THE PLAIN TRUTH JESUS CHRIST IS A CAPITALIST! One truth shines out from the Bible: Jesus spoke to the individual, never to government or government policy. Jesus was a capitalist, preaching personal responsibility, not a socialist. But we have to define our terms: By “socialism,” we must understand “theft.” A socialist government uses brute force, backed up by guns, to steal property from some people to give it to others. But governments cannot do that apart from the threat of violence to enforce their schemes. Would Jesus endorse the violence needed for government intervention? By capitalism, we mean individual initiative under freedom, with the right to use what people own and to reap the fruits of one’s labor and initiative. Capitalist business must necessarily benefit society, because private businesses have no power to force anyone to buy their products or services. The consumer is king. Consumers won’t buy unless the purchase benefits them. To reinforce that central pillar of capitalism, laws against lying and fraud are proper and necessary. The consumer must be able to know and understand what he is buying and what it truly costs. The same applies to employment. We reject crony capitalism and monopolies. When corrupt governments are entangled with businesses, then transactions are no longer voluntary. Crony capitalism is what most people experience in Argentina, throughout Latin America and much of the Third World. The benefit to society is absent without informed consent. We know that Jesus condemns crony capitalism. That’s partly what the incident at the temple was all about in Matthew 21, when Jesus overturned the tables of money-changers. Some think money-changers were bankers. Actually they exchanged one currency for another. The temple priests required that special temple coins had to be used to give mandatory tithes. So worshipers had to exchange their secular money. But the money-changers were defrauding people with a dishonest exchange rate. Yet Jesus specifically supported the concept of capitalism. In Matthew 25:15-18, Jesus teaches what the (His) Kingdom of God is like: “To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents. In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more. But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.” Jesus is clearly using money as a metaphor for making the most of all of life’s opportunities, abilities and moments. Yet in teaching us how we should live, Jesus agrees that a man who traded with investment capital and earned profits is praised and rewarded by his master, a type for God, and given increased authority. Most striking is what Jesus says to the man who was too afraid to take a chance with the one talent of gold entrusted to him. Jesus endorses the concept of earning interest for profit. Matthew 25:27-28: “Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest. Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 23:40:02 +0000
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