Fw: The Left Hand of God or "is God a socialist"

----- Original Message -----
From: Matt "Fritz" Bergin
To: Pim van Meurs
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 10:54 PM
Subject: Re: The Left Hand of God or "is God a socialist"

I don't see how Jesus could be said to support any type of economic theory by reading the Bible besides that we should give to the poor and help each other out when we see someone in need. I think this is a far more meaningful way to help others. I'm not even sure what you mean by socialism since there are so many different types its hard to keep track. Looking at the website that you gave this looks like either a cult based on a few verses in the Bible or a really bad way to try to convince the religious that socialism is Biblical. I would have to say that this part of the top of the page "We know of similar Jubilee movements which feel the need to overpower existing churches and restructure them along an Old Testament pattern. At times it means using deceit and force to take over the property to redistribute the wealth in a socialist system" I don't really see deciet and force as something that Jesus taught but maybe you can point me to the versus that support this.

 ~Matt

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Pim van Meurs
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 9:43 PM
  Subject: The Left Hand of God or "is God a socialist"

  I listened to a radio program today with Lerner, author of "the Left hand of God". What occurred to me is the irony of the political right being the vanguards of religion when it is capitalism itself which undermines much of religion and faith.
  A good example mentioned was Christmas, and while the right laments that the secular leftists are causing the demise of this great holiday, it seems far more likely that the materialistic nature of the Santa Claus event is what really undermines the religious traditions of Christmas.

  The more I think about it the more I come to realize that Jesus was quite a socialist in his days.

  And note how God in Leviticus seems to support the redistribution of wealth

  And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of jubile [sic] to sound on the tenth day of the sev enth month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
  And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you. ...

  -- Leviticus 25: 8-10 (KJV)

  See http://www.piney.com/JubileJewish.html for an interesting viewpoint on this. I wonder why the religious right is not focusing on these aspects of the Bible?

  <quote>Let us look at the Bible's "Jubilee program" in more detail. It is rooted in a sense of sacred time, sacred cycles of work-time and rest-time that are defined partly by the earth and partly by society. These cycles (on the model of Sabbath rest and contemplation, celebration and material sharing on the seventh day) are sha ped by treating the seventh year and the fiftieth year (the year after the seventh seventh year) as a special time.
  Every seventh year, all debts are cancelled. The land is not subjected to organized cultivation or harvest; whatever freely grows from it may in that year be freely gathered by any family for its own food. What has been stored before is shared.
  In the fiftieth year, the land rests again, and every family returns to the equal share of productive land that it was allotted when Israelitesociety began. The poor become equal, the rich give up the extra wealth they had accumulated.
  And all this is done not by a central government's taxation or police power, but by the direct action of each family, each clan, each tribe in its own region.</quote>
  These are exciting issues for me to contemplate. Seems that it's time to return religious faith to wher e it would find a much better home. Given the policies of the right, I wonder if this is the place for us Christians to find shelter?

  http://www.allaboutgod.com/truth-topics/jubilee.htm
Received on Tue Mar 7 00:59:36 2006