Jesus's Politics

My old friend the left-wing columnist, to whom I have referred here from time to time, recently ran a piece in which he noted without explanation that the free market was incompatible with Jesus's teachings.

I challenged him, of course. I do not think the Gospel can really be legitimately used to decide between economic systems; the question is what works to generate wealth. But economic systems are also bound up with politics, and the Bible does have something to say about politics. Notably, on the issue of paying taxes, Jesus sets up the basic concept of separation of church and state that has served the Western world so well: “render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's.”

This implies that government has a legitimate role. But it also significantly reduces the role of government, in the context of traditional Jewish teachings or the classical understanding. It declares government to be profane, and a creation of man, not part of the divine order.

In other words, the general spirit of Christianity seems to lean towards small government. On what is the fundamental point at issue, that makes Jesus a man much more of the modern right, than of the left.

Trust government? Basic reality check here: how was Jesus, God incarnate, treated by government in the Gospels? It tired to kill him in infancy, massacring thousands in the attempt. At maturity, it tortured and executed him as a common criminal. Government also did in John the Baptist, St. Paul, and the rest of the apostles, of course.

But of a stark choice, actually. More or less the choice between good and evil. God is good, and government is evil.

My friend, challenged, pointed primarily to the advice to a rich young man to sell all he had and give the money to the poor. He might also have mentioned, but did not, the fact that the early Christian community as described in Acts held their property in common. Gorbachev referred to Jesus as “the first communist.”

However, this is false. Jesus did not tell the rich young man to take someone _else's_ money and give it to the poor; he meant his own. Expressing charity stands in an inverse relationship with government redistribution of wealth: if government takes the money from the rich young man without his consent, and gives it to the poor, nobody earns merit from the act; there is no choice, no free will. One is merely poorer, and the other richer.

As we know, charity is the thing Jesus wants: it is the greatest of the three virtues, the prime commandment. Government redistribution of wealth prevents this; and is therefore a moral evil.

Merely making the poor richer is not the prime concern: as Jesus says, “the poor you shall have always with you.” He also says, “blessed are the poor,” which surely implies that poverty itself is not an entirely bad thing. His point is that riches on earth distract us form the riches of heaven.

As to the early Christian tradition of shared property, the same objection applies: if this is not voluntary on the part of all participants, it loses all moral significance. If it is voluntary on the part of all participants, it becomes what it has always been: the Catholic religious life, as practiced in any convent or monastery. It cannot be voluntary if enforced by the state.

Even if overlooked by the US or Canadian constitution, both Jesus and the ten commandments represent private property as a moral right. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.” Note too the parable of the workers in the vineyard:

“'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?'”

Under a pure free market system, yes. Under a socialist or even heavily regulated or unionized system, no. Under “affirmative action,” again, no.

The parable of the three servants, each of whom was given a sum to invest by their master, makes plain as well that earning actual profits from the investment of capital is perfectly proper and commendable for a Christian. “Well done, O good and faithful servant!”

Jesus's, and God's, kingdom, by contrast, is “not of this world.” All attempts by man, therefore, to make some earthly paradise, are as doomed as the Tower of Babel. It will come, when it comes, only at the end of time, and mostly by divine fiat. Any efforts to do it ourselves are the work of the Antichrist. Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il-Sung, the Taiping Rebellion, Jim Jones... do we really need to repeat the experiment?

“All the kingdoms of the world,” the devil says to Jesus, who would know the truth, and pointedly does not contradict him, “all this power ... has been handed over to me, for me to give it to anyone I choose.”

Any kingdom in this social, material world, and any king or leader, is ipso facto of the devil's party. Satan runs this social, political world.

While some government is necessary, big government is accordingly the worst possible idea.

How do I know? Because the Bible tells us so.