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Jim Wallis debates Jay Richards on Christianity and economics

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In this post, I have the video of a debate on the topic of what Christians should think about economics and economic policies. In addition to the video, I summarized the two opening speeches and the two rebuttals, for those who prefer to read rather than watch. We’ll start with a short biography about each of the debaters.

The video recording:

The debaters

Jay Richards:

Jay Richards, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute where he directs the Center on Wealth, Poverty and Morality, and is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics. Most recently he is the co-author with James Robison of the best-selling Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late”.

In addition to writing many academic articles, books, and popular essays on a wide variety of subjects, he recently edited the new award winning anthology, God & Evolution: Protestants, Catholics and Jews Explore Darwin’s Challenge to Faith . His previous book was Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem (HarperOne, May 2009), for which he received a Templeton Enterprise Award in 2010.

[…]In recent years, he has been a Contributing Editor of The American at the American Enterprise Institute, a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute. Richards has a B.A. with majors in Political Science and Religion, an M.Div. (Master of Divinity) and a Th.M. (Master of Theology), and a Ph.D. (with honors) in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Jim Wallis:

Jim Wallis (born June 4, 1948) is a Christian writer and political activist. He is best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine and as the founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Christian community of the same name. Wallis is well known for his advocacy on issues of peace and social justice. […]He works as a spiritual advisor to President Barack Obama.

[…]In 2010, Wallis admitted to accepting money for Sojourners from philanthropist George Soros after initially denying having done so. […]In 2011, Wallis acknowledged that Sojourners had received another $150,000.00 from Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

Wallis just came out this month in favor of gay marriage. He is also a strong supporter of Barack Obama, who is radically pro-abortion. Some pro-lifers have argued that Barack Obama has the same views on abortion as Kermit Gosnell, because Obama voted twice to allow abortions on babies who were already born alive.

The format of the debate

  • 20 minute opening speeches
  • 10 minute rebuttals
  • 10 minutes of discussion
  • Q&A for the remainder

SUMMARY

I use italics below to denote my own observations.

Jim Wallis’ opening speech:

My goal is to spark a national conversation on the “common good”.

A story about my son who plays baseball.

The central goal of Christianity is to promote the “common good”.

Quotes “Catholic social teaching” which values “human flourishing”.

The “common good” is “human flourishing”.

Is the purpose of Christianity is to make sure that everyone has enough material stuff or to preach the gospel?

When Christians go on mission trips, it’s good that they focus on things like human trafficking.

Democrat John Lewis is the “conscience of the U.S. Congress”.

John Lewis gets a 0% rating from the American Conservative Union in 2012.

John Lewis gets a 8% rating from the American Conservative Union in 2011.

John Lewis gets a 2.29% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union.

Nothing is going well in Washington right now except comprehensive immigration reform.

Does he think that Christianity means giving 20-30 million illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, while skilled engineers cannot even get green cards, even though there is a shortage of them? Does he think that the other people in society who earn more than they receive from the government ought to be taxed more in order to provide more services and benefits to those who earn less than they take from the government?

Jay Richards’ opening speech:

Two topics: 1) what is the common good? 2) what should Christians do to promote the common good?

Catholicism defines the “common good” as “Indeed, the common good embraces the sum of those conditions of the social life whereby men, families and associations more adequately and readily may attain their own perfection.”

We have natural ends that we are supposed to be achieving and some places, like South Korea, are better for allowing that to happen.

The common good is broader and prior to any sort of political specification.

It’s not the political good or what the state is supposed to do.

It’s not about the communal good, as in Soviet Russia, where the communal good was above individual and familial good.

The common good is the social conditions that promote the things that we humans have in common as individuals and members of family.

The common good takes account of who we are as individuals and in associations with other individuals, e.g. – families.

Christians don’t have to be doing the same things to promote the common good, e.g. – pastors, entrepreneurs, etc.

The church, as the church, has as its primary goal making disciples of all nations.

But even in that capacity, the church should be interested in more than just conversions and saving souls.

We also have to care about God’s created reality including things like physics, education, etc.

How should Christians promote the common good in politics?

Question: when is coercion warranted?

In Romans 13, Paul says that the state does have power to coerce to achieve certain ends, like justice.

Most Christians think that there are some things where the state can use coercion, for example, to prevent/punish murder.

It is OK for the police to use coercive force to maintain public order and the rule of law.

But we need to ask whether other things are legitimate areas for the state to use coercive force.

We should only give the state power to coerce when there is no other way to achieve a goal.

We need to leverage the science of economics in order to know how to achieve the common good.

Jay Richards' main point in the debate
Jay Richards’ main point in the debate

Henry Hazlitt: “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”

For example, what happens if we raise the federal minimum wage to $50. What happens next for all groups? That’s what we need to ask in order to know which policies achieve the common good.

When it comes to economics a lot of things have been tried in other places and times.

We can know what works and doesn’t work by studying what was tried before and in other places.

Many things are counter-intuitive – things that sound good don’t work, things that sound bad do work.

Principle: “We are our brother’s keeper”. Christians have an obligation to care for their neighbors.

We all agree on the goal. But how do we do things that will achieve that goal?

We have to distinguish aspirations from principles and prudential judgment.

Principle: We should provide for the material needs of the poor.

Prudence: Seeing the world as it is, and acting accordingly.

Example policies: which minimum wage is best? None? $10? $20?

We decide based on seeing how different economic policies achieve the goal of helping the poor.

Jim Wallis’ first rebuttal:

Jesus commanded us to “care for the poor and help to end poverty”.

Actually, Jesus thought that acknowledging him and giving him sacrificial worship was more important than giving money to the poor, see Matthew 26:6-13:

6 While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, 

7 a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

8 When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. 

9 “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”

10 Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 

11 The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. 

12 When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. 

13 Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

It’s not clear to me whether Jim Wallis thinks that preaching is more important than redistributing wealth to address material inequality.

I like what Jesus said in a TV series, even though it’s not in the Bible when an actor playing Jesus said to “change the world”.

Jesus never said to “change the world” in the Bible. Should we be concerned that he is quoting a TV actor playing Jesus instead of Jesus.

Here is a terrific story about Bill Bright.

I love Catholic social teaching.

Quote: “All are responsible for all”.

I go to the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland every year. I spoke once at 7 AM on the 4th floor.

It’s a funny place for a Christian to be if they care about the poor – rubbing shoulders with leftist elites. He must have named a dozen high-profile people that he spoke with during the debate, as if he could win the debate by some sort of argument from name-dropping. He mentioned the Davos thing several times!

The greatest beneficiary of government actions to deal with the economic crisis was Wall Street banks.

I’m going to tell you a story about what a Washington lawyer says to Jesus.

I’ve had conversations with business leaders where I tell them to integrate moral truths.

I talk about the Good Samaritan parable.

Quote: “Do you love your undocumented neighbor?”

Quote: “Do you love your Muslim neighbor?”

Jay Richards’ first rebuttal:

Who is responsible for your own children? Who knows the most about them?

Parents should have more discretion over their children because they have more knowledge about their child and what’s best for them.

The Good Samaritan doesn’t show that government should confiscate wealth through taxation and redistribute it.

The Good Samaritan emphasizes voluntarily charity to help people who are not necessarily your immediate neighbor.

Some of the things we do should be for the good of other people in other countries.

But then we are back to leveraging economics to know what policies are good for those other people in other countries.

The principle of subsidiarity: if a problem can be addressed by a lower level of society (family) then we shouldn’t make higher levels (government) address it.

The best place to take care of children is within the family.

Only if the family fails should wider and wider spheres get involved.

Although we want to think of the common good in a global sense, we don’t want to lose sight of the fact

The financial crisis: we need to integrate moral truths, but also economic truths.

We don’t want to assume policies based on intuitions, we want to check our intuitions using economic principles.

Why did we have a financial crisis in mortgages, but not in commodities futures or technology, etc.?

Greed is a contributing factor in all areas of business.

Something more was going on in the mortgage markets than just greed.

There were specific policies that caused the mortgage lending crisis.

The root cause of the problem were “affordable housing policies” that lowered lending restrictions on low income people.

The policy ended up degrading the underwriting standards on loans.

Government intruded into the market and undermined the normal ways of

People were getting massive loans with no income, no jobs, no assets and no down payment.

The federal government created a market for risk loans by guaranteeing

There was a government imposed quota on mortgage lenders such that 50% of their loans had to be given to high-risk borrowers.

That is what led to the financial crisis. Not the free market, but intrusions into the free market.

These policies were well-meaning and implemented by people from both parties. But they had bad effects.

News

Fascist Canadian Justice Francesca Marzari overrules father’s freedoms of thought and speech

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The Honourable Madam Justice Francesca V. Marzari
The Honourable Madam Justice Francesca V. Marzari

This story of a transgender child in the left-leaning province of British Columbia shows what the political left would do in America if they were in power. In a previous post, I reported on how the public schools, the government-run health care system, and the government-run courts all conspired to give the child testosterone injections, over the father’s objections.

Here is the latest from The Federalist:

Last week, Justice Francesca Marzari of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, declared a father guilty of “family violence” against his 14-year-old daughter on the sole basis that he had engaged in “expressions of rejection of [her] gender identity.” These “expressions” revolved entirely around his polite refusal to refer to his daughter as a boy in private, and his steady choice to affirm that she is a girl in public.

[…]Her father, Clark*, strongly objects to this treatment and immediately sought to reverse the decision in the BC Court of Appeal. Hoping to raise awareness of his case, Clark gave a number of interviews to media outlets, including The Federalist. In these interviews, he repeatedly referred to his daughter as a girl, stating to The Federalist that “she is a girl.  Her DNA will not change through all these experiments that they do.”

While many might take this to be an honest statement of biological fact, Marzari quoted it as a prime example of Clark’s “family violence of a public denial of [Maxine’s] gender identity.” Marzari convicted Clark of this violence, and issued a “protection order” preventing him from speaking to journalists or the public about his case.

[…]What Marzari found particularly egregious, however, was not Clark’s private interactions with his daughter but his “continued willingness to provide interviews to the media … in which he identifies [Maxine] as female, uses a female name for [Maxine] … and expresses his opposition to the therapies [Maxine] has chosen.” According to the court, this willingness placed Maxine at “a significant risk of harm.”

[…]Marzari argued that the “people and organizations” to whom Clark granted interviews had shown themselves “fundamentally opposed” to transgender ideology, yet Clark “continued to support the media organizations posting his commentary with additional interviews.” This kind of attitude was, in Marzari’s view, justification for enjoining Clark from sharing any information with journalists—or with practically anyone outside his legal team—about his daughter’s “sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, mental or physical health, medical status or therapies.”

The court also emphasized that Clark must not allow relevant documents (petitions, affidavits, letters, court orders, etc.) to come into the hands of third parties not “authorized by order of this court,” or with “written consent” from his daughter.

If father refers to his daughter as female again, then he will be arrested!

Excerpt:

At about the same time that story was published, the Supreme Court issued an additional, more heavy-handed “protection order” from the same ruling. The three-page document declares that the father, Clark*, will henceforth be subject to arrest, immediately and “without warrant” if any police officer has “reasonable” grounds to believe that he has in any way referred to his daughter as a girl in public or in private.

The new order further stipulated not only that Clark must not discuss his daughter’s sex or gender identity in public, but also that he cannot share court documents describing his own gag order. On the one hand, this demand may seem ironic, since it covers a publicly available court ruling. On the other hand, the injunction is so broad that it naturally includes the very document upon which it is written and that document–with its threats of immediate arrest without warrant–has not, as of yet, been made available on the court’s website.

So you have an anti-science judge, who is paid by the tax dollars of this father, overruling him as the biological father, and imposing her own far-left opinions as law. Why would any moral Christian man marry and start a family in Canada, when immoral far-left atheist leftists can take his money for their salary, and then overrule his basic human rights and parental authority? No free man would live in a country that treats him like a slave. Unfortunately, men are treated like slaves in Canada. The only solution is to get out.

It’s not surprising that the courts would censor him from speaking to the news media. In Canada, the government is run by radical secular leftists, who see any speech critical of the secular left agenda as potential violence. So, for decades in Canada, the government and the courts have issued gag orders on pro-life activists, and they even imprison those who speak out against abortion and same-sex marriage. Nurses and doctors who expose abortion extremism and infanticide are regularly censored b the government and the courts, for example. There is nothing like the first amendment in Canada. On the contrary. The progressives in government have made “offensive speech” a criminal offense.

More:

While the main thrust of Marzari’s ruling focused on Clark’s public statements, Marzari also ordered that Clark be enjoined from “exposing” Maxine to any materials that might “question whether [her] gender identity is real or the treatments [she] seeks are in [her] best interests.”

Well, enough of that. Let’s talk about the legal system in Canada.

Although the university system is funded in part by pro-life and pro-marriage taxpayers through mandatory taxes, the law schools are effectively closed to Christians or conservatives. If any manage to get through law school, then they are barred from practicing law. And of course it’s impossible for anyone right of center to be appointed to a government position on the courts, because of discrimination and bias.

There is no free speech or freedom of thought in Canada

This article about religious liberty in Canada is from Vancouver Sun.

Excerpt:

Ontario’s top court has dismissed an appeal from a private Christian university that forbids sexual intimacy outside heterosexual marriage, denying its proposed law school accreditation in the province.

The key point about the code of conduct is that it doesn’t discriminate against any particular group, e.g. – LGBT. It also forbids excessive drinking and premarital sex by heterosexuals:

It includes requiring students to abstain from gossip, obscene language, prejudice, harassment, lying, cheating, stealing, pornography, drunkenness and sexual intimacy “that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman.”

Now read this next part carefully. Although there was no legal support for denying a Christian university religious liberty and freedom of association, there was the hurt feelings of the LGBTQ community:

“The part of TWU’s Community Covenant in issue in this appeal is deeply discriminatory to the LGBTQ community, and it hurts,” the appeal court ruling said. “The LSUC’s decision not to accredit TWU was indeed a reasonable conclusion.”

In Canada “it hurts” means the end of human rights like religious liberty and freedom of association. Why? Because the Christian community in Canada has – for decades – voted to increase the size of government at the expense of liberty, in order to get free stuff. It doesn’t matter if the Christians who wanted a Christian university are hurt. Or that the Christian students at TWU are hurt. Only the hurt of the LGBT community matters, and their hurt changes laws, criminalizes dissent and annihilates natural rights. There are no such things as freedom of religion and freedom of conscience in Canada. There never was free speech, either. Anything that might hurt the feelings of left-wing groups has to be made criminal.

I’ll put this as plainly as anyone can: Canadian “Christians” have been voting to transfer wealth and power to a big secular government for years. They wanted government to cover health care, and now the government thinks that health care is providing free sex changes, free IVF and free abortions. Canadian “Christians” wanted their 30 pieces of silver more than they wanted the freedom to act as if the Bible was true in public. It turns out that the more wealth and power that you transfer to a secular leftist government, the more likely they are to trample all over the basic human rights of anyone who disagrees with their ideology.

This sort of thing happens all the time in Canada. Remember the case where another female judge overruled a biological father who grounded his daughter for sending nude pictures of herself using her father’s computer? This is normal in Canada, where biological fathers are competent enough to pay taxes, but not competent enough to parent their own children.

If any of this sounds unappealing to you, remember this at election time. The only way to stop the fascism of the secular left is to elect small-government conservatives who respect the basic human rights in our Constitution, such as the right to free speech and religious liberty. If you want to keep these rights, you will have to vote appropriately, and encourage others to vote appropriately.

News

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mocks decorated Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw for not fighting terrorism enough

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Here's Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw and bartender/waitress Alexander Ocasio-Cortez
Here’s Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw and bartender/waitress Alexander Ocasio-Cortez

Wow, the more AOC opens her mouth, the more I think that she must be some kind of Republican plant. This time, Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye fighting terrorists, disagreed with Ilhan Omar, a Muslim Democrat Congresswoman. AOC decided to defend Omar, and shame Crenshaw for not doing enough to fight terrorism.

You can watch the 20-second clip of Omar here.

In the clip, she tells CAIR (the Council of American-Islamic Relations) that:

CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.

So, according to her, a terrorist attack committed by Muslim extremists is “some people did something”, and her biggest concern about a terrorist attack that killed 3000 Americans is the loss of civil liberties faced by Muslims.

Dan Crenshaw saw the clip, and he tweeted this.

First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as “some people who did something”.

Unbelievable.

Just to be clear, I know that not all Muslims talk like this, but I have direct experience with Muslims on my mom’s side of the family. They’re all Muslims. There are good Muslims who believe in liberty and even help America fight abroad. I read about the Muslims who helps us fight radical Islam in my military history books. But there are also some that don’t like liberty, don’t like Jews, and don’t like America. I have met them in my own family.

Anyway, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came to the rescue of Omar against Dan Crenshaw, matching her experience fighting terrorism as a 29-year-old bartender and server against the Navy SEAL who lost an eye while fighting terrorism. Crenshaw earned 2 Bronze Stars (one with Valor), the Purple Heart, and the Navy Commendation Medal with Valor.

She tweeted to Dan Crenshaw:

You refuse to cosponsor the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund, yet have the audacity to drum resentment towards Ilhan w/completely out-of-context quotes.

In 2018, right-wing extremists were behind almost ALL US domestic terrorist killings. Why don’t you go do something about that?

That’s right, Ms. Bartender-Waitress, or whatever your name is. You tell that cowardly, useless Navy SEAL who lost an eye fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq how to fight terrorism. Also, feel free to make up facts about domestic terrorism, as well.

Young people today. Wow.

This is the Democrat Party, folks. Half of America thinks they should be in power. Which is why when it’s election time, you need to do more than just vote. You need to go door-to-door, post signs, have a bumper sticker, and work a phone bank. Because we cannot have overgrown children who were born rich, and have achieved nothing their entire lives, running this country.

What’s CAIR?

So, who is CAIR? CAIR is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case about fundraising for an Islamic terrorist group.

The FBI is severing its once-close ties with the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, amid mounting evidence that it has links to a support network for Hamas.

All local chapters of CAIR have been shunned in the wake of a 15-year FBI investigation that culminated with the conviction in December of Hamas fundraisers at a trial where CAIR itself was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.

The U.S. government has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.

During the Obama years, the FBI worked closely with CAIR to make sure that no one was critical of Islam in America. According to former attorney general Loretta Lynch , her “greatest fear” was not that Americans would be killed in a terrorist attack, but that the terrorist attacks would cause ordinary Americans to express criticism of radical Islam.