National Conservatism is not Christian

Tariffs, industrial policy, sovereign wealth funds, the government buying shares in corporations, all aspects of National Conservatism, dominates the Republican party today. Because it champions family values and opposes homosexuality and transgenderism, many Christians see it as Christian political philosophy. But it's not. 

NatCons don't hold to a Biblical view of humanity and morality.  They believe that free markets and globalization have destroyed the morals of American, not their sin nature, and the government can improve people's morals. 

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!”

New York City may elect socialist mayor

Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, became the Democrat nominee for mayor of New York with endorsements from self-proclaimed democrat socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Why is democratic socialism still popular? It destroyed every economy in South America over the last century and therefore is a major cause of the tsunami of immigrants from the south.  The latest disasters are Venezuela and Bolivia. Chile recovered from its infatuation with democratic socialism in the 1970s and has been the only Latin country with a growing standard of living since. Recently, Argentina grew tired of the destruction caused by democrat socialism and elected a libertarian president to turn the country around. Europe's economy stagnated a generation ago because of democratic socialist policies. So why do people still cling to such nonsense?

Capitalists care more for the poor than socialists

 

According to modern socialists, only they care about the poor. Capitalism exploits them. The opposite is the truth. How can the two sides have such different views of reality? 

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Haidt, like most professors in the humanities and social sciences, is a socialist. Haidt shows that compassion, and only compassion, drives socialists. While capitalists value compassion, they temper it with concerns for justice and truth. 

Pastors and theologians should care about economics

 The recent death of Alasdair MacIntyre reminded me of the extreme contempt philosophers and theologians have for the science of economics. MacIntyre was a philosopher and convert to Catholicism who wrote several books that have influenced theologians and pastors to embrace socialism. Yet, MacIntyre, like Karl Barth and most theologians and pastors, never read a book on economics. He accepted the lies of the drunken atheist Marx as economic gospel. 

There are several reasons Christians should be familiar with the science of economics. Christian theologians gave birth to the science. I wrote about that here, so I won't go into the details in this post. 

The Pope and Capitalism

Pope Francis died recently. His legacy will be debated for years. I want to focus on his hatred of capitalism and how Catholic Christians should respond. 

It has been widely reported that the Pope called capitalism the "dung of the devil." That's not exactly what he said. Here is the section of a speech in which he used the phrase:

"The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil.” An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home."

The Bible Teaches Neither Capitalism or Socialism?

The Bible doesn't command either capitalism or socialism, say some. So we must choose a third way, something in between, the best of both worlds. Right? Most theologians straddle the fence like that. 

An old article by Craig L. Blomberg, Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary,  prompted this blog because it seems Blomberg's points speak for many theologians today. His article, "Neither Capitalism nor Socialism: A Biblical Theology of Economics," gives seven (a Biblical number) reasons for his ambivalence. 

The Samaritan's Dilemma and universal basic income

 In Luke chapter ten, Jesus responded to the question, who is my neighbor, with the story of the Good Samaritan. The story condemns a priest and Levite for refusing to help the wounded man while praising the Samaritan, whom Jews despised, for providing medical help and paying for him to stay at an inn while he recovered. 

The parable ends well. But the economist and Nobel Laureate James Buchanan wanted to know the rest of the story. He asked, what if the victim refused to leave the inn? What if he decided to stay at the inn forever and let the Samaritan support him? After all, the Samaritan had given the inn keeper money to pay for the victim's room and board and told the inn keeper that if that amount didn't pay all of the expenses, the Samaritan would repay him when he passed by the next time. 

Jesus said nothing about that possibility because in his day there was no need to fear people would give too much to the poor. They didn't give enough. And the leaders stole what little the poor had left. Jesus didn't exaggerate when he said the high priest had turned the temple into a den of thieves. 

Still, Christians in the early church began to face the problem of charity abuse. When Peter had the church in Acts chose deacons, it was supporting mostly widows. In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul warned that the church should refuse to feed idle men who could work. And Paul left strict instructions for the church on how to care for widows. “But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God” (1 Timothy 5:4). Apparently, widows and lazy men had been abusing the church's generosity.

USAID violates Biblical principles of government

Some Christian organizations lament the death of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Should they? What Biblical principles might apply? 

Let's assume the agency only kept poor children from starving, as the left claims, and ignore the charges of abuse and waste brought against it by Republicans. In the last article, I wrote about how tariffs will hurt the poor. So, shouldn't I support USAID? No. 

Sell everything and give to the poor

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. 

Trump's tariffs will hurt the poor

 

Immediately after his inauguration, President Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on February 1. He has repeated that he loves the word tariffs. "To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff. And it’s my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm to help it."

Does the Bible say anything about tariffs? Not explicitly. But it has references from which we can extrapolate principles. Jacob imported wheat from Egypt during the famine in Genesis 42. Solomon imported cedar and cypress lumber and gold from Tyre for building the temple in Jerusalem in I Kings 5. He bought horses from Egypt in I Kings 22. And in I Kings 9, the wisest king ever built ships to conduct international trade, imports and exports. 

California fires show danger of government owned land

Americans are searching for a scapegoat for the most devastating fires in California history. Republicans blame Democrat politicians and bureaucrats and DEI. Democrats finger climate change. But the real problem is government owned land. Government owned land is the most polluted, burned and abused land in the country. 

Weyerhaeuser and other corporations that grow trees for paper and lumber own tens of thousands of acres across the U.S. without headlining the news because of fires ravaging their forests. The Nature Conservancy, an environmental group, privately owns over 100,000 acres in a dozen preserves that rarely have major fires. Almost all the horrific fires in the West take place in national forests and state parks.