Jan 4, 2013
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It would not surprise me if Jesus recruited his disciple Matthew, Capernaum’s chief tax collector, just to get one more taxman off the street.
After all, any honest interpretation of Scripture should reject today’s popular notion that Jesus promoted a system of massive wealth redistribution that makes the government God. That’s “socialism,” not Christianity.
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It does surprise me, then, when liberal politicians don the caps of rookie theologians, and argue that Jesus would not be in favor of capitalism.
Liberals go on tirades against inoffensive manger scenes set up at Christmas time, make an all-out war against any religious symbolism in public schools and deny that America was founded upon Judeo-Christian values—despite those values being etched in marble all over Washington.
But, when they want to justify the redistribution of wealth…then, they name-drop their buddy, Jesus.
Amazing.
These revisionist “theologians” are not reading the Bible Christians have read for centuries. Maybe they should make reading the Gospels one of their New Year’s resolutions.
When they do, they’ll discover several “troublesome” things.
First, Jesus encouraged his followers to exclusively practice voluntary, personal charity. At no point—either in Jesus’ ministry or in the ministry of the early church—were Christians forced to surrender their money so that elders might distribute it to others. On the contrary, they were encouraged (even in Acts 4:32-35) to give voluntarily, and they did so.
Secondly, in two awfully capitalistic moments, Jesus once stated outright that “a worker deserves his wages (Luke 10:7),” and delivered an entire parable praising the profitable, investment strategy of some workers while condemning the single man who didn’t make a profit as “wicked and lazy.” Jesus even says, when the servant returns with no profit, “you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. (Matthew 25:14-27)” Jesus liked bankers.
Thirdly, Jesus didn’t see the government as the answer to society’s greatest moral and social ills. In fact, up until the very end of his life, he fought against his own disciples who were imagining a revolution that would end in Jesus being set up as an earthly king. He once said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight… (John 18:36)”
Jesus’ first followers also had a similar view of the role of money and of government. In fact, almost immediately we find other examples of property rights, the apostles condemning people who expected to eat without working, and proclaiming that Christians should give willingly, not out of coercion.
Jesus, for sure, believed that the government had an important (and limited) role in society, and that’s why he said, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” (notice he didn’t say “render unto Caesar what is yours”). Jesus also believed in and taught the most generous kind of lifestyle.
But, in so doing, he diminished the importance of the “public sector” and emphasized the role of the “private sector.” He believed that it was the role of God’s children to take care of those who were also God’s children who were struggling through life. He taught the primacy of personal charity.
Modern research backs Jesus up on this. Studies have shown time and again that the vast expansion of government always “crowds out” personal charity (there was, for instance, a 30% decline in charitable church activity in the immediate aftermath of the New Deal), and private charities are far more efficient and effective than public programs.
So, when big-government liberals use Jesus’s name to make government our de facto God-on-earth, they are, in effect, creating systems that make it more difficult for regular people to give more help to others.
Suffice it to say, if Jesus dropped in on our 21st Century like he did in the first, chances are he wouldn’t be a card-carrying socialist. To the contrary: Jesus was, is and would be a capitalist.
FOX News Talk
Jesus was neither a Socialist nor a Capitalist, you give some interesting quotes from scripture but here is another: Joh 2:14 And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business.
Joh 2:15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables.
Joh 2:16 And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!”
This is from the NKJV but it illustrates that he was not a “capitalist”. Jesus wanted us to live in a manner consistent with the idea of community, not of making money. He was interested in a fair wage for a fair days work, but you also see him teaching that a rich man can pay his workers as he wills, as in the story of the workers hired first and then last. All received the same wage.
I think we need to stop trying to make Jesus fit into our day, and try to understand more what he truly was doing. He was changing the world. He was teaching people how to live in community, and how to use what they had for their own families and for those who had need.
“Dirty God” is an interesting title, but it works because Jesus walked the streets and highways of his time, trying to get people to treat each other with love and respect. My favorite story is the one we call the prodigal son. When the father saw the son coming home he ran to meet him, forgave his indiscretion, and shod his feet, put a robe on his back and threw a party. That is what God has for all of us. We can pray for help and guidance, but not for monetary riches. We can also pray that our neighbor might be cured of disease, and go and help that neighbor when they need help. Let us not try to make Jesus what we want him to be.