Pope Leo is wrong about Elon Musk

 Recently, in an interview for a biography, Pope Leo worried about widening inequality in the world. The Pope said, 

"Add on top of that a couple of other factors, one which I think is very significant is the continuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive. For example, CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving, the last figure I saw, it’s 600 times more than what average workers are receiving. Yesterday the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world. What does that mean and what’s that about? If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble."

Jesus said, sell everything!

 

Jesus told the rich young ruler in Mark 10 to sell everything he had and give it to the poor. In Luke 12, he encouraged his disciples to sell their things and give to the poor. In Mark 12, Jesus told his disciples that the poor widow who tossed two copper coins into the temple treasury had given more that all the rich people because she gave everything she had, appearing to commend the widow and align with the teaching that we should give everything we have to the poor. 

Providence: the cure for theologians' allergy to economics

Theologians have an allergy to the science of economics. They will quote philosophers and sociologists all day long. But they refuse to read any economics, the best developed and most useful of the social sciences. Even when they think they have given the science a chance, it's easy to see they haven't. For example, when Craig L. Blomberg, Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, wrote "Neither Capitalism nor Socialism: A Biblical Theology of Economics," he argued that he had studied and his views were based on sound economics. They were not. 

If theologians are not Marxists, most will insist like Blomberg that the Bible is neutral on the question of capitalism verses socialism. That doesn't explain why theologians from the 16th century until the late 19th century proclaimed laissez-faire capitalism as Christian economics. 

How theologians gave birth to the science of economics

It's well known that theologians such as Copernicus, a church canon (senior cleric attached to a cathedral), gave birth to modern science. Less acknowledged is the role of clerics in launching the science of economics. Most scholars claim the Enlightenment as the parent. But the real history of paternity reaches farther back.

Church fathers in the early years of Christianity had embraced the economics of Aristotle and Cicero rather than that of the Bible. Their reasons for doing so have been lost, but it may have been due to the tendency of churches suffering persecution to elect young converts from the nobility as bishops for their political power. The sons of nobility had a high regard for the great philosophers of antiquity and tended to baptize their economics. The chief economic errors of antiquity included a contempt for commerce, the prohibition of charging interest on loans, a value theory that said things had intrinsic value, and a theory of a “just price” that made profits immoral. The condemnation of commerce was so strong that some church fathers thought it impossible for merchants to enter heaven. So merchants who became wealthy tended to give half their wealth to the Church as a means of buying their way into heaven and to use the remainder to buy land and titles of nobility to protect their wealth from other aristocrats.

Jesus did not cleanse the Temple of commerce

 

At the mention of capitalism, many on the left refer to Jesus' cleansing of the Temple as evidence that Jesus opposed not only capitalism, but commerce. They are in good company. Philosophers since Aristotle have despised commerce and considered it evil. Church fathers baptized Aristotle's economics and for 1,500 years declared that commerce condemned those who practiced it to hell. BTW, Aristotle despised craftsmen like Joseph and Jesus, too. 

Then, astronomers began to prove Aristotle's astronomy wrong and opened a crack in veneration of the pagan philosopher. Theologians at the University of Salamanca during the Reformation drove a truck through the crack by distilling the principles of capitalism from natural law with Biblical support. 

Capitalism is not the root of all evil

Philosophers have struggled with the cause of evil in the world. After all, if God is good and God is great, why does evil exist? Many young people think they have the answer: capitalism is the cause of evil in the world, according to an article in Reason magazine. Here are some quotes:

"'Do you feel horrible? That's capitalism, baby!' says the wildly popular mental health influencer TherapyJeff in a TikTok with nearly 50,000 likes. 

"In another video, this time with over 14,500 likes, a young woman declares that 'capitalism is the root of all evil' before adding, 'I'm also a business owner...

When the US made God king

It's popular today to credit the secular Enlightenment with the creation of the United States. But the founders didn't see it that way, especially Samuel Adams. 

Adams said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence on August 1, 1776: “We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds His subjects assuming that freedom of thought and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come!”