Capitalism
and
Socialism
God Cares About Government
so you should too!
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Freedom
or
“Free Stuff”
God Cares About Government
so you should too!
2
Via Negativa
Capitalism
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Current Bias
• Germany
– Jew = hatred
• America
– Capitalism/rich =hatred
– Christian school
• Being rich worse than being criminal
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Capitalism and Socialism
• “I’m not interested in government or politics” or
Christians/church should not be involved in
politics…
– Family, Church … any other of God’s institutions we
should neglect?
• Government and politics matter
– Biblically
• Colossians 1:15-20 –
– Government is the Lord’s idea, he cares about it and so should we
• Romans 13
– Government is a human agent or vehicle for God to work through
– Practically/pragmatically
• North and South Korea
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North Korea
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South Korea
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North and South Korea church
South Korea
• Only the US sends out more
cross-cultural missionaries
than South Korea: 16,616
missionaries to 173 countries.
By 2030 the Korean church
wants that number to be
100,000.
• The capital Seoul contains
eleven of the world’s twelve
largest congregations.
• The Yoido Full Gospel Church
is the largest single church in
the world. Its 800,000
members attend different
services across dozens of
campuses. Every year they add
10,000 members
North Korea
• no known
– Missionaries
– Publication of Christian
literature
– Churches
– Free worship
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Capitalism and Socialism
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A history lesson might help
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Dangerous times
• History is:
1.Lost or unknown
2.Rewritten
3.Apathy
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History lost or unknown
• “He’s a cool dude”
– Why is he cool?
• “I don’t know, man, he
did some cool stuff”
– Do you know the evil that
he is responsible for?
• “yeah, I heard something
about that but you can’t
trust that kind of stuff you
don’t even know if it’s
true”
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
1. Yes, evil has and is done in the false name of
Christianity (KKK, kooks, etc.)
2. Yes, born-again, regenerated evangelical
Christians can do terrible things – just asking
King David
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
3. The claims against religion, in general, and
specifically against Christianity are, by and large
distortions, ignore and falsify historical evidence
and are highly exaggerated
– Prominent atheist have been very successful
convincing millions of people that religion has been
the bane of history
•
“religion and in particular, Christianity, has given us
stonings, witch-burnings, crusades, inquisitions, Jihad,
fatwas, suicide bombers and abortion clinic gunmen” (Sam
Harris The End of Faith)
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
4. The horrors of the lack of Christianity
(atheism, Marxism, communism, etc.) are
unimaginably horrific
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• Rethinking History
• “Islam Is a peaceful religion which has been
hijacked by a few and receives bad press. We
need to take a look at Christianity as well.
Christians have done a lot of bad things in the
name of Christ throughout the ages“
– Mr. xxxxx - history teacher in a Christian school
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• The Crusades – “a set of world historical
Christian crimes whose trail of violence scars
the earth in human memory even to this day”
James Carroll
• This is a common theme – religion is bad but
Christianity is worse
• But is it true?
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• The Crusades revisited
– Before the rise of Islam the region we call the Middle East
was predominately Christian
– More than 200 years after Islamic armies conquered the
Middle East and forced their way into Europe, Christians
finally did strike back
– Rallied by the Pope Urban II and ruling dynasties in Europe,
11th century Christians attempted to recover the heartland
Christianity and defended against militant Islam
– These efforts are now called the Crusades
• this term is a later invention was not used by Christians or
Muslims who fought the battles
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• Who were the crusaders?
– portrayed as murderous and greedy conquerors
• Their rulers provided nothing – they were expected to
bring their own supplies and equipment
• most expected and did come back poor then they left
• yes there was looting and forging on the way
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• The 1st Crusade was a success and Christians
captured Jerusalem in 1009 and held it for
several decades
• The Muslims regrouped and routed the
Crusaders and Saladin reconquered Jerusalem
in 1187
• Subsequent Crusades were failures and
Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• Crusades
– would be better described as a belated, clumsy
and unsuccessful effort to defeat Islamic
imperialism
– without the Crusades, Western civilization might
have been complete overrun by the forces of
Islam
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• The Inquisition
– contemporary historians have now established that
the horrific images of Inquisition are largely a myth
concocted first by the political enemies of Spain –
mainly English writers who shaped our American
understanding of that event
– the idea that the Inquisition targeted Jews is fantasy
– Inquisition trials were fair and more lenient than their
secular counterparts not only in Spain but across
Europe
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• The Inquisition
– frequently the penalty was only a form of
penance
– while the unjustifiable death of every human
being is tragic accurate historical estimations are
between 1000 and 2000 deaths over 350 year
period of time – not the overly sensationalized
amounts conveyed
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History rewritten
Christianity under attack
• Witch trials in Europe
– “no one knows how many were killed perhaps
hundreds of thousands or even millions Carl
Sagan (citing no sources)
– historical sources put the number at slightly less
than 100,000
– Numbers matter
• I scream and sin against my co-worker once a month; I
scream and sin against my co-worker 100 times a
month
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oppressed
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Communism
• Myriads of lesser atheistic tyrants
– Fidel Castro
– Kim Jong- ILL
– Ahmadinejad
– Pol Pot
• Leader of the Khmer Rouge (Communist Party that
ruled Cambodia from 1975 – 1979)
• Tortured and mass murdered 1.5 – 2 million people
using them for fertilizer
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Communism– the big 3
1. Stalin
2. Hitler
3. Mao
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Comparing the big 3’s of atheism and
“Christianity”
Stalin, Hitler and Mao
Zedung
Crusades, Inquisition and
Witch hunts
• Collectively their
• 200,000 deaths
atheistic regimes in a
single century
murdered more than
100 million people
• Unmeasurable
suffering
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Comparing the big 3’s of atheism and
“Christianity”
• 200,000 : 100,000,000
• Deaths caused by “Christian rulers” over a
500 Year period of time amount to only .002%
of the number of the deaths caused by
communist atheists of Stalin, Hitler and Mao
in a space of a few decades
• Atheistic regimes operate without the moral
restraints that religion produces
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Communism
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Marxism
socialism
communism
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Marxism
• The name comes from Karl Marx (1818 –
1883), a German thinker born into a Jewish
family that converted to Christianity when he
was born. He became an atheist before
college.
– rejected any notion of a Creator or transcendent
being.
– The universe started and sustains itself – no outside
force required.
– We created God and religion in our image to meet
our needs.
– Matter is the highest reality – evolved into mankind
as its most elevated form.
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Marxism
• Since no transcendent Lawgiver exists, Marxism
rejects moral absolutes. It considers:
– mankind good,
– but believes in evil, described as economic inequity and
the ensuing abuse of power.
– Human injustice results from class conflict between the
haves and have-nots. Private property amplifies greed,
leading to social ills, which must be corrected by revolution
replacing the old economic structures with new ones.
– The ends justify the means as long as those promote the
communist society Marxism seeks.
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Marxism
•
The new society will have no wages,
money, or social classes, an eventually no
state. Utopia is achieved when there is
eventually no state!?!
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Socialism
1. seeks to create immediate material equality
for all people by standardizing wages,
confiscating from wealthier residents much
of their personal holdings and also highly
regulating and taxing industry.
2. legislates government control over property,
handing over production and delivery of
material goods to the state.
3. Marxists believe socialism is a temporary
half-life between capitalism and communism.
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Current Socialist Countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_countries
•
•
•
•
•
Bangladesh
Republic of India
Democratic Socialistic Republic of Sri Lanka
United Republic of Tanzania
Syrian Arab Republic
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Previous Socialist Countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_countries
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Algeria
Republic of Egypt
Ghana
Indonesia
Iraq
Kenya
Libyan Arab Republic
•
•
•
•
Nicaragua
Sudan
Uganda
United Arab Republic
All currently one-party
systems.
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Socialism and communism
• Communism and Socialism describe
a progression of philosophies. The
relationship between these policies
and Marxism is that they aim, in
varying degrees, at achieving the
ends of Marxism
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Socialism and communism
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COMMUNISM
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Social justice
A new name
for an old enemy
socialism
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Socialism
1. There is No Private Property, - the State Owns
all
1. In Socialism, government holds all right to property
ownership, even if all goods are not yet confiscated
1.
2.
3.
The Ten Commandments form the center of the Old and
New Testament law. Rules against theft and coveting,
contained therein, demand pre-existing private property
rights.
Knowing this, would Christ then still insist government had
exclusive legal claim to all property?
Yet, even if government did own all property, would the
Bible writers posit the state would wisely allocate property
according to Christ’s standards?
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Socialism
2. Socialism Ignores Laziness
–
Socialism financially supports those refusing to
work
•
•
Proverbs 6:6-8 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider
its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no
overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest
2 Thessalonians 3:6-12 you…For even when we were
with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not
work, he shall not eat.” We hear that some among you
are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such
people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ
to settle down and earn the bread they eat.”
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Socialism
3. Teaches all Authority belongs to the
government
– Col 1 ; Rom 13; Matt 22
– John 19:8-11, Pilate asks, “Don’t you realize I have
power either to free you or to crucify you?” Jesus
replied, “You would have no power over me if it were
not given to you from above”
•
Declaration of Independence - rights come from God
– In Acts 4:19-20, when the Apostles were ordered to
stop evangelizing, they responded, “Judge for
yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey
you rather than God
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Socialism
4. Branch of Humanism
–
Socialism is an atheistic, humanistic
philosophical system
– Romans 12:2—Don’t conform any longer to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind…to test and approve
what God’s will is
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Socialism
5. Seeks to create heaven on earth by
believing a Utopia can be achieved by
making everything equal
– Revelations 21:1-4—“Then I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had
passed away… I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God…There will be
no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the
old order of things has passed away.”“
– Doesn’t the Bible portray Heaven, or the New
Jerusalem, arriving after the return of Christ, as a
perfect city?
– If Paradise does come to earth, will it really be
delivered by secular atheists using Marxist doctrines?
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Socialism
6. The state replaces the church
– it is the primary role of government to protect
the people and have just laws
– Primary role of the Church is to advance the
Gospel which in turn help the needy
– In Matthew 22:15-21, Christ says, “Give to Caesar
what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
• Jesus separates civil government and
church
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Current President
1. Childhood – Indonesia
1.
anti Colonialism
2. Mentored by Frank Marshall Davis
1.
a card-carrying member of the Communist Party,
1.
John Drew, who knew him at Occidental College, told Kengor
(Author of The Communist) that “Obama was already an ardent
Marxist when I met him in the fall of 1980.”
3. Pastor - Jeremiah Wright
1. Anti American Racist
4. Association Bill Ayers
1. Anti American terrorist
5. Favorite Prof Roger Boesche
1. Socialist
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Freedom
or
“Free Stuff”
God Cares About Government
so you should too!
52
Capitalism
• an economic system in which investment in
and ownership of the means of production,
distribution, and exchange of wealth is made
and maintained chiefly by private individuals
or corporations, especially as contrasted to
cooperatively or state-owned means of
wealth.
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Capitalism
• So, what ARE those Biblical
principles that, if adhered to,
would produce a “righteous”
form of Capitalism?
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Capitalism
1. Enables libertarian free trade and economic
association.
2. Punishes theft.
3. Honors property and intellectual rights.
4. Enforces pre-established agreements and contracts.
5. Enables upward mobility.
6. Rewards hard work, persistence, risk taking, and
entrepreneurship.
7. Benefits the population by raising the standard of
living.
8. Punishes monopolies.
9. Promotes good stewardship of resources.
10. Promotes giving and charity.
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Capitalism
• A Capitalistic system that encompasses these
rules already exists. It exists right here in the
United States of America. It is our form of
American restrained Capitalism given to us by
the faith, wisdom, hardship and blood of our
largely Christian Founders.
• Are there abuses, sure, but that does not
argue against the system it only points to evil
hearts that abuse systems
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Government
• God created government and it is his minister
or servant
• With the exception of the coming theocracy,
all governments are fallen
• Therefore we must promote and facilitate
governments which will be the most reflective
of biblical principles and facilitate freedom of
the gospel
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•
•
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•
•
•
Socialism (so´she-lîz´em) noun
1. a. A social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are
owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community. b.
The theory or practice of those who support such a social system.
2. The building of the material base for communism under the dictatorship of the
proletariat in Marxist-Leninist theory.
Communism (kòm´ye-nîz´em) noun
1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of
property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all
members.
2. Communism. a. A system of government in which the state plans and controls
the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make
progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the
people. b. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the
overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat
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