Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

A Vast Aquifer of Corruption

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

INTRODUCTION:

Rachel Held Evans has recently argued that a vote for Hillary Clinton is not inconsistent with a pro-life ethic. There are any number of confusions involved in how she presents the case, but I am going to try to limit myself to addressing just three of them.Hillary

I want to limit what I say to those things which are relevant to the pro-life issue, but without intimating that the other issues surrounding the Clintons are unimportant. The Clinton metropolis was built in its particular location deliberately, with nothing accidental about it. Thinking ahead, they built the whole thing on top of a vast aquifer of corruption. The people living there are not going to run out of brown water for hundreds of years. I say this simply to set the stage.

IS HUMANISM PRO-LIFE?

I actually am grateful that RHE is pro-life, but she has been so compromised by her other commitments that her pro-life understanding has gotten pretty anemic. When you combine the following language with the fact that she is supporting the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, one of the most ardent defenders of abortion to be found anywhere, I trust you understand that what we are dealing with is kind of pro-lifey, but is not really pro-life. The emphasis is mine.

“Or, put another way, as a Christian, I believe the sacred personhood of an individual begins before birth and continues throughout life, and I believe that sacred personhood is worth protecting, whether it’s tucked inside a womb, waiting on death row, fleeing Syria in search of a home, or playing beneath the shadow of an American drone.”

Worth protecting. What does that mean?

The State as Oppressor and Thief

The Christian Temptation Towards Socialism

Pope Francis’s papacy has revived attention to an enduring, misguided strain of religious-tainted socialism.

By Marc Fitch   
The Federalist

The last temptation of Christ may not have occurred in the desert when Satan confronted Jesus. In the biblical book of Matthew, Christ goes alone into the desert and fasts for 40 days. While he is starving, the Devil confronts and tempts him: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Christ answers, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

The Christian church, both Catholic and Protestant, has faced a similar temptation to turn stone into bread in the form of socialism. Many seem surprised by Pope Francis’s criticism of capitalism. Modern liberals trying to push for a more socialist agenda in Europe, South America, and the United States have used his statements as fodder. While it is commonly assumed that Christianity would be opposed to socialism because of its historic opposition to communism, the two are not the same.

Russian and Chinese communism did not allow for religious belief and practice, but the economic system of socialism itself has no such restrictions, and has been embraced by many Christian leaders and sects throughout the development of the modern industrial society. In an effort to create a Christian society, believers have lent support to and embraced socialism to the point of revolutionary action as a way to create heaven on Earth—bread out of stone.

Basic Economics

What God has Given, Let Not Man Wrest

The Pope has come out recently, criticizing the market economy.  His public ruminations are, to put it baldly, silly.  He has done our Lord and the Christian faith no honour in this instance.

To go to the heart of the problem, the Law of the Living God grants ownership and protection to the property of those made in His image--aka, human beings.  He prohibits us stealing the property of others (the Eighth Commandment).  He also prohibits us coveting what others have (the Tenth Commandment).  These two commandments, amongst other things, exclude (in the sense of condemning) the rulers, powers, and authorities intruding into the "stuff" of citizens, taking what they see fit, and enforcing distribution to others.

In a nutshell, these two commandments prohibit all forms of socialism--that horribly pagan idea which proposes that society (the community, the governing authorities, the rich and powerful, the Collective, the Politburo, etc.) is the ultimate and final owner of everything and that private ownership rights are always only at the final pleasure of the Collective.  In his decrying the market economy, the Pope was siding with socialistic doctrines whereby some other authority (state, church, "society") has prior ownership of Mrs Smith's garden spade, and can--for whatever reason or pretext--requisition it.

A Great Oxymoron of the Age

Christian Socialism

We have recently read R. H. Tawney's, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. (London: John Murray, 1923).  Being published in the period historian, Richard Overy has called the Twilight Years [The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain Between the Wars (New York: Viking/Penguin, 2009)]), Tawney's work is significant in that it cannot help but reflect the radical, revolutionary changes taking place in the intellectual and spiritual history of Britain and the West at that time. (For a summary and interaction with Overy's Twilight Years, readers can refer to a series of eight pieces, published in Contra Celsum in early 2010, the first of which can be found here.)

Tawney was both a professing Christian and an ardent socialist.  In these days, when socialism has become thoroughly secular, racked with the deadly sins of avarice, envy, and covetousness, "Christian socialism"  ranks amongst the seven most infamous oxymorons of the modern world, along with "Christian capitalism".