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

I don't see any Biblical reason to have jubilee and I don't see how capitalism is destructive to faith. People are free to give what they want to others or the church in a capitalist society. If you want to redistribute your wealth to other people then by all means go ahead. Capitalism doesn't mean that no one can help or gets help. There are also other ways of giving besides money. Maybe you can give your time working to make a quilt for the homeless or work at a place that collects stuff that people want to give to the poor that they don't need anymore. My church has a program for giving your old vehicles to be fixed up and given to single parents and those that need vehicles. There are also many different food shelters and places that give poor people the things they need. I don't see why with all of this that we need to redistribute wealth. The other problem is that many poor people have lots of problems that giving them money will not solve like drug addictions, alcohol problems, no schooling, mental problems, or bad choices that they made. It probably seems like the problem is just money but its far more than that and I don't see how these socialist utopian solutions will solve the problem or help the people in need. These people need a more personal and real answers to their problems. Like in the case of the drug addict giving them money will not help them because they will just use it to further their addiction. I think we need to be more aware of their individual problems which a collectivism doesn't recognize.

I always thought that Santa Claus was based on a real guy (Saint Nick) who gave gold to poor families...I don't remember the details. If Santa is a tradition that recognizes that then I see no problem with it. There are a lot of people that give in the holiday season to things like Toys for Tots and the Salvation Army. The whole point of Christmas and gifts is to give (as a way of recognizing God's gift to us)...but someone has to receive what you are giving...if thats materialistic then I don't know what to say.

What exactly is the religious right concentrating on anyway?

~Matt

 
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Pim van Meurs
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 11:50 PM
  Subject: Re: Fw: The Left Hand of God or "is God a socialist"

  So perhaps it's more like communism where the concept of the state has withered away. Either way, how come that the jubilee is somehow a concept lost to us Christians?
  I like it how you 'interpret' the gospel to support private property but you are missing the point. I am not arguing against private property, just that the bible teaches a timely redistribution of such property.
  Communist or socialist, God hardly seems to be a capitalist so why are the religious right submitting themselves to the policies of the political right which seem to be quite destructive to faith (capitalism seems extremely materialistic). Look what happened in the last few years... Is this what we Christians should be proud of? I am not sure.

  Pim

  Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
    At 12:59 AM 3/7/2006, Matt \"Fritz\" Bergin wr ote:

      ----- 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

    @ Welcome to the list. Your observations are very astute.

    The sort of socialism that is Scriptural is the form that is commonly practiced on a small scale within families, within churches, and other organizations. It is always going to be a voluntary sharing of resources. The Bible teaches that the church and the family should care for the poor rather than the state.

    8th Commandment: You shall not steal. This is a guarantee of private property.

    10th Commandment: You shall not covet. Again, a guarantee of priva te property.

    Acts 5: Barnabas sellls a piece of property and brought the money to the Apostles.

    Ananias and Saphira decided to do the same - except they sold a property - kept some of the money back - and lied about how much they had been paid.

    Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own power?' "

    There you go! An apostolic confirmation of the right of private property. Not only the means of production, but also the results of that production were in Ananias' and Saphira's power, not in the power or hands of the state or the church.

    Proudhon , the French socialist said, "Property is theft."

    But the commandment forbidding theft teaches the right of private property and is in complete contradiction to socialist concepts.

    ~ Janice

        ----- 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 m ore 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 as pects 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 accumula ted.

        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 02:19:23 2006