[Vision2020] Strange Bedfellows: Libertarians, Christians, and Biblical Bolsheviks

[keely emerinemix]

This is good, Nick, and points out many of the philosophical inconsistencies of conservative Christians who claim to be political libertarians.  I might add one point -- the observation in the Book of Acts that the believers shared all things in common is a fact of history, even though it pertained only to the assembled (gathered, called out) community of Jesus' first century disciples.  The peculiarity of communal living in the early Christian church is why "Christian" libertarians defend their abhorrence of "socialist" government programs and their unfettered embrace of the free market -- what happened with the church then, and what could happen within the church today, in no way obligates the government or believers to co-mingle income through tax-supported programs to benefit the poor.  That was them, and that was then, these free-market worshipers say; secular government is the enemy now, and largesse to the poor is an example of robbing the saints of Peter to pay Pablo.

This is, of course, a convenient argument that manages to appear vaguely noble in its trumpeting of both Christian dominion and the "responsibility" to not afflict the poor with government charity.  In reality, it is a filthy and moth-eaten cover for hard hearts and blind eyes.  I find it beyond ironic that those who salivate with eagerness at their coming "hour of dominion" over formerly secular institutions such as banks, courts, schools and law enforcement, and who seek to live out those dreams for now amongst themselves in their own homogenized huddles, profess dismay that government's attempts to seek dominion over poverty might whittle down their Sabbath-feasting funds.  These dominion-fed men -- and they are almost always men, perhaps because it's deemed more "manly" to argue economics and social policy in the face of hungry children -- would like nothing more than to impose their views on an unwilling, secular society right now; further, they mock government and culture when it flounders in trying to aid poor people, without lamenting the loss and shouldering a fair share to remedy it.  The testimony of Scripture is clear:  Believers are to aid the poor among them and beyond them, and to give sacrificially as a lifestyle of devotion to Christ.  It would be wonderful if the Church did what it's supposed to do and government was freed from its burdensome social spending so it could focus on building schools, roads, prisons, etc.  But the Church isn't doing what it ought to be doing because too many Christians are, by and large, not only  hostile to the poor but convinced, on some wallet-closing level, that they either don't exist, or, if they do, should be blamed for their situation.  

An item on Doug Wilson's blog caught my attention yesterday.  In it Wilson decries the poverty of cardboard shacks, a lack of daily food and clothing, and the miserable conditions we associate with those far away -- far away and under the thumb of secular governments he and his followers would dismiss as anti-God.  Wilson, unable to leave a tender moment alone, then goes on to assure his readers that they are in no way to be bothered by the "relative poverty" of someone who, say, only  has 20 gigs on his iPod.  Extreme poverty is legitimately the Church's concern, he says, describing conditions that no one in his congregation will likely ever see and certainly won't experience.  

The mockery of what he calls "relative poverty," though, is unbecoming a Christian leader, although quite in character for Wilson.  But he knows that "relative poverty isn't about iPods and the shiftless, bored teens who covet them.  What Wilson dismisses as not the concern of his congregants is the poverty that lurks all around him.  It's the wrenching material poverty of abused, single mothers who are exhausted from trying to stretch a a 50-yard paycheck over the 100-yard field of their childrens' basic needs -- before one of the kids drops out of school to lend his support.  It's the migrant workers living in tents along the Wenatchee River, hoping the weather cooperates and the fruit holds out before they pack up and move again, and no one can righteously claim that it's "relative" when poor children die of easily cured diseases right here at home because they can't afford to go to the doctor or the dentist.  "Relative" implies a standard; in this case, a standard of absolute squalor and a standard of the comfortable, secure enjoyment of having enough and a little more.  Whatever danger, whatever evil, whatever lack, whatever hopelessness -- four walls, jeans, and a reasonable hope of a full belly a couple of times a week remove the poor from the sphere of Wilson's concern.  And it's a good thing, he imagines; too many of those "relatively" poor people live around him, and it would be a real downer to have to cater to them.  Wilson is fortunate, then, to have his cake and eat it, too, because he's devised a belief system that excuses him from caring and at the same time allows him to criticize the anti-God secularists in government who extend a hand to those Wilson would rather sweep away.  With power like that, Wilson's got it made, at least 'til Judgment Day.

I'll close with an example of "relative poverty" that, a decade or more later, still warms my heart.  My friends Abel, Cristina, and their children Macario, Rogelio, and Liliana, lived at the dairy farm in Western Washington where Abel worked.  As was too often the case, he was offered "housing" in lieu of wages; this allowed dairy farmers to cram entire families into dilapidated travel trailers while paying them half wages from daily split shifts -- two milkings a day, seven days a week.  The Valencia family lived in one of the nicer trailer homes I was accustomed to, a 17-foot trailer with a working toilet, although the children urinated outside so as to not tax the trailer's waste system.  Cristina cooked with water from a hose dragged through the field and wedged into the window of the trailer.  She and Abel slept on one fold-out bed; Liliana had a bunk and the boys slept upright on one of the couches.  Cristina helped Abel milk the cows, unpaid; the herd got larger and the milkings got longer and were too much for one man to finish, so she wrestled with the milking hoses and waded through the muck to help her man.  

One day, Abel slipped on the milking parlor floor.  A cow stepped on him, crushing some ribs and injuring his shoulder.  His employer had been deducting workman's compensation from his $1,000-a-month checks, but as it turned out, the boss hadn't been applying them to the State fund, and Abel had no coverage.  His shifts were covered by his wife and eldest son until Abel could limp out to the paror and attach the apparatus to the milk cows.  And the entire time, Abel and Cristina burst with gratitude and astonishment at the kindness of the boss -- because he didn't fire Abel like he could have, and they didn't lose their home.  I ate dinner with the Valencias every Wednesday; Cristina would fix pollo en mole and I would visit for an hour or so before I taught my classes.  Their children were grateful for my classes -- they could read, unlike their parents -- and Abel and Cristina were grateful that they were all together, the children in school and Abel regularly employed.  Sometimes the kids at school would make fun of Rogelio, because he smelled funny; sometimes Liliana would beg to stay home so she could help Papi; and sometimes Macario would talk about how he was going to drop out when he turned 15 and buy a car and work at the pallet factory and make $6 an hour.  

There will never be a Sabbath feast anywhere on the Palouse more beautiful, more sacrificial, and more full of the presence of Christ than my Wednesdays with the Valencias, and there will never be a time when I can accept, as a Christian and a mother, that their poverty wasn't my concern.  I miss them.  Macario did drop out, Liliana has a couple of kids, and I don't know where Rogelio is.  Abel and Cristina, after a few years in the trailer, got an apartment.  Someone else lives in the trailer now, I guess.  Maybe over Christmas I'll go check it out.  Maybe not.  There are scores of examples like that; I can't get to everyone.  But I praise God for a government that at least tries, and I hope for someone to be the hands and feet of God to care for those around them whose suffering is "relative" only  to those of  cracked and blistered consciences and rocky, cold hearts.

Keely




> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:43:31 -0800
> From: nickgier at adelphia.net
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] Strange Bedfellows: Libertarians, Christians, and Biblical Bolsheviks
> 
> Good Morning,
> 
> Chris Witmer seems to be gone, but LemmeNotKnow Doug is back.  Perhaps he can explain to us this hybrid creature called the Libertarian Calvinist, no doubt Heirloom Edition.
> 
> This is my weekly column for two newspapers.  My radio commentary is still one week behind, but I will catch up next week because I will spare my Cabo and Pocatello readers the story of the incivility of the Wilsonistas.
> 
> For more on Christianity and libertarianism see www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/libchristian.htm
> 
> Nick Gier
> 
> STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: 
> LIBERTARIANS , CHRISTIANS, AND BIBLICAL BOLSHEVIKS
> 
> I first came in contact with the term “libertarianism” during the Idaho Congressional campaign of 1972.  Steve Symms, under the philosophical tutelage of Ralph Smeed of Caldwell, used this term to describe himself as he ran on the Republican ticket in the First District.  
> 
> I’ll never forget a great motto that I learned from Symms: "A liberal will let you do anything with your body, but not everything you want to do with your money.  A conservative will allow you to do anything you want with your money, but not anything you want to do with your body.  A libertarian will allow you to do anything you want with both your body and your money."  
> 
> Most people don’t know that Symms was pro-choice at that time and also danced around other libertarian positions such as decriminalizing drug use and prostitution.  He learned very quickly that "body" liberty did not sell well in Idaho, so he decided not to be consistent about maximizing personal liberty in all areas. 
> 
> Sometime in the 1970s James Buckley, the brother of Wm. F. Buckley, spoke at the Borah Symposium at the University of Idaho.   When he called himself a "Christian libertarian," my immediate response was that this label is an oxymoron.  
> 
> To put the contradiction as concisely as possible: libertarians affirm the sovereignty of the self, while orthodox Christians believe in the sovereignty of God.  This is why consistent libertarians such Ayn Rand and her followers are atheists or agnostics.
> 
> The Christian "libertarians" reject governmental regulations by saying that God is the only authority to which they can submit.  Consistent libertarians, however, argue that there can be no submission to any authority except individual conscience.  
> 
> Libertarians also maintain that those who live at the government’s largess develop bad habits of dependency that undermine personal initiative and integrity.  The Christian "libertarian" cannot say that dependency is healthy in religion, but turn around to say that the same dependency undermines personal initiative in society. 
> 
> Many scholars have written about the "corporate personality" found in the ancient Hebrew and early Christian writings.  Evangelical theologian Carl Henry puts this idea well when he states that the Bible does not talk about individual rights; rather, it speaks of one's duties to community and God.  
> 
> In his book "Evangelicals at an Impasse" evangelical Christian Robert Johnston states that the Bible does not support "to each according to merit"; rather, it teaches "to each according to need," the most famous phrase in Marx's philosophy.
> 
> Free market economics is at the heart of libertarianism, but one finds just the opposite in the Book of Acts: "And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need" (2:44-45; 4:32-37).  
> 
> When Ananias (Acts 5) sold a piece of property and held back some of the money, he was struck down by a God who presumably did not believe in private property.  This was not just a temporary phenomenon, because the Church Father Tertullian, living 200 years later, reported that "we hold everything in common except our wives." 
> 
> In a Thanksgiving column for an Idaho newspaper stock broker Richard Larsen wrote that our Pilgrim Fathers repented of "their socialist folly" and followed the free market model instead.  But one item in Gov. William Bradford’s diary, which Larsen quotes, relates that families were given parcel of land "according to the proportion of their number," not according to how much they could buy with their own funds.  Sometimes the right thing to do is to share and not to make a profit.
> 
> The main reason for the Republican Party's success in the past 20 years has been an alliance between social conservatives, who focus on abortion, gays, and immigrants; and libertarians, who want to expand personal liberty with free market solutions to everything.  
> 
> This alliance is now crumbling, as evangelical voters are embracing Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, who charges that the Republican Party has been too much wedded to Wall Street and that CEO salaries are immoral.  
> 
> This is a far cry from the time, 30 years ago, when rich Southern California businessmen, unconcerned about abortion or gay rights, decided that an unchurched Ronald Reagan would be the man for their agenda of virulent anti-Communism and free market economics.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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