Should Economic Equality Be the Goal of Christians?

Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims. That is why God’s people are called to shed the light of God’s truth on destructive culture-shaping ones, like the idea that the Christan’s call to social justice means rejecting consumer driven capitalism in favor of economic equality. This episode begins by illustrating how quickly an evil, destructive idea can take over a culture and then addresses the falsehood that social justice means pursuing economic equality.

Hugh Whelchel in his book, How Then Should We Work explains how quickly the worldview of a culture can change:

"In the late 1980s a group of about 175 leaders met in Warrenton Virginia to strategically launch several initiatives through various channels of cultural influence to support what they hoped would bring about substantial cultural change. These friends formed the beginnings of the homosexual movement and were responsible for helping it find its stride in the mid-90s as every channel of culture was systematically inundated with the message of equal rights, tolerance, and civility for homosexuals."  

"Their strategy was employed in five important markets of social influence which touch every citizen in America, government, education, organized religion, the media and the workplace. In the business channel vigorous attempts were finally successful for same sex couples to be recognized with benefits equal to married couples. In the education channel books like Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate about same-sex parenting found their way into schools and public libraries. In the media channel “Ellen” and “Will and Grace” became the wedge that broke open wide open wide acceptance of gays as fun, engaging, and talented human beings. Within the cultural channel of the church major denominations like the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ opened leadership roles for gays and lesbians."

In 30 years, the idea of being gay moved from being commonly viewed as abnormal and aberrant in society to being an acceptable and normal alternative lifestyle. In my view on the horizon in America today is a worldview of economics that is far more destructive to the fabric of society than accepting sexual perversion as normal for some. And it is a worldview that is causing many young Christians to jettison their Christian faith.

In a recent book published by the Gospel Coalition, Thaddeus Williams of Biola University explains that the church’s lack of concern for economic and social justice is a primary reason that many of those raised in Christian homes are deconstructing their faith. He writes, “The conclusion that Christianity is hardly the beacon of social justice that it should be is a common theme in many deconstruction stories.” “Instead of advocating for the poor by embracing economic equlaity, today’s church,” it is argued, “embraces capitalistic greed, which oppresses the poor.” No teen raised in a Christian home wants to be part of a movement that oppresses the poor. No wonder so many are jettisoning biblical Christianity in favor of joining “social justice” ideologies that they believe support the poor instead of American consumerism. Furthermore, there is little evidence that this worldview about economics is slowing down as more politicians embrace the views of this destructive ideology than ever before in my lifetime.  

Is ECONOMIC EQUALITY something that all justice-loving people should pursue?  How do we answer the accusation our kids hear proclaimed through social media that if Christianity were real, more Christians would pursue social justice by promoting ECONOMIC EQUALITY instead of America’s capitalistic consumerism? That is today’s topic.

At the core of American culture is a belief in equality. Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams had built their case for the Declaration of Independence from Britain upon the famous words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created EQUAL.” Believing in EQUALITY is as American as apple pie and watching the Superbowl. However, our founding fathers used the term EQUALITY to refer to a specific kind of EQUALITY, equal justice under the law.

Lady Justice is blindfolded because justice is unbiased and must not be based on a person's appearance or other outside influences. She holds scales to represent the impartiality of the courts. The nature of the EQALITY of all men, that they had in view, is apparent as the Declaration of Independence continues, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” EQUALITY referred to equal rights under the law, impartiality in our justice system. Our God-given sense of justice resonates with such equality. “EQUALITY” meant EQUAL JUSTICE for ALL.

But in this decade the concept of EQUALITY has been hijacked. It has been changed by radical ideologues from EQUAL JUSTICE for ALL to EQUAL TREATMENT for ALL. We must help our culture and the rising generation think through the radical implications of this change in the meaning of “EQUALITY.” Let’s consider the difference.

• Should a lawbreaker and a law-keeper be treated the same way or receive justice?
• Should a rapist and the woman he abused be treated the same way or should the rapist receive justice?
• Should a murderer and his victim be treated the same way or should they both receive justice?
• Should a summer high school worker be treated to the same income as a medical doctor who spent 10 years and $500,000 getting his education, or should the doctor receive just payment for his services?
• Should a doctor who has become a highly skilled eye surgeon be treated to the same economic rewarded as a Starbucks clerk who is a skilled video game player or should the highly skilled worker whose work is more highly valued be justly paid more?

Radical ideologues have substituted EQUAL TREATMENT i.e. OUTCOMES for EQUAL JUSTICE. But we all realize that justice in the economic world God created is being able to reap what we sow. Coerced equal reaping, in fact, perverts biblical, economic JUSTICE.

ECONOMIC EQUALITY UNMASKED

A. The Origin of the Concept: It is rooted in the thought of Karl Marx. Marx played on the class envy of the poor workers (whom he called the proletariat) convincing them that they were being exploited by the business owners, (the bourgeoisie). He awakened resentment, hatred, and jealousy in the hearts of the unskilled laborers towards the owners of business. He created hatred in the hearts of the proletariat towards the bourgeoisie by arguing that ECONOMIC INEQUALITY WAS UNJUST. Marx demonized a market economy with private ownership, which enabled capital investment to increase productivity as the exploitation of the masses. Marxists come to power based on promising the poor that they would redistribute wealth and set up the utopian ideal where the operating principle would be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Marx, however, forgot to mention that the Marxist totalitarian leaders were the ones who would decide what each person needed.  

B. History: The utopian hope of ECONOMIC EQUALITY has been relentlessly used by politicians to exploit the naïve. The twentieth century was one giant lab experiment. Political leaders, Lenin, then Stalin in Russia, Mao Zedong in China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and Fidel Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela played on class envy, the hallmark of Marxism, fomented rage by the poor against the land, business, and factory owners, promised a utopia of justice, and took over government control of the economy. In every case, it was a disaster, leading to enormous slaughter and human suffering—THE KIND OF SUFFERING THAT EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD OPPOSE. Here are some of the stunning, brutal facts:

• Communism did not come to Russia as the result of a popular uprising: it was imposed on her by intellectuals hiding behind slogans of “equality.”
• Vladimir Lenin led his Bolshevik Party to victory in a three-year civil war. He began to centralize large chunks of the Russian economy.
• He discovered that bureaucrats in Moscow were neither motivated nor competent to manage distant factories and farms. Disaster ensued.
• Restrictions on trade created a black market bigger than the economy.
• His regime dumped banknotes into the market causing catastrophic inflation. In 1923 prices were 1 million times greater than prices before Lenin’s revolution. The starvation that ensued was horrific.
• After Lenin took over the economy, large-scale industrial production in 1920 was 18% of what it had been in 1913 causing enormous suffering.
• Lenin slaughtered the wealthy peasants, then tried to force poorer peasants to sell their grain below market prices, ending in massive starvation.
• Under Stalin, the livelihood of workers was decimated, while millions of peasants died from a forced famine in 1932 and 1933.
• An unfathomable 20 million Russians perished as a result of Stalin and Lenin’s socialist takeover of the economy.
• In China, Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” led to the slaughter of millions of landowners by his brain-washed teenaged Red Guard in the 1950’s.
• Mao’s utopian promise, “We shall create a new heaven and earth for man” was catastrophic: 20 million Chinese died in the famine that resulted from this “heaven on earth” construction project, alone.
• An astounding 65 million Chinese died through Mao’s socialist policies.

There are similar statistics about Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, and other socialist regimes. Frenchman, Stephane Courtois, whose group documented the socialist atrocities of the 20th century wrote, “Between 85 million and 100 million human beings lost their lives to communist experiments in the twentieth century. Never has an idea had such catastrophic consequences” (Money, Greed, and God, Jay Richards). This fact of history is the reason Christians must not remain silent about poisonous hatred for the rich being spewed by adherents of this ideology.

C. Morality: The concept of ECONOMIC EQUALITY is NOT based upon the VIRTUE of JUSTICE, but upon the EVIL of ENVY. It is imperative that we help the culture and rising generation understand that at its very core the ideology that promotes ECONOMIC EQUALITY is morally repugnant to God.

• The pursuit of the so-called virtue of “economic justice” caused naïve teens in Mao’s Red Guard to slaughter landowners to confiscate their land. This false God of ECONOMIC EQUALITY is seen in Critical Theory, which justified the looting and burning of business in our cities because business owners are part of the “oppressor class.” Economic had become their God empowering them to excuse the evil of murder, imprisonment of the innocent and theft.
• It embraces the forcible redistribution of wealth. It justifies whoever controls the government stealing money, goods, lands, and the means of production from their rightful owners, violating the 8th commandment, “You shall not steal.” It robs those deemed “too wealthy” to give what is stolen to “the deserving poor” who happen to be the supporters of their political party.
• ECONOMIC EQUALITY is rooted in a violation of the Tenth Commandment, “You shall not covet.” Proponents of this destructive ideology deceive followers into thinking that their feelings of coveting what the rich have is not the evil of coveting, but the virtue of being offended by injustice. As scholar, Art Lindsley points out (“Does Jubilee Require the Redistribution of Wealth or Land”, tifwe.org) the biblical teaching about the year of Jubilee does not support the redistribution of wealth. To the contrary, it guaranteed that the land given by God to own by specific tribes in Israel could only be leased, the details of the lease requiring it to be paid up by the year of jubilee.
• Finally, as we’ve seen, EONOMIC EQUALITY, which masquerades as a virtue, is really based on the sin of envy. Notice how the class hatred generated by Marxism, Critical Theory, and the political left right now fit the works of the sinful nature described by Paul in Galatians 5:20: enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions.

D. Replacing the virtue of ECONOMIC JUSTICE with the utopian ideal of ECONOMIC EQUALITY is rooted in human arrogance that sits in judgement upon God. If ECONOMIC INEQULITY is unjust, God is an immoral monster, since by his providence he has caused one child to be born fabulously wealthy into the House of Saud—the royal family that rules Saudi Arabia, and another child into the poverty of a single mom who is a crack addict in Chicago. Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all (Prov 22:2). Nowhere does the moral demand of justice require ECONOMIC EQUALITY. The very sense of justice that all humans have results from being created in God’s image. His nature is the source of all true understanding of justice. Yet, God simply does NOT create humans EQUALLY--with the same level of talent, financial resources, or opportunity. Paul teaches that we have gifts that differ according to the grace that is given to us (Rom 12:6) The idea that economic justice requires leveling the economic playing field is a corruption of the human sense of justice.

God’s glory is shown by the breadth of diversity shown in his creation. Humans are arrogant to complain about this diversity. But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” (Rom 9:20-21). “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him. Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? (Isaiah 45:9).

From the standpoint of eternity, it could be argued that it is better to be poor in this life than rich. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Matt 19:24). Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God (Lk 6:20). To say that ECONOMIC INEQUALITY is unjust requires believing that the God who placed all men in their economic circumstances is unjust. The chief obstacle to coming to this conclusion is the Bible.

E. In view of the diversity of God’s creation, Scripture reveals what economic justice is. Jesus said, to whom much was given, of him much will be required (Lk 12:48). Jesus reinforces this view of economic justice in his parable of the talents in Matthew 25. In verse 15, we read, to one the master gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Notice that the allotting of resources to each servant was done justly—each “according to his differing ability.” There is nothing inherently unjust about creating servants with different abilities nor entrusting different levels of assets to each one. There is no ECONOMIC EQUALITY going on here. Later in the story (vs 20-23) we read,

And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 

It is not accidental that the master said exactly the same thing, word for word, to the faithful servants given five talents and given two talents. Justice is NOT EQUALITY of earning potential, athletic ability, physical beauty, or wealth. Justice from our master is qualified by comparing what we have been given to what we have achieved. ECONOMIC EQUALITY is rooted in Marxism, not the Bible.

F. God’s creation command to all humans to develop the potential he built into the earth for the benefit of mankind and his glory supports the economic freedom of capitalism. Examine any scientific discovery like iron ore, petroleum, electricity that is turned into a benefit to mankind like buildings, automobiles, and appliances, and you will see the investment of capital. To accomplish our very calling as humans, discovering and employing the potential God built into earth to benefit humans, it is necessary for someone to invest money to pay for those who figure out how it can benefit mankind and how to multiply that benefit. Despite the distaste with which the political left has filled the term, it is capitalism that provides private ownership and a free market. This economic system incentivizes payment for research and for turning that research into a blessing to humans. As we will see in a moment, it is such investment that makes the economic pie bigger, which is the best way to help the poor.   

TEACHING OUR LOVED ONES TO RECOGNIZE THE MARXIST MYTH

There is a massive failure to understand the nature of economics by those who argue that Christians should support ECONOMIC EQUALITY. Ignorance is revealed in their assumption, rich people having more means poor people have less. You might have heard the argument, “In America, the richest 1% have 40% of all the wealth. This kind of inequality is unjust.” The wealth gap between the upper class and everyone else is almost always framed in terms of inequality and fairness. However, this apparent injustice is based upon the FALSE idea that the total amount of wealth in a society is FIXED, like the size of an apple pie. If someone gets a bigger slice, that means someone else will only get a smaller slice. If there is only so much to go around, the richer Tom is the poorer Harry is. No one should have more than his fair share.

However, any knowledgeable person knows that is NOT how economies work. What if there is a way to make the pie double or triple or quadruple in size? That is what God originally wanted to happen as Adam and Eve multiplied and the resources God placed into earth were discovered and utilized.

God’s design for cultivating the garden so that humans flourish is for mankind to have the economic and political freedom so that humans can work with 1) material resources, 2) an understanding of human needs, 3) creativity, 4) legal protections (private ownership, patents), 5) information, and 6) technology—to transform natural resources into products that make life better for everyone. God has gifted and called humans to develop the potential of creation. Often humans do this by transforming things that have little economic value into resources and technologies that have great economic value. Light, for instance, has been turned into lasers. Wind turned into electricity. And sand is transformed into fiber optic cables and computer chips. Humans innovate. The late Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, didn’t steal iPhones from homeless people. He invented them, and by being free to create and sell them, Steve Jobs created new wealth. Economic and political freedom enabled Steve Jobs to grow rich; but that same FREEDOM is what led millions of others to get richer. The pie grew. Steve Jobs getting richer didn’t make everyone else poorer. In fact, the wealth he added to the pie provided jobs and economic value to millions of people in the US and around the world.

In fact, economic INEQUALITY is the mark of a TRULY FREE society, one that respects the right of every individual to make his own decisions about his gifts, and the career he will follow. Because everyone is created in God’s image, everyone should be treated equally before the law. But that doesn’t mean that our efforts produce identical outcomes. Some choose jobs they love that barely pay the bills. Others choose careers that are risky or boring but lucrative. Others prefer regular work hours that pay less but are stable. A free society allows us to make these choices. Having the economic and political freedom to choose the career that you WANT to choose gives a greater sense of purpose and satisfaction, and even makes life more enjoyable. The only way to level economic outcomes would be to deprive people of this freedom. And whenever that’s been tried it has failed. Rather than making everyone equally prosperous, governments who try to force economic equality only succeed in making everyone more equal in their poverty and misery. When Christians thoughtlessly jump on the bandwagon of supporting ECONOMIC EQUALITY, they harm the poor. Next week we’ll look at what Scripture teaches about how to actually help the poor, as all true Christians must do.

For Further Prayerful Thought.

1. How would you respond to the average Christian dad who says, “understanding economics is not part of my calling. I can’t answer my kid’s accusations that Christianity is hypocritical and that they can’t embrace a religion that favors American consumerism instead of ECONOMIC EQUALITY as Jesus would have?”
2. What most stood out to you about current ideologues who have replace the content of the word EQUALITY as equal justice under the law with the concept of the same treatment?
3. Why does the biblical view that justice is not everyone having the same abilities, assets, and opportunities but that from those who are given much, much is required better match reality than the concept that everyone God creates should be EQUAL in every opportunity, ability, and asset?