Re: Sabbath economics [was: Life after the oil crash]

Within our own families and churches we voluntarily give / share resources
and labor. (A small-scale, limited, short-term voluntary socialism is
quite scriptural).

But Jesus condemns stealing. We harm our neighbor if we take what he
doesn't want to voluntarily give us - (eeeeeeven if it's a member our our
own family. Yessssss!!). Jesus defines "love" as "doing no harm to people".

Now if anyone thinks he should be able to force people to give things to
him - he shouldn't be a weasel and hire weasel politicians to steal it for
him or attempt to put activist judges into place to enforce that agends -
he should just be a man and go up and down the street and demand whatever
he wants [fill in the blank] from his neighbors.

Jesus isn't a moral relativist. Only HE gets to define "love".

Janice

At 10:18 AM 10/31/2005, Robert Schneider wrote:
>As Karl Marx once wrote of capitalism, "Accumulate, accumulate,
>accumulate--this is the Law and the Prophets."
>
>No, I'm not accusing you, Don, just asking you to think about your
>defense. You wrote that you used to be a biblical literalist in your
>youth, but your examples are not examples of a literal interpretation, but
>of reading things into the text of Rev. I think that the economics of the
>Kingdom of God as presented in the true Law and the Prophets and
>reinforced in the teachings of Jesus do not demand that we return to an
>agrarian society, nor does it demand that we throw out capitalism. But if
>we are as Christians to take the message of God's Rule seriously, then we
>need to study it carefully and examine ourselves to see to what extent we
>are enmeshed in the present market-driven political-economic system, give
>close attention to its excesses and inequalities, and find practical ways
>to transform it, starting at home and in our communities. You said
>yourself that "There's no question that capitalists have trampled on the
>poor from time to time and that many aspects of capitalism and modern jobs
>are dehumanizing. We need to work on eliminating or correcting such
>problems and abuses as best we can." I wouldn't say, "from time to time";
>I would say the present system of global capitalism has been impovrishing
>an enormous part of the world's population, and that in many "poorer"
>countries, the people are suffering even more than they did a few decades
>ago, especially because of debt-burdens (compare Galilee in the first
>century). Something transformational needs to be done. The millenium
>Jubilee program that many churches promoted for debt-relief was a
>start. More importantly, we as individual believers in one of the world's
>wealthiest nations need to start reflecting on how we have become part of
>the problem. I recommend to all that they meditate on Mark
>10:17-31. It's a story about economy; try not to spiritualize it or
>explain it away.
>
>There's more than could be said, but I'm too busy presently to continue.
>
>Bob
Received on Mon Oct 31 12:17:19 2005