Egregious Offensive Nonsense

Something Has to Break

Herald columnist, Tapu Misa has nailed her colours to the mast long ago.  She is a socialist.  For her, justice in this world is a socio-economic system which takes from each according to his ability, and gives to each according to his need.  There is nothing new here.  What is offensive is that Misa claims a biblical warrant for this pagan view.

Misa is welcome to her socialism.  In New Zealand she will have many like minded colleagues and friends.  But what she is not entitled to is the specious claim that the Scriptures--the holy law of the Living God--gives warrant to her socialism.  For that egregious error and gross distortion we call her out.



There is little point in rehearsing the socialist ideology which courses through Misa's veins.  It is found in almost everything she writes.  But to remind readers, here is a sample of the latest offering:

Those who lament our changing values almost always obsess about sex and the lack of piety and manners.  But, arguably, the cultural shift that's had the most impact in recent decades has been our unabashed worship of money and those who've amassed lots of it.  It infuses every important debate we have, from what we should pay taxes on and how much, to inequality, welfare reform, education, and the provision of services that promote the public good.

Our society is one which, according to Misa, portrays an "unabashed worship of money and those who've amassed lots of it."  Funny--the fixation upon money and those who have it is found most often amongst those who believe they do not have it and they have a right to it.  It is not the rich who obsess about money so much as those who want to be rich and resent those who are.  Sadly, Misa is the one most clearly obsessed with other people's property.

For her, the debates which are important are those about who should pay what taxes, inequality, welfare reform, education and providing services which promote the public good.  Misa's gloss on all these issues (important debates, she tells us) ends up being an obsession about the property of others.  When it comes to taxation, the "rich" should pay more, at a higher proportion.  "Inequality" to Misa means socio-economic inequality: she is a staunch advocate of property egalitarianism.  "Welfare reform" means the poor must be given more of other people's property.  Similarly with education: property must be taken from some to pay for the education of other people's children.  "Service which promote the public good" are those which extract property from some and distribute it to others. 

Misa is obsessed with the property of others.  Who, then, is racked with the "unabashed worship of money"?

All right.  We can sadly acknowledge Misa's commitment to socialism--an ideology which at every point comes from the Pit.  We can also sadly acknowledge her lust for the property of others.  We can be sad about these things because Misa is a professed Christian.  But what we cannot let pass is her egregious claim that her beliefs and attitudes are biblical.

Our open question to her is, What part of the tenth commandment don't you understand: "Thou shalt not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covey your neighbour's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbour"?  Are you, Misa greater than the Living God?  Do you have the authority to suspend His law at will?  Should we worship you, instead of the Lord Jesus Christ?  Has all authority in heaven and on earth been granted to you? Heaven forfend.

Why have you so perverted the Scriptures that you call evil, good and good, evil?  Please, if you are determined to pursue the idolatry that Paul tells us is always the animus of covetousness, go to it.  But what we absolutely refuse to accept is your attempt to portray the evil as if it were the teaching of Holy Scripture.

Misa ends her column with a bit of sarcasm.  She suggests that if people took the Bible seriously, Fox News would end up billing the Bible as a "new and dangerous Communist Manifesto".  Let's be clear.  Misa has begun with Marx's ethic, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."  This, said Marx, is what the ideal Communist society would be like.  Then Misa has speciously claimed to find this Marxist ethic taught in Scripture.  She could not be more wrong.  But if she were right, then indeed the Bible would resemble Marx's Communist Manifesto and the law of God would be null and void. 

Misa will not succeed in her vain attempt break apart and tear down the law of God.  It will be the reverse.  If she does not repent, the law of God will be as a great hammer breaks the rock.