INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD CARE IN URBAN SOUTH AFRICA

healthcare, and social services. (2009) As the 16th Century Church began to position
itself as the provider of these services, it prepared the way for universities, hospitals, and
orphanages to begin to expand.
The Christian basis for charitable acts and service towards the disadvantaged are
found within scripture. The Gospel of Matthew (25:40b) includes the teaching of Christ
that states
“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
The Epistle of James also maintains a similar principle. (1:27)
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the
world.”
At Christianity’s inception in the Western World, service to the poor and devotion
to God were unmistakably linked. Jacoby traces three major shifts in the evolution of that
ideal, the first over the course of the 14th Century as the poor became perceived as a
threat, and a moral edict was placed against the laziness seen to cause poverty. The
second big shift was the 16th century boom in poverty when the church began to assign
the responsibility to deal with poverty to laypersons and politicians. The third transition
was in the mid 1500’s, when a distinction began to be made between the deserving and
undeserving poor. The latter category was primarily made up of widows and orphans. As
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