This is my response to what Mark Beeson, lead pastor of Granger Community Church (A United Methodist congregation) set out in the premise of this blog post: How do we talk about our national debt?
But first, a clip from the most brilliant episode of South Park, ever.
But first, a clip from the most brilliant episode of South Park, ever.
Now, as someone who has studied social theory, I feel the need to point out a very common misunderstanding of the definition of communism.
Communism is an economic system in which the ownership of the means of production is held by the people, where then the people use a democratic political system decide how to use what it has produced.
That being said, there has never been a communist nation in modernity, despite how a nation may choose to label itself. Democratic communism does, however, work in small communities such as a Kibutz.
Socialism is trickier. Social theorist Karl Marx originally conceived it to be a transitional state between feudalism or capitalism and communism, but some social theorists have proposed political/economic systems by which a socialist economic system can be bypassed. The problem that has historically risen is that Marxist socialism has called for a revolution and, "dictatorship of the proletariat." Which sounds great--the people rising against corrupt markets and governments to take control of their own lives--until you realize that once the proletariat rises against the bourgeoisie, they realize why the bourgeoisie was so reluctant to give up their position in the first place. That's why we have the Castro family in charge of Cuba for so long. The same goes for all other CINOs (communists in name only).
Due to fallen human nature, all humanly conceived political/economic systems eventually fragment society where a small portion of the population has the lion's share of power and money. We are living it out in our representative democracy that employs a hybrid capitalist/socialist economic system (For the record there's has never been such thing as pure capitalism; as soon as there's a law about money, a political system has adopted a tenant of socialism).
Capitalism is no more Christian as socialism, communism, feudalism, or any combination of these economic systems. All of them have the potential to be used for or against the Kingdom.
My point to all of this is, there is no preferable economic system for a Christian other than theistic feudalism (Jesus is king, and he owns all of it) characterized by radical generosity and hospitality of the people of his Kingdom. We have to live that out incarnationally in whatever political/economic system we find ourselves. We cannot solve issues of justice through changing systems, but changing hearts, and through that, change the culture. The kingdom's economic system is: give yourself away.
This is what the Gospel says after Jesus feed more than 5,000 people.
Luke 9.23-25 - Jesus said to everyone, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will save them. What advantage do people have if they gain the whole world for themselves yet perish or lose their lives?"
Now for more South Park.
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