Biblical Teaching versus Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism

[Updated 23 November, 2020.]

The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November, 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union on 26 December, 1991 seemed to mean the failure of communism in Europe in general.  It continued in Asia, notably in China, although with a duplicitous and aggressive control of capitalist enterprise, including an economic colonialism in Africa.  Western Europe continued with various forms of socialist governments.  European countries have typically supported a democratic socialism, which affirms democracy by the people and big government as the means by which a country can bring about more equity and care for the poor.  This is all an ongoing experiment in theory and in practice that never manages to get the same results, and the debates continue. Communism, however, always meant the oppression and persecution of Christians, whereas many Christians have hoped to find in socialism a good form of government because of its purported concern for the poor and a more equitable justice. Many other Christians have found in capitalism not only a better working economy but also a more free economy for them to distinguish themselves from and have a voice in economic and political systems.  This all too brief essay for the size of the topic is offered to raise considerations for what is, of course, a complicated matter that requires further study and discussion.

We are here interested mostly in how Scripture weighs into the discussion of communism, socialism, and capitalism, being well-aware that it was not supporting government or economics as we know them today.  That is, we need to be cautious when applying words from antiquity to situations today that Scripture did not have in view: we need to avoid anachronism.  Some general discussion is possible, however, where Biblical views about governance and social morality are addressed in both Scripture and society today.  The moral concerns in Scripture about wealth and poverty contribute to this discussion; here, however, the relation of government to those concerns are primarily under consideration.

Two primary Biblical concerns address governments: the enslavement of the people when power is centralized in the Old Testament’s monarchy in Israel (1 Samuel 8.12-17), and the replacement of God with an imperial tyrant and his oppression of His people in the New Testament’s notion of an antichrist tyrant (Revelation 13).  Governments fulfill a God-given role of establishing justice (Romans 13.1-7), but this is no endorsement of any centralization of power in the State.  While the Bible’s concerns with monarchy and tyranny do not express the view of government under communism, they do relate to totalitarianism: the centralization of power in government.  There is an overwhelming argument in Scripture that big government does not provide prosperity and promote religious devotion but results in oppression.

Take for example, the platform laid out by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for communism.  The initial plan states up front that, in order for the poor masses, the proletariat, to wrest control from the bourgeoisie, power must be centralized.  This was to involve doing away with private property and inheritance—the exact opposite of God’s plan for the families of Israel to have their own allotted land that would be inherited.  It would involve a graduated tax, where those with more would pay more in taxation.  It would involve the confiscation of property and credit by the State.  The State would control the farms and factories and the people’s labour.  It would control where people lived, re-engineer society, control speech, and provide a free, State education that meant government control of the curriculum.  These points are laid out in the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (II. Proletarians and Communist, Communist Manifesto), as follows:[1]

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the Proletarians and Communists populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

These points provide a view into what State control entailed under communism, all with a concern for equity instead of the oppression of the masses by the bourgeoisie.  As stated, and particularly as the plan was put into action by the Bolsheviks in the early 20th century, this State control was not only oppressive but also murderous.  For example, the kulaks, Ukrainian farmers with small farms, had their property confiscated so that the Communists could establish their collective farms, and they were either murdered or relocated within the Soviet Union.  Furthermore, Communism has oppressed religion, including Christianity, by re-education, suppression of beliefs, closing churches, incarcerating believers, controlling their children’s education, and executing people for their faith.  At the time of writing, there are regular reports of how this is continuing in Communist China, and the history of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia present the same narrative.

‘Equity’ sounds like a good value, since ‘inequity’ suggests injustice.  In 1875, Marx proposed that, if Communism is successful in producing an abundance of co-operative wealth, society will be able to claim the socialist slogan, ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ (Critique of the Gotha Project).  Communism is all about both the State’s access to wealth and the State’s control and redistribution of wealth. Equity means not only equal opportunity but also equal outcomes.  Scripture is far too skeptical of human nature and government power to believe that anything of the sort would result.

As practiced in the early Jerusalem Church (Acts 5), equal distribution was, crucially, voluntary. (Paul makes the same point regarding the collection from Corinthian Christians for the relief of the Church in Jerusalem: ‘Each one must give as he has decided in his own heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver’ (2 Corinthians 9.7; cf. 8.3).)  State control under Communism is not voluntary and has always meant oppression.  Thus, when one reads in the Communist Manifesto (point 10, above) that there will be free education for children in public schools, one has to understand that this actually means State control of children’s education—control of the curriculum and no private education.  Also, devotion to God is considered competitive with devotion to the State or, more particularly, to the Communist Party.  Being a Christian is thereby rendered antisocial.

The attack on the Church comes in another section of the Communist Manifesto, where it is depicted as a bourgeoisie institution that gives only the appearance of socialist concerns.

As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has Clerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism.

Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat (III. Socialist and Communist Literature, 1. Reactionary Socialism, A. Feudal Socialism, Communist Manifesto).

As Marx had written in 1843, ‘religion is the opium of the people’ (A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right).  The context of the quotation suggests his point was that it was an emotive response to oppression that, unlike Communism, was ineffective and placating: ‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.’  Yet it was not irrelevant because it worked as a numbing agent on the open wound of social (economic) oppression that really needed surgery.  Thus, Communism, a typically atheist ideology, has always opposed religion.

Socialism, on the other hand, claims that religious concerns for justice and the poor are concerns that can be given concrete expression in its organized response to social issues.  Poverty, education, oppression, social justice—a socialist society takes such concerns seriously and responds with a view of government that aims to achieve results.  Socialism overlaps with some of the aims of communism, such as inheritance and graduated taxation and free public education, but especially State control.  The concerns of society are not to be addressed in the Church or by voluntary aid but through the State—therein lies the challenge. 

While Christians obviously cannot trust the control of the State in communism,  we might ask as Christians whether we can trust the socialist State’s use of our labour, taxes, and property.  Socialism is a system of governance that involves a large role for government as it controls resources, production, and dissemination of goods.  It may do this to a greater or lesser extent: public housing, the railroad system, public schools, health care, elderly care (Medicaid), etc. This control by the State inevitably involves the curtailing of individual freedom.

The Old Testament entertained a concern for a safety net for persons who faced poverty.  First, opportunities to work for food were set in place with the rule that people were not to glean at the edges of their fields (Leviticus 19.9; 23.22).  This entailed voluntary participation by those with means in a cultural practice.  Of course, in Israel's theocratic society, it was divine Law.  Second, a state-run food programme for the poor was established.  Every third year, the tithe of produce that people gave was collected for those without land--the Levites, sojourners (aliens), fatherless (orphans), and widows (Deuteronomy 26.12).  

On the other hand, others were given private ownership to inheritable lands--quite the opposite of a socialist society.  If they lost their lands due to a reversal of circumstances, or even if they lost their own freedom and became indebted servants, the Sabbath Year returned the land or freed the bondservant (Deuteronomy 15).  As a social programme, however, this practice of a year of release functioned as a social control to avoided systemic poverty.  This social practice mirrored God's action of blessing those who obeyed His voice (Deuteronomy 15.4-5).  Israel's care for the poor was not conceived of as an entitlement programme but as an obligation that comes with concern for others:

If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, 8 but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be (Deuteronomy 15.7-8). 

If people are taxed to pay for government programmes to care for the needy, their giving is a legal requirement and not a moral act.  Care for the poor, however, is Old Testament moral law.  The passage continues,

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land' (Deuteronomy 15.11). 

This is why countries advocating freedom and capitalism need a culture that promotes volunteerism and philanthropy that cares for the poor in the land.  When this occurs, there is no leaning toward a socialist state where bureaucrats are hired (not elected) to manage the redistribution of wealth through impersonal systems of government.

Socialism requires big government, and its authority over individuals lives easily becomes homogenizing at best and oppressive at worst.  Democracy has to answer the problem of the minorities: how will they be respected when the majority wins elections and assumes power?  Similarly, even as socialism as big government can try to help minority groups, like the poor, it can equally exercise power in ways that oppose minority groups. The question is often asked of socialist governments, 'Will socialism oppose religious freedom?' The more the State controls wealth and its distribution, the more it is a challenge to the Church fulfilling that role. The Church is, from the socialist State’s perspective, a competitor.  Its ownership of property, its exemption from taxation, its different moral standards (such as opposition to abortion or what children are taught in schools) are problematic for the socialist State.  Why is it that social democracy has no place for the Ten Commandments, wants State control of the Church, wants to use taxes to provide abortion on demand and transgender surgery in opposition to the Church’s moral convictions, wants enforced health insurance plans that requires nuns to pay for birth control, supports the control of speech by hate speech laws rather than freedom of speech, insists on educating children against their parents' values, and so forth?  Of course, the State could hold more Christian values.  Yet it does not in country after country, and the same problem encountered with communism also persists in socialism: the concentration of power in the State and the control of its citizens.  Those who swallow the idea that socialism does good have to believe that the State is poised to deliver not only a moral society but also that it will do so equitably and efficiently.  Nothing in Scripture’s warnings against concentrating power in the State supports such naïve trust.  The history of various attempts at socialism, beginning in ancient Greece, is a history of economic and political failure.[2]

Apart from the actual programmes of social democracy, there is also the question of whether it is an efficient means to achieve good in society.  (Let us imagine its goals are good, for argument’s sake.)  In fact, government control is highly inefficient and always costly.  The argument is false that socialism puts the economy into the hands of the people through their election of officials to government.  Government’s elected officials are middlemen between the people and the programs that replace what would otherwise develop in a free market system.  Moreover, elected officials regulate rather than run government agencies: a ‘deep state’ develops around the government funded agencies such as for education, health care, and environmental regulations.  Such agencies are notoriously costly, unresponsive, inefficient, self-serving, and so forth.  This is precisely because they do not have to respond to a competitive market and the preferences of consumers.  When a profit incentive is removed from work, work grinds to a slow pace.  Think of the agony of dealing with the department of motor vehicles. A health system in a country that leaves nobody out by giving control to the government is a system that is costly, inefficient, and, once again, forces Christians to pay for State approved 'procedures' like abortion.  The suspicion of centralized control in both Old and New Testaments does not address inefficiency, but it does see the danger of self-serving, centralized government that eliminates the free decisions of the property owning families, clans, and tribes who can control matters in their own interest.

Roger Crook defines capitalism as

the system of private ownership of the instruments of production, distribution, and exchange, and the use of those instruments under a plan of individual initiative and open competition to earn private profit.[3]

Capitalism can sound and be so harsh.  As Adam Smith notes in The Wealth of Nations, the marketplace is impersonal and therefore is not based on altruism.[4]  Thus, it operates by self-interest: the consumer’s interest in purchasing, the salesman’s interest in selling. Human productivity increases when one does not simply labour for his or her own needs but sells his or her labour to acquire capital enough to purchase what is produced by others.  The need for a variety of goods that one does not purchase oneself requires a division of labour in which many people contribute to the production of an item and to the marketplace.  Working together, as in an assembly line, the workers can produce more than they might were they to labour independently.  This self-interest of the labourer may be interpreted as greed, but this is so only for some: self-interest and greed are not equivalent.  In fact, self-interest is based on satisfying the wants of consumers who make their own decisions about what to purchase. It can be a powerful mechanism that brings benefits to more than just the powerful.  Where the accumulation of wealth is a result of production, this can and often does benefit the worker.  Self-interest leads to market exchange, specialization (division of labour), efficiency (it is timesaving), and an increase in productivity.

Pricing is another factor in a market economy.  The natural price of an item reflects the actual cost to produce the item.  The market price reflects the relationship between supply and demand: the availability of an item (how many are available for purchase?) and the demand for it (how much is it needed or desired by consumers?).  Due to supply and demand, the market price tends to head in the direction of the natural price of an item if the market is left to itself.  The reason for this is that producers’ self-interest in maximizing their gains will tend to develop efficient means of production to produce more items at a cheaper cost for consumers to buy their items, and this is increased when there is competition among producers.  A bottom-up rather than top-down impetus in economic development is far better.[5] Regulation will stifle the economy.  People need to be allowed to produce what is in their best interest (to earn money to feed their families) and not be told what to produce.  Also, the principles of ‘never do yourself what you can purchase at a cheaper price from someone else’ and ‘only produce what is locally available so as to be competitive in trade’ would lead to natural growth.  Taxes, foreign wars, and burdensome government undermine natural growth and lead to economic stagnation.  In such ways, then, self-interest, not altruism, becomes the means by which to improve the ‘wealth’ (well-being) of ‘nations’ (people).  Adam Smith called this the ‘invisible hand’ in the economy: without intending altruism, the free market benefits the people.

Smith was also aware that the aristocracy, companies, guilds, or business owners tended to want to maximize their earnings over against the free market system, such as by holding onto lands, creating monopolies, regulating production, or paying low wages.  Self-interest, then, can work against the interest of the people. Smith argued that this self-interest was mistaken.  Instead of protecting one’s assets from others, using them to stimulate trade would not only produce more wealth but be beneficial for the population as a whole.  The vast estates of the aristocrats might be put to use, not by seizing the land for the populace but in a productive way to benefit everyone.  The wealth of a nation lies in its productivity, not in, for example, the acquisition or protection of wealth.  The Spanish stealing of gold during its colonization of South America did not lead to sustainable wealth for the nation as the country was not itself wealth-producing.  For Smith, monopolies like the East India Company of Great Britain were not only oppressive (it had its own military and sought to extract wealth from Britain’s colonies); it was also a large and expensive business that was not that productive (the government at times had to bail it out).  Government regulations that protected monopolies were not Smith’s understanding of unregulated, bottom-up capitalism.

Another aspect to Adam Smith’s economic arguments is morality.  His first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 was published well before The Wealth of Nations in 1776.  He returned to revise it after the latter work was published.  Thus, Smith’s interest was the morality of individuals and the morality and good functioning of an economy.  His interest in the economy develops out of his concern to address the needs of the poor.  Scripture, too, defends the private property of individuals over against the collective ownership and powerful government of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon.  It, too, looks down to the exchange economy of the marketplace and the produce of small-hold farmers.  Yet, like Smith, the right functioning of such an economy is also largely dependent on the morality of the people.  Dishonest weights, land seizure, exploitation of the poor, corruption, theft and so forth are often condemned.  One might well ask how much the morality of a people is essential for its economy to have any chance of functioning well.

When capitalism creates powerful monopolies and wealthy businessmen whose wealth is not wealth producing for everyone, people begin to imagine that the solution is socialism, a government-controlled economy.  This step requires enormous faith in government and in big government.  Smith’s view is to protect the natural economy of exchange, not to defend tycoons and plutocracies like corporatocracies or technocracies or aristocracies.  Where Smith looks down to the local businessman, socialism looks up to the government.  Big government, even if altruistic (at first), quickly runs into a number of problems itself.  For example, it is not as productive and efficient as capitalist economies for the general population, its manipulation of supply and demand prices can drive prices up, and its opposing self-interest and promoting social interest means that incentive and responsibility are impersonal and bureaucratic.  Its promoted social values are often questionable (e.g., when ‘health care’ becomes protection of abortion).  Its hand-outs to the poor tends to keep the poor in their situation and develop in them a sense of entitlement and victimhood rather than help them to become participants in the economy.  Like the wealthy company owner wanting to pay his workers low wages to maximize his profits, so socialist societies want labourers to give up their freedoms and self-interests for the collective group.  Instead of helping the poor, socialist governments become overseers of a poor class, undercut the middle-class’s economic growth, and partner with big businesses.

Marxism expected the workers of the world to unite and overthrow the bourgeoisie, but this did not happen in the richer, capitalist countries.  The workers had benefitted from the economic growth of the capitalist countries where they lived. Marxism also claimed that a communist system would produce the abundance of goods so that each may receive according to his need.  Marxist economies, however, mainly created needs, not an abundance of goods.  The problem for communism was always that everyone, including the labourer, was better off in capitalist societies and anything but a social utopia followed communist revolution.

Marx was writing against feudalism (Russia still had serfs when the Manifesto was written) and the relatively new industrialism of European society.  The Bible’s perspective was more about agrarian society.  Today, we discuss economics in an industrial and technological society.  Each of these looks at how society works differently.  Powerful landowners reduced people to slavery or serfdom.  Powerful industrialists worked their labourers long hours at low wages.  A number of large companies use the power they derive from wealth to try to shape society’s politics, speech, and morality.  In each case, the concentration of wealth and power is configured differently, but it is always about wealth and power.  In turn, these wealthy powers in society that arise because of capitalism become, as Joseph Schumpeter argued, its loudest critics.  Why is that?  It is because, while their wealth and power protect them from their own views, they have a concern for the less fortunate, the poor.  Schumpeter argued that capitalism would necessarily and eventually collapse—as did Marx.  His contribution to the point was that it would collapse not because of the proletariat rising up in revolution but because of these ‘intellectual’ capitalists pushing for a more socialist society.[6]  They do so because they believe that this will produce a more equitable justice for others.  As long as they can send their own children to top schools, have private police protection of their wealth, and keep earning high salaries, they are happy to advocate (give a voice to) socialism for the rest of society.

This apparently has, by and large, proved to be true.  Big tech companies tend to be liberal.  Yet this analysis may be deficient.  The entrepreneurial, innovative, and competitive drive in these companies is capitalist.  Their very involvement in social issues is an indication that they want control over the government itself.  The heads of Twitter and Facebook do not like being called to Washington, DC to account for their control of free speech.  They want their own monopolies.  Western consumer societies want surplus wealth to buy things.  Even as people clamor for greater care for the poor, they do so with a capitalist edge.  The exception, however, is in their political views: the more that the people are willing to give power (through taxation, social engineering, control of curricula, etc.) to government, the more they put themselves in the situation that they will lose their own voluntary involvement that democracy has offered.  That is, the bigger the government, the more democratic socialism edges toward the totalitarianism of communism.  It is a question of degree, not of a qualitative difference.  Europe, in any case, has moved to a social democracy at the same time as it has become overwhelmingly secular.  Christian views are regularly attacked, and ‘hate crimes’ are often turned against Christians.  (America’s freedom of speech has kept it from having as many cases against Christians as Europe, which has ‘hate speech’ laws instead of the protection of speech.  This is also why socialists in America dislike the First Amendment.)  Christians do live in such countries, but they are too small a percentage of the population to be of much concern, and their religion is expected to be private.

Crook critiques capitalism in the following points:[7]

1.      Problems with property: property might fall into the hands of a few; it might be misuse of property.

2.      Problems with free enterprise: unrestricted accumulation and use of money may run counter to the needs of society as a whole.

3.      Problems with competition as the basis for trade: competition to regulate the quality of products, set prices, establish wages, determine which products will be produced may not always be decided best by unregulated competition in the market-place.

4.      Problems with profit as the primary motive for driving the economic system: profit may turn a blind eye toward exploitation of others or the environment, or it may be profit for a few while the labourer is exploited.

What Crook suggests in order to address the problems that capitalism produces is not a turn to socialism or communism.  It is not a different system that is needed but a check on the system, one that creates capital without the extremes noted above.  While he does not sort his comments out in terms of values, virtues, and actions that contribute to such checks on capitalism, his engagement with Scripture in regard to these topics can nevertheless be presented as follows.

Crook identifies the following values to place a check on capitalism’s potential to exploit the environment and others for gain.  First, nature has an intrinsic value (Gen. 1.31 (‘it was very good’); Ps. 19, 89, etc. (nature praises the Creator); Ps. 8 (nature reflects the Creator’s glory); Rom. 8.19ff (‘nature will take part in the final fulfillment of God’s purposes).  Second, human beings are part of the natural order and interdependent with it (Gen. 1-2 (part of creation); Gen. 3.19 (made from the dust)).  This leads to valuing resources more than profit margins.  This value is related, however, to the value or right of private property (two of the Ten Commandments imply private property ownership (stealing and coveting (Exodus 20.15, 17)) that is, itself, checked by an understanding that we are trustees of God’s world (Ps. 24.1 (‘the earth is the Lord’s and all the fulness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein’).  Third, the worker must be valued, such as in connecting the worker with the product and not treating him or her as a mere cog in an industrial machine.  Fourth, work must be valued as a vocation—the worker needs to be free to choose careers.  This opposes treating the worker as a slave or serf.  Fifth, returning to Scriptural references, Crook notes a Biblical valuing of one’s neighbour.  The commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself (Lev. 19.18) stands at the head of a work ethic.

Crook also identifies some virtues alongside values for a capitalist economy.  There are labour virtues, such as industriousness, diligence, efficiency, and faithfulness on the part of the worker (cf. Gen. 2.15; 2 Thes. 3.10—more texts might be identified than these).  There are also social virtues: being caring (cf. Acts 2.44-45; 4.32); compassionate, fair (just), honest (a virtue related to justice and the valuing of the worker), and respectful of each other’s dignity and the eternal worth of people as human beings.  Also, there are vices that can be identified: the endless accumulation of wealth (cf. Mt. 6.19-21; 19.24), and greed and selfishness in competitive, free market economies.

Crook also identifies some individual and communal actions that might be taken in capitalist societies.  Individuals should conserve energy, reduce waste; and perform acts of compassion towards the needy (Mt. 25.40).  Communities should stop any unfair distribution of wealth—unfair wage distribution (jobs, gender, age, race, abilities), unfair control of wealth by a few, and unfair entrapment in poverty.  They should assist the poor (Mt. 6.3; Lk. 18.22) and poor nations.  This may involve land reform, sharing technology, helping to improve or provide education, and assisting a group entrapped in poverty that might be shut out of the marketplace (such as women in some contexts).  Crook also mentions taking action to stop exploiting natural resources.

Such a listing of values, virtues, and actions provides some helpful points to consider.  Much more, of course, could be added from Old Testament ethics (such as from Proverbs) to Crook's examples.  From these, though, several observations may be offered.   First, there is the recognition that a capitalist free market system that creates jobs and is productive and competitive is good for the economy.  It encourages growth, and it values freedom.  Second, it recognizes that checks are needed to keep such a society from being immoral.  These checks do not turn the economy into a centrally controlled society, as in socialism or Marxism.  They are, however, needed, and the way to provide checks is through just laws and just courts.  The actions that Crook suggests taking will lead to such laws.  Yet, third, laws governing our actions are insufficient for a more just, capitalist society.  They require individual and social values and virtues.  Why, for example, would a capitalist businessman willingly curtail his exploitation of workers if he is making a handsome profit?  Society needs a moral foundation that gives rise to its values and virtues.  The same problem that a socialist government runs into with its centralized control is the problem that capitalist societies run into with their unchecked free economy: both require societies with a moral foundation.

Narrative ethics provides an answer to this concern for a moral foundation.[8]  The foundation for ethics cannot rest in principles that fallen human beings and societies employ—only to distort them in their own interests.[9]  The great moral systems of Immanuel Kant (deontology) or Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill (utilitarianism) were far too simplistic, rationalistic, and vague, and they depended on the reasoning capacities of men and women whose reasoning is, inevitably, self-justifying and sinful.  Ethics, in fact, derives from the shaping of a community’s values, virtues, and practices through the narratives it tells and embodies.  The ethics that result may be hopelessly corrupt and full of vice, or they may be just and virtuous—or something in-between.  That is, it is important to be the right community and have the right narratives and to embody them well.

If so, we may well ask whether the capitalist societies of the West that have been held in check by the virtues, values, and actions of Christian communities living out the Biblical narratives were not essential for somewhat just societies.  The expanding trade and economies of European countries in the pre-industrial age were characterized by greed and exploitation of human beings—the slave trade.  While Christians themselves often justified their involvement in this practice, it was, after all, Christian countries that also brought an end to the slave trade.  That is, these Christian societies had within them a moral foundation that could bring out values and virtues to stop actions that, while in the interest of the traders and landowners, were evil.

The line of argument here is that the moral character of communities is distinct from their economic systems, and what makes them better or worse is both a matter of the moral character and the economic system.  Biblically, it has been argued, there is a strong current of critique of centralized power.  This makes sense in a canon of literature that takes for granted that humanity is morally depraved and not essentially good without God and that the righteous are few on the earth.  The history of the monarchy in the Old Testament is testimony to this, as well as to the evils that centralized power can bring.  Freedom, however, is never unqualified in Scripture.  To be set free from slavery to sin means to become a slave of righteousness (Romans 6.16).  As to economic theories, Christians should find themselves better situated as prophetic voices in a democratic government and capitalist economy where they have freedom and a voice to call for values, virtues, and actions more than in a socialist system where they have no independence from the collective and are coerced into performing the desires of a centralized power.  In either case, the role of the Church is to distinguish itself from the world—even the world’s good virtues and values—because our moral foundation is a Scripture only we call Holy, our moral society is a distinct community from the world, and our moral economy is life lived in the Kingdom of God.  Whenever we chase after the politics, economies, and ethics of the world—whether for evil or for good—we relinquish our role of being the Church, through which ‘the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places’ (Ephesians 3.10).



[1] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party,’ trans. Samuel Moore with Frederick Engels, in Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Pub., 1969; orig. written in 1847 and published 1848).

[2] Victor Davis Hanson, ‘Our Socialist Future?’; online at: https://www.scribd.com/document/476901034/Our-Socialist-Future-by-Victor-Davis-Hanson (accessed 20 November, 2020).

[3] Roger H Crook, An Introduction to Christian Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), pp. 228.

[4] This description of Adam Smith’s arguments for capitalism is dependent on a lecture in the Emory Williams Lecture Series given by Professor Jerry Muller entitled ‘Adam Smith on the Uses, Abuses, and Limits of Self-Interest’ on 29 October, 2013.  It is available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQbd_8krZXM (accessed 22 November, 2020).  See further, Jerry Muller, The Mind and the Market (New York: Anchor Books, 2002).

[5] Adam Smith opposed the views of François Quesnay and his ‘Physiocratic’ school of economics in France.  They advocated a top down reform of the economy that, indeed, did prove itself disastrous during the French Revolution.

[6] Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: HarperCollins Pub., 2008; originally published 1942).

[7] Crook, Ibid.

[8] Cf. Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame, 1991); The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame, 1991).

[9] Cf. James W. McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012).

The Spiritual Discipline of Studying the Scriptures

Christians speak of various practices or spiritual disciplines that develop a believer’s spiritual life, such as prayer, worship, good works, and reading Scripture.  We need to distinguish between activities, practices, and skills when we consider spiritual disciplines.  An ‘activity’ suggests no discipline, no regularity, no discipline—it is something one might engage in without training or devotion.  A discipline entails all of these.  It is spiritual when directed to one’s relationship to God.

 

One becomes an expert or craftsman through the disciplined development of habits and skills.  The study of Scripture involves certain disciplines of reading that guide the practice of reading Scripture.  Doing so over time forms a habit and results in some skill.  By understanding the study of Scripture as a spiritual discipline, we see that discipline is needed to become good at the practice.  Like any discipline, learning, exercises, and effort are involved.  Also, the reading of Scripture involves devotional or spiritual exercises and learning and studying; these cannot be separated.  The discipline of Scripture reading is, finally, not only to be done during a personal ‘quiet time.’  It is something that involves receiving the gift of teaching offered by mature Christian teachers and the gifts of others in the body of Christ who can speak wisely and by example into the lives of each other as everyone seeks to live in obedience to God’s Word. 

 

This will, importantly, involve listening to the author of Holy Scripture speak to one’s own heart through the Word—listening to God’s teaching.  Such listening involves several things.  First, since many false prophets and teachers have gone out into the world and are found in the Church, this means listening to what the Biblical text actually says and not making it say something other than what it says.  Such listening involves ‘hearing’ the text in its context—an activity that sometimes requires persons trained in the Biblical languages, in the ancient, Biblical contexts, and in the study of Scripture.  It also involves listening to trustworthy teachers who confess Jesus Christ (cf. 1 John 4.1-3).  Further, it involves considering your interpretation of the text with regard to what the Church has taught always, everywhere, and by all.  And it involves being ready and willing to hear how Scripture speaks to your own life—not in a new way different from what it originally said but in a new way consistent with what it originally said.

 

Here, then, is some direction for a spiritual discipline of reading God’s Word.

 

1. Know the Scriptures:

*by reading all the books of the Bible.

*by reading Scripture regularly, hearing it read, discussing it, hearing teachers interpret it.

*by having a grasp of the narrative—the mission of God, the covenants, the history                 

   of redemption; the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God, the promise and fulfillment in                     God’s Word.


2. Approach interpretation as an exercise of faith seeking understanding and life seeking obedience because Scripture is God’s authoritative and truthful Word:

           

*by accepting it as God’s revelation.

 

*by understanding it as the highest and final authority.

 

*by regularly reading, interpreting, and learning from it.

 

*by accepting it as true in all that it affirms.


 

3. Study the meaning of the passage according to the author’s intentions:

 

*by hearing how teachers in the Church have interpreted the passage.

 

*by interpreting the text in its historical and cultural context.  Hear what God was saying

through the Biblical author to the first hearers in the historical and cultural context.

 

*by interpreting the text in its literary context.  Understand the meaning of a passage of

Scripture in its literary context: the immediate literary context, the book in which it is found, the writing or writings of a particular author, and the type of writing (genre) that it is.


 

4. Interpret a passage of Scripture in light of the implications of the canonical context:

           

*by understanding the parts in light of the whole, moving back and forth in the spiral of

                        interpretation between the passage in the book and in the canon.

           

*by letting clearer passages shed light on more obscure passages in matters of faith and

practice.

           

*by discovering the greater implications of texts in light of the complete revelation of

Scripture.

           

*by being aware of the development of revelation, especially from the Old Testament to

the New Testament.

 

  *by exploring how later authors used earlier authors of Scripture, especially how

New Testament authors interpreted the Old Testament.

   

5.  Look for the significance of Scripture:

           

*by first seeing how the Scripture was significant for persons in the Bible, and then

           

*by asking how the Scripture is significant for persons in different situations historically,

culturally, and today in your own context.

 

6. Look for proper applications of the Scripture:

             *by discussing what is truly analogous between something in Scripture and in the present

Situation, avoiding false comparisons.

             *by understanding where the right emphasis lies in applying Scripture to life today,

including distinguishing between what is central and what is peripheral and what is transcultural and normative over against what is cultural and relative.

*by appreciating that good performance of what Scripture teaches involves more than just

practices: it involves understanding, intentions, and skill around the practices (obedience, devotion, sincerity, reverence, etc.).

*by listening to what the Spirit of God is saying in the text to you in ways that are

consistent with its original meaning, implication, and significance.

*by submitting your understanding of the application of a text to what others understand,

avoiding private meaning and interpretation.

 

7. Learn how to study Scripture and to learn from teachers of the Word:

 

*by acquiring basic skills in Bible study.

 

*by learning from mature Christian teachers who are entrusted with the responsibility of

studying and expressing the meaning of Scripture.

           

*by setting aside time for study of Scripture on your own and in groups.


 

8. Study Scripture in community by:

           

*by hearing how Scripture has been interpreted and lived in the history of God’s people.

 

*by speaking the truth of the Gospel and Scripture to one another in love.

           

*by showing one another in lives well lived what the Word means.

 

*by honoring and seeking out trustworthy teachers of God’s Word and by being aware

that there are false teachings and false teachers.


 

9. Be a ‘doer’ of God’s Word, not only a hearer:

           

*by obeying what God has said in Holy Scripture.

           

*by being part of a vibrant community of faith that lives faithfully according to the

Scriptures.


 

10. First and foremost, be a devoted disciple of Christ Jesus in your study of Scripture:

           

*by having a relationship with God the Father through Jesus and by the empowering

presence of the Holy Spirit.

           

*by being guided by Godly virtues, particularly faith, love, and hope.

           

*by bearing the fruit of the Spirit.


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