeration. That is why it is called Charity after all. It is a Christian virtue. I am certain that firefighting should not be a charity issue to start with. There is a time and place to discuss how to fund a rural fire department for a community. Like a police department, it should exist as an essential service, available to all. It is called taxes...and there are ways to deal with those who don't pay their taxes. A man watching his house burn down is cruel and unusual punishment. I think it possible to have volunteers and for a fire department to receive public monies.

Christians had be mighty careful about applauding the fires of justice because our lives are hardly as flame proof as we think. Christ perpetually warned of the dangers of highly-flammable self-righteousness. How our smoke-filled egos from burning pride miss this is dangerous. When we call down fire from heaven, the head that it may land on might just be our own. Better yet, pick up a hose and go find a fire worth fighting.

Luke 9:54 And when his disciples James and John saw [this], they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?

Luke 9:55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

"The thing ye demand, though in keeping with the legal, is unsuited to the genius of the evangelical dispensation. The sparks of unholy indignation would seize readily enough on this example of Elias, though our Lord's rebuke (as is plain from Luke 9:56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village) is directed to the principle involved rather than the animal heat which doubtless prompted the reference." Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary