Posted on 05/02/2011 7:03:06 AM PDT by flowerplough
A recent survey claims that a plurality of Americans believe Christian values are at odds with capitalism. That left me wondering whether we first ought to ask whether Americans even know what Christianity and capitalism are. When one learns that one’s accountant espies a deep conflict between Newtonian physics and Jungian psychology, one is right to ask what he knows of velocity and synchronicity, and whether he ought not busy himself doing one’s taxes rather than spouting off to someone taking a survey.
The two ideas seem simple enough. Christians follow Jesus and capitalists make trades. Except that we all know professing Christians who—were you to lay it out for them—would balk at some elements of the Nicene Creed, and you can’t throw a stick down Wall Street (the reader may linger on that pleasurable thought) without hitting some well-heeled beneficiary of taxpayer welfare.
You can offer up your life to Christ without understanding Christian dogma, just as you can be a masterful entrepreneur without being able to articulate the concept of subjective gains from trade. The survey-taker might get a fruitful answer by asking how your prayer life is going, or whether you made money last quarter, but he ought not conclude that a tuna knows the first thing about lunar tides and currents.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.worldmag.com ...
Maybe said plurality, "spouting off to someone taking a survey," gets the idea that Christian values are at odds with capitalism from 1st Christian Jesus, who once said, "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Of course he can be. Two of the Ten Commandments are about the protection of personal property!
Why would a Christian be anything but a Capitalist?
All Biblical ethical mandates vis-a-vis others are grounded in the dignity of the individual who is made in God’s image. Such a position is in no way compatible with socialism or any other form of statism.
The story of the talents comes to mind.
You can be “rich” and be a Christian. The trick is that you are happy whether you have it or lose it all.
Christ’s admonishment was to those who worship the dough over God.
Many churches, missions and ministries would go unfunded, were it not for the money given to them by capitalists...
Jesus was a carpenter so I would say yes.
Has this person read the parable of the talents?
I think it’s required.
While obviously the parable of the talents was talking about spiritual gain, not capital gains, the wisest and best servant was the one who made his boss the most money.
A Christian can’t NOT be a capitalist.
Anything else means the “christian” is for serfdom.
Do you even know what the verse means?
He who will not work; let him not eat.
I always thought the bible warned against communism?
If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood,
let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:
12 let us swallow them up alive as the grave;
and whole, as those that go down into the pit:
13 we shall find all precious substance,
we shall fill our houses with spoil:
14 cast in thy lot among us;
let us all have one purse:
15 my son, walk not thou in the way with them;
refrain thy foot from their path:
16 for their feet run to evil,
and make haste to shed blood.
This book is available on Amazon. I recently received it and haven't read it thoroughly yet.
The author supports free markets. He opposes socialism (government run health care, deficits, etc.) He feels that "capitalism" necessarily involves some government oversight (extreme Libertarians would disagree) and that once government becomes involved in the workings of capitalism, their interference grows and grows and that Fascism/Socialism is inevitable. I believe the author makes the claim that although one might want Capitalism to exist, it simply cannot -- government will always morph it into something bad.
Distributism is based on a papal encyclical, it was pushed by GK Chesterton and Hillair Belloc and was intended to be a moral economic system. John C. Médaille argues that anyone who really supports free markets should be a Distributist.
Note: I've tried to represent the author's views, based on the short time I have spent skimming the book. If I've gotten any of this wrong, I apologize.
I do believe the He was talking about the difficulty people have in ordering their lives toward righteousness, rather than only the pursuit of worldly things.
The example of the poor widow joyfully tithing her widow's mite versus the rich man tithing less that he should have comes to mind. The main blame against the rich man was not his wealth, but his failure to give The Lord his proper share, and his scorn for the poor widow.
Again, in the early church in Jerusalem there was the example of the rich couple who said they had sold all they owned and given it all to the congregation. They actually kept a portion of what they claimed they gave. God killed them for it. However, they were killed for lying about what they gave, not for being rich.
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