Re: Money is a tool. A Message to Redistributionists

At 01:01 AM 3/9/2006, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>... Do we as Christians get to chose what part of the Bible we like
>or dislike? Is that your attitude towards the Bible or am I missing
>something? ....The real question for me however is how Christians
>deal with the concept of the Jubilee and why it seems to have been
>mostly ignored? But perhaps my reading of the bible is too literal :-)

@@ Yes, you're definitely "missing something." LOL

Now here's the example of a guy who's an expert at picking and
choosing. He, in effect, pronounces Jesus a fraud since he doesn't
measure up to his superior standards of ethics and morality:

".....In the next section, Martin goes on to criticize Jesus for
things that are neglected in his teachings.

"Jesus makes no explicit pronouncements on moral questions connected
with socialism, democracy, tyranny, and poverty and what one can
infer from some things he says seems to be in conflict with other
things he says." [167-8]

One wonders what needed to be said on the first three topics that
would have been relevant to Jesus' hearers (Actually, the invectives
against the Pharisees and the Temple cleansing count as weighing in
against the local "tyranny", and we remind Martin that Jesus was
technically guilty of sedition against the Roman state!), especially
as the first two political systems essentially did not exist; but as
to the fourth, and the allegation of conflict, all that Martin can offer is:

[1] The same old fallacious application of Luke 18:22 (as advice,
again, to only one specific person!). Contra Martin, this is not an
implication that Jesus was "opposed to poverty and wanted it
eliminated." He probably was, and did (Who after all is in favor of
poverty in principle, and if Martin thinks that Jesus was in favor of
poverty, where has Jesus said this?), but that is not the point of
this teaching, for it is given to only one person, the rich young
ruler for whom wealth was a particular trap.

Jesus did not say that ALL rich people should do this; for example,
Nicodemus was probably wealthy, but was given no such advice;
Zaccheaus, who would have been fairly well-off, stopped cheating
people and gave back what he stole with interest, but did not give
ALL his wealth away; and Abraham was a wealthy tribal chieftain, yet
Jesus indicates that he was in Paradise.

[2] A cite of Matt. 26:11 -- "The poor you will always have with you,
but you will not always have me." Martin interprets the statement as
a "defense" of the woman's actions, which is only partially correct:
The point is not that the poor could or could not have been given the
money, but that the woman was offering an act of devotion from her
heart, and the objectors (of whom Judas was the chief, according to
parallel accounts) were simply objecting for the sake of being
contrary and out of jealousy. Jesus' reply essentially means, "If
you're that concerned about the poor, you can go out and help them
yourself -- you'll have plenty of opportunity to do so after I'm
gone. Don't criticize her for this act of devotion." This is hardly
contrary to wanting to get rid of poverty; no more so than giving to
a charity for the support of the arts indicates a lack of concern for
poverty in the inner city.

[3] A cite of Matt. 19:23-4, which is claimed to say that "a rich man
cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven" - which is just plain bad
reading; it says that it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom
of Heaven...the "camel through the eye of the needle" phrase being
typical rabbinic exaggeration. It is not an advocation of material
poverty at all, though it does suggest that if wealth is a
stumbling-block to your devotion, you ought to get rid of it, in
accordance with the "if your right hand offend thee" paradigm.

[3] Finally, a cite of Luke 6:20 (Looking at his disciples, he said:
"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.).
This is likewise no advocation of material poverty, but it does
indicate, as above, that wealth can be a tempting distraction.

Martin then offers some comments on slavery, supposing that Jesus'
silence on the matter equals tacit approval; on this matter, see
Glenn Miller's
<http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html>essay on this subject.
|
Egregious Evaluation

Martin then turns to teachings of Jesus that he says indicate that
"one should not be concerned about the future," criticizing them
because many modern problems are based on a lack of planning and
careful consideration. He actually does not cite any of these
teachings, but he seems to allude to such cites as the "many
sparrows" verse. If this is so, then he has read poorly once again:
The teaching is not, as he supposes, that one should not plan for the
future, but that one should not worry [merimnao according to
Strong's, to be anxious about:--(be, have) care (-ful), take thought]
about the future -- which I think Martin would agree with, since
worrying simply takes up valuable time that could be used for
planning! He is also off the mark in applying modern Western concerns
to the text. As Malina and Neyrey write in Portraits of Paul [197],
in a group-oriented society (such as is 70% of the world even today,
and as was the Greco-Roman world), present-time orientation is the
usual value-preference, which makes sense, since present-survival
needs could not be taken for granted. Matters of the remote future
are indeed of no concern, because any plans you lay could be
confounded (cf. Luke 12:16-19!). It made no sense to store food when
you didn't have adequate resources to prevent spoilage -- you were
just wasting time that could be spent gathering food for now! It made
no sense to store valuables, because thieves were everywhere, coins
rusted, and valuables could not be preserved from decay. Martin
speaks as one in a world with refrigerators and high-interest CDs --
and thus criticizes Jesus by anachronism. At any rate, his criticisms
of this commandment are off the mark.

Next Martin turns towards..." Continued here: Michael Martin's
Shameless Mainpulation of the Ethical Teachings of
Jesus http://www.tektonics.org/lp/martincac06.html

  ~ Janice ...quietly pointing out that Justin Moser's observations
have been borne out to a "T" in these threads - Re: his commentary
on: "How to Talk to a Theological Liberal (If You
Must), http://www.tektonics.org/guest/libspeak.html

>Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>At 11:58 PM 3/8/2006, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>>How sad. The wealth gap is real and I wonder why Christians seem to
>>be unwilling to apply the concept of Jubilee to rectify these inequities.
>
>@ I suggest that you get together with a bunch of other
>legalistic-minded professing Christians and put that idea into
>practice among yourselves.
>
>But don't think that anyone is going to allow you to obtain enough
>power and control to impose your religious conscience on the rest of
>us. -- which, like Pat Robertson, et.al., you would do in a
>heartbeat if you had the chance.
>
>~ Janice
Received on Sat Mar 11 12:07:24 2006