I noticed that Christianity Today, which has turned hard left in recent years, is now openly endorsing socialism. So, I thought it might be a good idea to listen to this new episode of the Think Biblically podcast, which deals with the issue of Christianity and socialism. The hosts actually brought an economist on to define socialism, then they analyze the teachings of Jesus.
Here’s the description: (H/T Nathan)
It has not been uncommon for advocates of virtually every economic system to invoke Jesus in support of their views, though some of the most ardent advocates for both capitalism and socialism did not have any particular religious views themselves (Rand, Marx). Over the years, some of the more recent advocates of socialist type economic arrangements have appealed to Jesus and the gospels in support of such systems. Economist Lawrence Reed helps us sort out the application of the teaching of Jesus to economics and its relevance for economic life today. Join us for this provocative conversation as he tackles the question of Jesus and socialism.
who should own the means of production in socialism?
how should wealth be distributed in socialism?
what tools does socialism use to provide people with health care, employment, security, etc.
which countries have adopted socialism? North Korea? Cuba? Venezuela? How about the Scandinavian countries?
what in the New Testament has caused people to think that Jesus was a socialist?
did Jesus ever advocate for concentrating power in the government in order to meet the material needs of people?
did Jesus ever advocate for voluntary charity in order to meet the material needs of people?
in our experience, is government seen to be more compassionate or less compassionate than individual people?
does voluntary charity have any advantages over forced redistribution by a powerful central government?
what about the example of common possessions among the earliest Christians?
what is the Bible’s view of wealth? is it always bad to be wealthy, or does it matter how you obtained it and how you use it?
what does the parable of the talents tell us about socialism vs capitalism?
what does the parable of the good Samaritan tell us about socialism vs capitalism?
what does the parable of the three different shifts of workers tell us about socialism vs capitalism?
what about socialist policies and higher tax rates in countries like Canada and Scandinavian countries?
I have to be honest. I think that some of the economics reasoning about the parables was a stretch, because those parables are talking mainly about other topics, not economics. But it’s true that the parables aren’t friendly to socialism even if they are interpreted as being about economics.
Only 15 unarmed black men were shot and killed by police in the past year. The BLM push for Marxism as a fix for “police brutality” is based on these 15 deaths. But what about the hundreds and thousands of black deaths at the hands of black criminals? BLM, their mainstream media allies are silent about that, because they know Democrats run those cities.
At least half a dozen children were shot and killed over the holiday weekend as high levels of violence ravaged some of the United States’ largest cities.
The children’s ages ranged from 6 to 14 as they fell victim to violence in cities from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, according to the list compiled by CNN. In some cases, the tragedies added to already surging levels of violence from last year to this year.
In Washington, D.C., 11-year-old Davon McNeal was preparing to leave a Fourth of July cookout with his mother when shooting broke out somewhere nearby. A bullet struck the youth football player in the head, killing him, according to The Washington Post.
[…]Just under 90 people have been killed in Washington, D.C., this year, a roughly 17% increase over last year. 2019 ended with the most people killed in the city in a decade.
The victim was black.
More:
In Atlanta, 8-year-old Secoriea Turner was killed when a group of armed individuals fired at the vehicle she was riding in near the burned-out shell of a Wendy’s restaurant where Rayshard Brooks was killed last month.
[…]More than 30 people were killed on Saturday and Sunday in the city, continuing a wave of violence that has ravaged Atlanta since protests over the death of George Floyd began. The violence intensified after Brooks’ death.
The victim was black.
More:
In Chicago, 7-year-old Natalia Wallace and a 14-year-old boy whose name has not yet been released were victims in two separate shootings over the weekend. Both children were killed while celebrating the July 4th holiday with friends and family, according to ABC News.
[…]The number of homicides in Chicago has jumped by about 34%. This June, there were 329 homicides, up year over year from 246 in 2019.
The victims were black.
All of these cities are run by Democrat party mayors, and Democrat party city councils. They have been for decades. Many of the majors and city council members are black. But in all that time, nothing was done by these Democrats to fix crime. These Democrat politicians are extremely permissive of crime and criminals, and they don’t dare take on the root cause of the crime problem: fatherlessness.
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
The more people get married and stay married, the less supportive they are of communist government. They don’t want government confiscating and redistributing their earnings – they want their earnings to stay in the family. BLM isn’t in favor of that. And that’s why they are strangely silent about the crime wave caused by children raised in fatherless homes. They don’t want to fix the root cause of crime, because that would destroy support for their real goal: communism.
I’m not a big fan of National Review these days, but I wanted to link to this article because it quoted a bunch of pay-walled articles to make some good points about how we got the Wuhan virus. Not only is China to blame for the Wuhan virus, but they are actually trying to cover it up now, and shift the blame to the countries that they are damaging.
Here are the main points of the article:
China destroyed samples and suppressed information about the Wuhan Virus since December 2019, leaving other nations in the dark and unprepared
Chinese doctors who warned about patients with the Wuhan virus were silenced by the communist regime in China
In January, Chinese authorities denied that the Wuhan virus could be spread between people, and allowed huge gatherings of people in Wuhan
The President of China knew about the Wuhan virus for weeks but refused to tell anyone about it
The communist China government let 5 million people leave Wuhan without screening them
Critics of China’s handling of the Wuhan virus – even rich businessmen – are disappearing
I love the article, because it links to articles behind paywalls from the UK Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, etc.
Chinese laboratories identified a mystery virus as a highly infectious new pathogen by late December last year, but they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples and suppress the news, a Chinese media outlet has revealed.
A regional health official in Wuhan, centre of the outbreak, demanded the destruction of the lab samples that established the cause of unexplained viral pneumonia on January 1. China did not acknowledge there was human-to-human transmission until more than three weeks later.
The detailed revelations by Caixin Global, a respected independent publication, provide the clearest evidence yet of the scale of the cover-up in the crucial early weeks when the opportunity was lost to control the outbreak.
As word of a mysterious virus mounted, Li Wenliang shared suspicions in a private chat with his fellow medical school graduates.
The doctor said that seven people seemed to have contracted SARS — the respiratory illness that spread from China to more than two dozen countries and left hundreds dead in the early 2000s. One patient was quarantined at his hospital in Wuhan, China, Li said. He urged people to be careful.
Li and seven other doctors were quickly summoned by Chinese authorities for propagating “rumors” about SARS-like cases in the area — but their warnings were prescient. Soon, health officials worldwide would be scrambling to combat a novel virus with a striking genetic resemblance to SARS.
Here is something else I found on the Daily Wire – the response of the atheistic communist Chinese regime to being caught:
The National Security Council blasted the Chinese Communist Party on Tuesday for expelling journalists from the country and spreading false information about the origin of the virus instead of focusing on stopping the virus, which originated in China.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s decision to expel journalists from China and Hong Kong is yet another step toward depriving the Chinese people and the world of access to true information about China,” the NSC said in a statement. “The United States calls on China’s leaders to refocus their efforts from expelling journalists and spreading disinformation to joining all nations in stopping the Wuhan coronavirus.”
The statement from the NSC comes after China announced it would expel American journalists working for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
“It also demanded that those outlets, as well as the Voice of America and Time magazine, provide the Chinese government with detailed information about their operations,” The New York Times reported. “The announcement went on to say that the American journalists now working in mainland China ‘will not be allowed to continue working as journalists in the People’s Republic of China, including its Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions.’ The two territories are semiautonomous and in theory have greater press freedoms than the mainland.”
Rather than admit responsibility, apologize and make restitution, they are responding by throwing out the journalists who criticize them. And you can bet those journalists would be murdered in secret if they were not American citizens. After all, the communist Chinese regime has been credibly accused of a massive organ harvesting operation – including harvesting the organs of living victims as they are being killed:
Last week, the Independent Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting from Prisoners of Conscience in China issued its final report concluding that China engages in the systematic human-rights atrocity of killing political and other prisoners and harvesting their organs.
[…]The Judgment convincingly concludes that China is guilty as charged. According to the report, beginning at page 415, there are four methods by which China kills prisoners and harvests their organs.
Organ harvesting from prisoners incompletely executed by shooting;
Organ harvesting from prisoners after lethal injection;
Execution by organ explanation (killing by organ harvesting);
Organ harvesting under the pretext of brain death (taking organs from people not really dead).
The United States is not alone in suffering major economic and public safety consequences because of the decisions of the communist Chinese government. There is even talk of demanding reparations. We are already in a bear market, and there is likely to be a recession because of their suppression of the evidence. And I also think that there is a lesson there for our election in November – this is what people on the secular left always do when they fail to deliver on their promises. They deny responsibility and silence or destroy those who warned them. It’s standard operating procedure for communists. Communism requires atheism. And without God, any immorality you can imagine is possible.
WINTERY KNIGHT 