If Christians care about the poor, they will care about the stock market crash

 The Stock market, measured by the S&P 500, is down over 15% at the time of this writing, and is probably down more at the time of your reading. Should Christians care? They should. if they care about the poor.

A collapsing stock market, also called a bear market, remains one of the best predictors of a looming recession. Economists joke that bear markets have predicted 10 of the last eight recessions. Still, that’s a better record than economists have, who have predicted none of the recessions in the past century.

The top business cycle models include the stock and bond markets as leading indicators and the recent drop in both shouts that a recession is on the way. No one gets hurt more by a recession than the poor, who lose their jobs as unemployment rises and contributes to greater inequality. 

What Would Jesus Say About Inequality?

Source: AP Photo/David J. Phillip

How you answer the question “What would Jesus say about inequality?” depends on how you define the “words of Jesus.” Many “scholars” limit them to no more than “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Others include only the quotations in the Gospels attributed to Jesus. Most Christians see the entire Bible as the words of Jesus because, being God, he wrote it.

Let’s start with the Gospel quotations. One passage that comes close to dealing with inequality is the parable of the Ten Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). In it, a rich man gave one servant five bags of gold, one two bags, and the third got one bag of gold to invest, “each according to his ability.” Jesus recognized that different abilities will result in different outcomes, although he is vague about the rewards they receive.

Giving To The Poor Is Charity And Mercy, Not Legal Justice

Last week we saw Dr. Timothy Keller, founder of the Redeemer Presbyterian churches in New York City, defined helping the poor as a matter of justice and not mercy.

Catholics and the evangelical left place great weight on the fact that the Hebrew word for justice, transliterated as mishpat. “Now these are the judgments [mishpat] which you shall set before them” (Exodus 21:1) and Moses goes on to list criminal activity.

When a theologian begins to slice and dice words in the original language you should grab your wallet; you’re about to get robbed. Greek tends to be a precise language compared to others, but even Greek words have multiple meanings so that speakers relied on the context to fit the appropriate meaning in place. Ancient Hebrew was a more ambiguous tongue, much like modern Arabic. Biblical writers often took advantage of the ambiguity to make puns in the same way that puns work in English.

Tim Keller Is Wrong: Helping The Poor Is Voluntary Compassion, Not Legally Required Justice

Does the Bible define giving to the poor as an act of mercy or justice? The question might seem like another medieval debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But the answer is crucial to the future of the country. Both socialists and capitalists claim to want to help the poor; they come to blows over the methods. If doing so is a matter of justice as socialists claim, then the government should enforce it because the sole reason for government in the Bible is to promote justice. If it’s justice, then the poor have a right, similar to the right to life, to the property of those who are not poor.

But if giving to the poor is an act of mercy then the state should have no role in the matter. It is a test of one’s love for God and people, but it’s voluntary and has no moral value if coerced by the state.

Dr. Timothy Keller, founder of the Redeemer Presbyterian churches in New York City, insists that helping the poor is a justice issue. In The Gospel and the Poor Keller wrote: