book

Ron Sider refused to reply to book, or even give a footnote; first publication of Ron’s book (1977) strongest, later edition (1984) watered-down, response to both; free-market thesis vs Ron’s socialistic position; suggested policies (eg land reform) proved to be failures; book dedicated to Lord Peter T. Bauer: Third World economist, Christian scholar; revolution ~ religion; Bible calls for free market without state intervention (!= “pure” laissez-faire economy, not everything is allowed, but prices are set by supply and demand, charity is encouraged but not enforced); Nazism <-> Communism: rivals not opposites; Ron Sider: not Marxist but statist (= government should control everything); Socialism is theft (<-> “thou shalt not covet”); sociological guilt: manipulates to prepare for Socialism (<-> biblical guilt: objective moral guilt after breaking God’s commands, should stop after repentance); Sider thesis: sin is in things, built into the structure of reality, causing us to sin; Sider: possessions are dangerous (<-> he wants us to share these dangerous things with others); problem is sin, not possessions; lack of possessions can be tempting too (stealing); “capitalists worship Mammon” -> this is generalization (how do you define a capitalist?), even if it’s true for some it’s because they are sinners not because they are capitalists; “all income should be given to the poor after one satisfies bare necessities” -> why? because John Wesley said so? his example is not a biblical standard! complete economic equality is never stated as a biblical ideal;

• I. BIBLICAL LAW & SIDER THESIS
  • economic laws are God’s laws too; Sider is a legalist: requires obedience to man-made regulations (Christians should “live simply”) and confuses sin with civil crimes (not every sin has civil penalty: e.g. hatred, gluttony or ignoring the legitimate needs of immigrants - these will be punished by God not the state); Sider is eager to legislate against social sins while ignore similar legislations for sexual sins (eg. homosexuality); antinomianism (lawlessness): replace God’s law with his own, be like God, knowing good and evil; Jesus’ fulfilling the law: obeying not replacing it; Jesus never opposed what was written (in the law) only what was said (in the traditions); love and law are not opposites (Rom 13:10); transgressing God’s law by supporting legal plunder of my rich neighbor in the name of “love for the poor” is not real love; moral law: “how should I live?” (permanent, obedience); ceremonial law: “how should i restore my relationship with God after breaking moral law?” (temporary, sacrifice); “freedom of law”: only refers to ceremonial laws as a means to salvation; no New Testament text condemns moral laws, it is still binding (eg. restitution, homosexuality); role of the state: God’s minister to 1) do good and 2) punish evil - based on God’s law, not their own (Rom 13:4); God is ultimate owner (Prov 24:1) -> property rules must follow his commands: it doesn’t allow government’s redistribution of wealth; property owners must stay within biblical limits - but government must do the same too; US: government owns all land, rents some to citizens, if you don’t pay property tax (rent), you are evicted -> this is theft!, eviction is strictly forbidden (Ez 46:18); Robin Hood theology: loving poor neighbor = robbing rich neighbor; rich is responsible to help the poor, poor is also responsible not to steal from the rich (Lev 19:15); God gives the power to get wealth (Deut 8:18); biblical way to get dominion: hard work, not demanding “fair share” of resources by government redistribution; Western prosperity: result of “Puritan ethic” (diligent labor, saving, investment, philosophy of free enterprise); God promises external blessings to external obedience -> profit; dominion through service: efficient mass production for the needs of the public; true (non-fraudulent) investment: cannot benefit the investor without benefiting others (<-> pyramid games); basic economic rule: golden rule (Mt 7:12) & 8th commandment; Bible doesn’t define “just price” but establishes the conditions for a free market; truly biblical free-market economy: no fraud, no coercion -> everyone makes a profit: each party of a transaction exchange something less desirable for something more desirable; money is a commodity in itself, does not represent wealth; government seeks to have monopoly of currency to be able to create as much money as it needs -> inflation: dishonest increase in money supply -> prohibited by the Bible (form of theft: reduces wealth of everyone with no access to “new money”); Bible allows for some government taxation - but 10% is the absolute upper limit (1Sam 8:15,17); Sider’s proposal to solving valid problems: through government using either taxation or inflation -> unbiblical to the core;
  • God’s law and the poor: Poor Laws: crucial (ignoring them incur national judgment) but not long-term solutions, only emergency measures; ultimate solution for poverty: universal obedience to biblical law; Poor Laws not enforced by the state (still important but God will be the ultimate judge); Bible prohibits turning every sin into civil crime; civil government cannot punish criminals unless Scripture gives them right to do so; defenseless people group: 1) strangers: no biblical/economic justification for prohibiting immigration; Gary North’s suggestion on holding l handling illegal immigrants: let them work & enjoy the freedom but don’t support them at taxpayer’s expense (no minimum wage law, no public education requirement, require immunization or proof of it); 2) widows & orphans: church has special - financial - responsibility; but it’s limited to “real” widows (without family, too old to remarry, unable to receive support from relatives); primary responsibility on family (1Tim 5:8); larger church family is last resort (otherwise: human tendency to neglect our responsibility if some agency assume them for us); even then, charity is restricted only for those who themselves practiced charity (1Tim 5:10); biblical charity never subsidizes irresponsibility (2Thess 3:10) - the further we get from familial charity, the more likely this principle will be violated; “guaranteed national income” (Sider): geared toward irresponsibility, I have a right to as much money as I can vote out of my neighbor’s pocket (“thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote”); it enslaves is to the state; Bible commands responsibility; Tithe: law of tithe was never revoked; simple requirement (10%) replaced by tyrannical legalism (the more you love God the higher % you should give); Sider’s graduated tithe requires all income above $14,850 to be given away -> replacing God’s law; 1) God wants his people to rejoice and enjoy his good gifts (<-> Sider: alcoholic drinks are “flagrant abuse of grain”); 2) leftover portion given to Levites (-> professional theologians, teachers, worship leaders); 3) third year tithe distributed among elders & needy -> local charity administration (<-> state poor relief: subsidizing poverty); “biblical law aids the poor, yet makes it economically desirable for them to work their way out of poverty”; Gleaning: 1) not indiscriminate, landowners could specify which “deserving poor” could glean on their land (Ruth 2:4-16 - ???) 2) was hard work; Lending: charity loans had to be interest-free (<-> no evidence for business loans: Mt 25:27); up to 6 years max; but recipient had to be genuinely poor with only a cloak (Ex 22:26-27 - ???) to prevent him from using the same collateral for multiple loans (which were forbidden); cloak had to be returned for the night but not during the day -> incentive to repay asap; 3) for unbelievers: no debt release every 7 year, interest included, no limit on interest rate; Slavery: Bible permits slavery; basic purpose: elimination of poverty & slave mentality; slavery in itself not wrong (otherwise God would not have provided for it) although some forms might be (eg. pre-Civil War South); slavery is not a sin but the violation of God’s slavery laws is; slavery is inescapable (if men are not slaves of God, they are slaves of sin - Rom 6:16-22); every nation not serving God became enslaved to the state; Sider’s solution: not liberation but increased slavery to the state; slavery will always exist -> biblical answer: not to try to abolish it but to follow God’s law; many laws seem harsh but they a) are remedies for irresponsibility b) seek to drive men out of slavery c) are not as harsh as the laws of men; biblical worldview: not a fairy-tale romantic perfectionism, but a realistic appraisal of men with their sins and shortcomings; 1) Obtaining slaves: kidnapping forbidden, deserves capital punishment (Ex 21:16), legal ways: purchase, capture in war, enslaved as punishment for theft or to pay off debt; Bible doesn’t allow imprisonment (except for waiting for trial/execution); thief: not caged up at taxpayer’s expense like animals but worked productively, made proper restitution to the victim of his crime (suggestion for advocates of “social justice”: bring back restitution!); 2) Caring for slaves: beating is allowed (to provide invective to work); but killing prohibited; protection from mutilation; 3) Freedom of slaves: Hebrews freed in 7th/Jubilee year; purchase his own freedom -> provision for upward mobility; heathen slaves: never freed but could purchase his own freedom if converted; if slavery laws seem unjust to us, it is because we are wrong; Bible warns against slavery of the state, state (<-> provided welfare causes dependence on the state); becoming used to benefits -> loss of reliance on God, family, self; (Auberon Herbert: “Treat the people as unworthy of trust, and they will justify your expectation”; Why should I do that which the state will do for me?); economic controls require omnipotent, enslaving state to enforce them; Sider opposes slavery but his proposals would make the state nothing less than God - and when man plays god, the result is always bondage; Jubilee: was not a poor law, primary goal was not alleviation of poverty; no biblical evidence that state has a duty with the poor (<-> plenty for individuals & the church)
  • Exodus as Liberation Movement: we cannot use Exodus as a precedent to support libation movements in general (just like other aspects of Exodus eg. destruction of Egyptian firstborn and slaughter of Canaanites cannot be generalized either); Exodus was not simply “liberation of oppressed slaves” but liberation of God’s covenant people; liberty: freedom from undue state control <-> liberation: coercive, omnipotent state -> destruction of liberty; liberation achieved through totalitarianism (~ Vietnam War: “necessary to destroy the village in order to save it”); abolitionism in Britain: lawful, peaceful, no shedding of blood, gradual process, slaveholders compensated <-> abolitionism in US: based on antichristian humanism, agitation for chaos and revolution; to methods of social change: regeneration (first: discipline to God’s standard, then attempts to peacefully implement God’s law in culture, knowing there is no perfect society in this life, justice comes from Holy Spirit, not legal structure, law is indicator but not cause of national character) <-> revolution (believes perfect society is possible, must be coercively imposed on men, God’s providence too slow, His law too confining, “liberty, equality, fraternity - or death”); abolitionists willing to slaughter innocent people in order to achieve a perfect society (eg. terrorist John Brown); Charles Grandison Finney (“Billy Graham of the nineteenth century” - Sider): Pelagian (denied original sin), heretic; became member of “National Kansas Aid Committee”, pledged to raise two million dollars to provide arms for abolitionist gangs; committee supported John Brown (claimed to be God’s “special angel of death”); radical abolitionists claimed to be pacifists but later supported bloodshed as the only means to purge away the “sin” of slavery; they were not content with the gradual, legal abolition which many on the South supported; their concern was not justice but revolution; rejected biblical position on slavery, which mandated both slaves and slaveholders abide by God’s law; Sider claims to be pacifist, calls for “nonviolent revolution” - so did the abolitionists; price controls & expropriation of lands require force -> in this way Sider already called for violence; Sider’s Jubilee Fund has financed modern terrorists;
  • Is God on the side of the Poor?: Sider thinks yes (but backed away from extreme implications); 1) at “pivotal points of revelation history” (Exodus, destruction of Israel & Judah, Incarnation) God intervened to liberate the poor 2) God always casting down the rich and exalting the poor 3) God’s people are on the side of the poor. <-> fallacy of equivocation: who are “the poor”? who are “the rich”? is God always for the one and against the other? God is against lazy/ungodly poor people (who blame God for their misfortune); covetousness/theft punished by sevenfold restitution (Prov 6:30-31); socioeconomic status: no guarantee against God’s wrath (Is 9:16); Jesus concern for the poor (Lk 4:18-19): not abstract, general, universal but discriminatory (Lk 4:25-29); Jesus permanently left Nazareth, his hometown, because of their rejection and unbelief (including the “poor and oppressed”); God doesn’t relieve the oppressed in general but only those who seek Him; if rich are ipso facto oppressors -> God constantly overthrows them -> permanent revolution (Karl Marx) (but: if God is always on the side of the poor, he should switch sides after overthrowing the rich -> cosmic hot-potato game); we shouldn’t automatically assume that the poor man’s cause is right; standard of justice: not relative wealth/poverty but God’s law; God overthrows the rich not because they are rich but because they are sinners; oppression of the poor is wrong not because God is on the side of the poor but because oppressing anyone is wrong; whose side is God on? -> who is on God’s side? (Ex 32:26)
  • Third World: very important concept for socialists yet very vague (definition depends on user); irresponsible concept (developed nations = “Western imperialists”, solely responsible for economic conditions on developing countries -> confiscation of private property of foreign investors justified); Sider’s example: banana company paid bribes to Honduras’ government to avoid tax (in fact: Honduras’ corrupt government wanted to impose tax = bribe, fruit companies tried to reduce the ransom); implication: economics in Third World countries is different; Sider’s only solution to widening wealth gap: foreign aid from industrial nations (which tend to reduce - not increase - agricultural production); population estimates are very unreliable -> purchasing power underestimated (eg. noone would survive on $75/year in US <-> they are having a population explosion!); hunger & starvation: God’s curse on rebelling men (not necessarily present inhabitants!); no Protestant culture has been plagued by famine (positive economic effects of “protestant work ethic”) but we should expect if our nations turns away from God; God controls environmental conditions, he can turn the desert to blossom (Is 35; 43:19-21) <-> unbelieving culture gravitates towards statism/socialism; your Savior will be your Lord as well, whoever saves you, enslaves you; in truly Christian culture, market is free from state control -> scarcity doesn’t produce shortages, only price controls do; market adjusts immediately to changes in the environment (which is controlled ultimately by God as ultimate Environment); God continually works to destroy unbelieving nations and give the world over to his people (-> that’s the meaning of “uprooting the rich”) - not by military aggression but by godly labor, saving, investment and orientation toward the future (-> meek Christian will inherit the Eart earth); most important fact about poor pagans: not that they are poor but they are pagans, living in willful rebellion against the one true God (Rom 1:23-25); economic issue is only symptom, real problem is spiritual -> solution must be spiritual too (=conversion to Christian faith)!; example: pagan view of time (Western linear <-> Eastern cyclical concept) -> enough to keep them from being productive; real misery shouldn’t be disregarded but approached carefully with a biblical mind; poor people need the Gospel; must obey his law and renounce state-worship;
  • Foreign Aid: should the US provide “bombs or bread”? -> neither! both suggestions (tariffs/commodity agreements=legally enforced price supports) are immoral; tariff is theft regardless of who does it; price fluctuations: always adjustment to reality; Bible doesn’t define “just” price for commodities, but prohibits fraud sand coercion; “outside help is essential” -> externalist attitude hinders material progress; Puritans progress because of ethics not grants; it also promotes warfare mentality (progress only possible at someone else’s expense); foreign aid produces irresponsibility and dependence, it helps those who are better off (not the poor), widens the gap between rich and poor; biblical alternatives: support Christian missions; invest private capital (more productive than foreign aid); give to charities for relief/specific needs;
  • Overpopulation: bible not opposed to population growth; answer is not population control but population regeneration; overpopulation: not absolute value (=density) but #people relative to food (=famine); all causes of overpopulation is man-made (war, government control of land etc); socialism will necessary lead to overpopulation; nations obedient to God will not suffer from overpopulation
  • Law and profits: “unfair profit”: old socialist idea based on envy & ignorance; high profits =/=> unjust profits; Bible doesn’t specify what profit is unjust; profit: tangible sign of success in serving consumer wants; man with highest profit = man serving the public; “unless we can demonstrate from the Bible that product X is sinful - not just luxurious or trivial or silly - we cannot say that the profit received from producing it is wrong”; high prices != high profits; production: either by compulsion or profit; high profit shows either 1) very efficient 2) made too many people happy; high profits are temporary;
  • Advertising and Slave Mentality: advertising don’t create desires but fulfill existing ones; advertising is information; information is useless if not communicated; Amos used tricky ways to get Israel’s attention; “advertising shapes the values of our children” -> it’s your problem: God gave this responsibility to the parents; Christians aren’t supposed to be gullible; central problem: not advertising but slave mentality/depravity (inherent bent for idolatry) -> solution is regeneration (not legislation); false advertisement: Fall
  • Cultural Bone Rot: envy: greatest disease of our age, it is the feeling that someone else’s having something is to blame for the fact that you don’t have it; jealousy/covetousness: wants to take <-> envy: wants to destroy, to bring down the other to his level; it is feeling hurt when looking at the prosperity of others (“your wealth is the cause of my poverty”); concern for the poor doesn’t justify theft (eg. land reform, nationalization of foreign holdings) - Judas did the same (Jn 12:4-6); Sider uses envy to manipulate the object of envy into feeling guilty for being envied; example from theOtherSide: father cannot thank God for his healthy, newborn son because of the suffering of other parents who don’t have such privileges as them; Sider’s whole ministry: guilt-manipulation, US is to blame basically for everything, he includes himself in self-flogging too; envy destroys the man who commits it; it rots the bones of people and cultures, dooming them for destruction (Prov 14:30); “Rather than wealth causing poverty, it is far more true to say that what causes poverty is the widespread belief that wealth does.” (George Gilder); only cure: “sound heart”, contentment with God’s providential government of your life; biblical responses to needs: 1) prayer (Phil 4:6-7), 2) being content (Phil 4:5,8,12) 3) work (1Thess 4:11) - and God will supply our needs (Phil 4:19); “The biblical ethic of contentment does not mean a lack of drive or ambition. It does not mean apathy or inaction regarding the genuine injustice in the world. But it does mean that we are not revolutionaries. We look neither to the state not to chaos to achieve personal fulfillment or social improvement. Our aim is dominion under God’s rule. We seek progress within a stable structure, fenced by the law of God.”
  • Jubilee Principle: Lev 25, seems to focus on redistribution of wealth -> but: it’s not binding today (no one can claim divine right to property, original ownership debatable); Jubilee was symbolic prefiguring of Christ’s work; not every poor got land (eg immigrants); cannot be applied outside Israel; Israel’s population growth drastically dropped by the Exodus, and later stabilized;
  • Goal of Equality: communion service: continuation of Old Testament “love feats”, not just a cracker and a little grape juice; 2Cor 8:13-15 is not about complete redistribution of income but voluntary meeting the needs of poor Jerusalem believers -> even the poorest should have enough food; “equality” also appears in Col 4:1 (-> “fairness”); it means meeting their physical needs (both have enough to eat), not egalitarianism in socialist sense (equal possessions); Sider’s examples for “equalizing”: 1) Jesus and his disciples sharing common purse (might be useful for group of traveling missionaries but not normative for most Christians) 2) “communism” of early Christians (many of the newly converted Jews were not local, they just came for the feasts, didn’t bring enough money to stay in Jerusalem indefinitely -> Jerusalem Christians stepped in to supply the urgent - but temporary - needs, they liquidated property - Jesus promised to destroy Jerusalem anyway, they used “inside information” about the future to “rip off” Jews) -> it’s not a model but a special tactic designed to meet unique circumstances; of Christians kept selling property, soon there would be nothing left; there example should rebuke our unwillingness to help needy brothers and sisters but do not demand that we do what they did; Sider’s goal: first, encourage Christians to practice new world economic order (voluntarily), then to use their example to demand political changes to legislate model (it’s not voluntary anymore!); Sider thinks institutional changes are more effective and morally better than personal charity; Sider’s plea for equality = plea for power in reality (state enforced egalitarianism); economic equality = legal inequality; socialism = consumption of existing capital (“eating the seed corn”), it doesn’t augment resources, only concentrate power;
  • Statism: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?” (Mt 20:15); statism: infringement of God’s limit on the state, failing to conform to God’s law -> sin; Adam Smith vs Keynes; no partiality either to rich or poor (Lev 19:15); price controls: will result in shortage; rent controls: leads to house shortage, no repairs, disappearing owners; price set by government is always unjust; minimum wage laws: create institutional unemployment (people willing to work prohibited from selling their labor at its market price); Norway: highest production costs, social welfare system: 55% of GNP, heavy government subsidies; socialism: religious faith, unable to cope with real world; socialist: “the man of system” (Adam Smith); don’t just look at Sider’s ideals but also at how he wants to achieve them
  • Prophetic Message: “prophets were against the oppression of the poor - so are we” -> seem convincing; prophets: “guardians of theocracy” (E. J. Young), “persecuting attorneys” (Meredith Kline); prophets reminded Israel of covenant obligations, restarted God’s law & applied to the present situation; didn’t go beyond biblical law (they were concerned about oppression of the poor but never advocated statist policies as a remedy); example: Amos; warning against “covenantal forgetfulness”: God is the source of wealth (Deut 8:11-20); prophecy against sins of other nations show validity of law’s validity outside the theocratic kingdoms of Israel and Judah; wealthy women (Amos 4:1-3) indirect oppression of the poor through expensive demands on their husbands who being weak to resist, oppressed others to meet them (eg by charging unlawful interest); modern equivalent: credit cards & fractional reserve banking system -> it is covetousness, leading to decreasing the value of poor people’s savings through inflation; key point of Amos: we cannot hide from God’s law - but: he never appealed to socialism/statism for answers, he never said it was wrong to make a profit or unjust to have possessions; he named Israel’s sins and used scripture as a plumbline <->. socialist prophets rejected it; Amos wanted justice - but he defined it as obedience to God’s law; obedience will lead to God’s blessings in the form of increased productivity (Amos 9:13)
  • Preparing the Church for Slavery: inverted envy becomes sociological guilt: feeling of being responsible for the envy of others; guilt produces passivity, makes you powerless and programmed for defeat (eg King Harold of England vs Normans led by William the Bastard with the blessing of the Pope); this makes a society ripe for conquest; passive population: malleable and submissive -> welcomes state intervention; Sider’s plan works: Christians have become obsessed with imagined wrongdoings (while neglecting real violations of God’s law); this makes it more difficult to exercise dominion; essential goal of statist: church to abandon its calling (no inherent slavery in believer), to delude her to thinking she is powerless; life is a battle, we cannot merely hold our ground, if we do not conquer, we will be conquered;
• II. FUTURE OF POVERTY
  • Basis for Economic Growth: only way to achieve real wealth for everyone: increase productivity through capital investment; culture: produced by religion (with lag); capitalism: material byproduct of the Mosaic law -> cannot be imposed on a pagan nation, economic principles cannot be divorced from Christian base; regeneration: only foundation for social stability and economic growth; genuine charity: gives much more than money and food; factors of productive economic systems: 1) future orientation 2) rule of the law;
  • Conquest of Poverty: elimination of poverty = obedience of God’s people (Deut 15:4-5); defeatist vs future-oriented Christianity: can Christ establish his victory in this age?; Christ kingdom already started at the Pentecost; Jesus is king now (Mt 28:18-20) -> his obedient people should expect increasing victories in this age (not without struggles though); victory through proclamation of the gospel; every Christian should own property (one day they will anyway); slavery in Europe: disappeared without any attacks because majority of men stopped being slaves to Satan; Christianity transforms culture and society ~ leaven; great commission is not just about proclamation but discipleship; remnant of paganism is the fault of the Church;
• APPENDICES
  • no response to critics from Sider; he admits his own incompetence; he is very vague; welfare policy increases poverty; challenge to respond to Losing Ground by Charles Murray; Sider thinks wealth is natural <-> poverty has been the default throughout history; assumption: rich stole from poor (who used to be rich too); process of wealth creation: The Spirit of Enterprise by George Gilder (key to growth: creative men with money); Sider’s solution for world peace: defeat (total disarming, civilian-based defense: welcoming tanks with signs and messages: Go home! Don’t shoot! We are your brother and sister. God loves you!); claim to be pacifist <-> implicit advocacy for violence; “violence”: only what upper class does to lower classes; all force implies death penalty; state is not God: cannot create out of nothing; Third World: not economic but political concept (whoever receives foreign aid); foreign aid goes to governments; anti-Western ideology is itself a product of the West; guilt is often disguised as compassion; Thomas Müntzer & anabaptists radicals: mass murderers, forerunners of Marxism; be careful when someone says the Bible doesn’t provide blueprints - after this usually comes an “improved” interpretation; if you abandon the Bible as a standard something else will step in place;
  • Socialism, the Anabaptist Heresy: Anabaptists: rejected orthodox theology, hatred for the Church (Shafarevich); Cathars, Brethren of the Free Spirit, Apostolic Brethren, Dolcino (The Name of the Rose); Taborites; anabaptism: revolutionary socialism during the Reformation (Thomas Müntzer, John of Leyden); Inca civilization of Peru: best example for nearly total socialism; Charles Fourier: planets = living beings that copulate; socialists: God-haters, not ateists; basic allure of socialism: urge towards self-destruction; that’s why Ron Sider never proposed a positive program for wealth creation - they never intended otherwise; parable: missing blueprints, manual is outdated; Father James Groppi; World Vision: What do you say to a hungry world? (this book is the answer); Gary North: neo-Puritan <-> Ron Sider: Anabaptist; two traditions of Anabaptists: 1) revolution, communism (Jan Bokelson/John of Leyden), violence 2) pacifist, pietist (Amish, Mennonites); Christianity: chief rival of Marxism; religious repression in Ethiopia (Archbishop Abba Mathias)