Don't confuse Western ideals of meritocracy with Christan ideals of individual responsibility.

They are very different.

For those asking:

"Meritocracy" is the myth that societies like ours distribute power, goods, and services proportional to talent and effort. It serves to legitimize current distributions, presuming everyone "deserves" their current share, and the poor have themselves 1/

2/ to blame. In fact, the best part is that most of us actually believe that the 1% has 90% of the wealth because they are worthy of it, while we believe we struggle to make ends meet because we should have been smarter, got a better degree, worked harder, etc. We ourselves

3/ legitimize the vast inequity we all are subject to, though we have little power to alter it. Add in race, gender, etc., and Meritocracy means all is well & normal & natural & fair regardless if whole groups disproportionately suffer under discriminatory social circumstances.

4/ On the other hand, the Christian ideal of individual responsibility is to act justly, morally, prudently, and work diligently according to your opportunity. The most righteous and "deserving" may never receive the greater social distribution, though they are certainly great

5/ in the Kingdom. Further, those who do have the greater part, according to Christian individual responsibility, realize it is a gift that does not properly belong to them, and ought to be selflessly shared with the orphan, the widow, the oppressed, and the stranger.

6/ And as such, from begging to the end of the Bible, we see an acknowledgement of groups and classes that are routinely misused, defrauded, and abused and Christian individual responsibility does not mean they are lazy and dumb, but that "the World" is a system at enmity with

7/ God.

More often than not, the Bible presents those who should be seen as the most "deserving" in a meritocracy as the most wicked and oppressive and undeserving, despite the social standing, power, and wealth they have received.

8/ Every day I see brilliant folks working 5 times as hard as I will work today. And I know they are making very little for what they give to our society. Should I, as a Christian say, "Well, I deserve it, they don't. That's called individual responsibility!", especially

9/ considering how most of these folks I refer to are grossly marginalized, even in liberal California, as uneducated, unworthy, immigrants? And we don't even want to get into 400 years of blatant society-wide exploitation of people groups, even by law.

10/10 Anyhow, the social philosophy of meritocracy =/= the Christian concept of individual responsibility. Not even close.

I see a "begging" in there that should be a "beginning"