[farmer18th]

without need for ham-handed political sermonizing.

You're over-estimating the discipleship of the average believer. Paul said "him that doesn't work, neither let him have bread." How many of your average congregants would call Paul "judgmental" for saying that today? The average pastor, and the average congregant, today, isn't much better than the "stupid" Galations Paul lamented.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, hie thee to a good parish. There are plenty of them around. We had to do some legwork, but we found one.

Leaving the Episcopalians helped.

[AnAmericanMother]

. . . and by the way, your paraphrase of 2nd Thessalonians 3:10 creates a problem.

The original can be roughly translated as "he who doesn't want to work" not "he who doesn't work." The Greek is qelei ergazesqai - qelw meaning to will, desire or intend. The Latin is the same -- "non vult operari". In the days of King James and the Douay-Rheims, "will" and "would" had a stronger meaning than simple futurity, as they do now.

Because of course there are plenty of folks who due to illness, infirmity or age cannot work. And the Church is the first to provide assistance to those folks. They generally do a much better job than the government, too.