{"id":1038,"date":"2018-12-01T13:08:43","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T21:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/?p=1038"},"modified":"2018-12-01T13:08:43","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T21:08:43","slug":"whos-afraid-of-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/12\/01\/whos-afraid-of-socialism\/","title":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s Afraid of Socialism?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I was brought up to see communism as the brain child of Satan and the economic system practiced in hell.\u00a0 I was also told socialism was its slippery slope.\u00a0 Socialism was a high tower, with high ideals, and if one climbed to the top, there was a slippery slide that took one, ass over tea kettle, pell-mell,\u00a0 into the smoldering ruins of Hades itself.\u00a0 Looking back, that seems a bit extreme now.<\/p>\n

Growing up, I read books and heard sermons extolling the virtues of capitalism and the \u201cfree\u201d market.\u00a0 We were told that this one economic system, was \u201cclearly\u201d the one the Bible favored and even prescribed.\u00a0 Putting aside the anachronism, isn\u2019t it amazing how our<\/em> economic system was God breathed, while the one of our enemy, at the time, the other<\/em>, was surely of the devil.<\/p>\n

We seem to be unable to consider socialism apart from the atheistic communism of history, of the old Soviet Union, especially if we are of a certain age.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think many younger people have this problem, but I know for many of us who grew up during the Cold War, they seem to be of one piece.\u00a0 The taint is very strong.\u00a0 We can hardly think of one, without the other.\u00a0 One was \u201cgodless\u201d and led to economic disaster and is associated with all the other horrors of that now dead regime.\u00a0 Why trust anything associated with it?<\/p>\n

To continue to link them however, is hardly reasonable or wise.\u00a0 Communism and socialism are not the same.\u00a0 One is not necessarily a slippery slope to the other.\u00a0 Any accidents of history or links to atheism, and drawing hard and fast conclusions, is probably not wise in arguing sole cause or key factor.\u00a0 While it bothers us greatly, because we so want the Bible to justify our political and economic systems, we should make our peace with the fact the Bible is hardly prescriptive when it comes to modern, western ideas in either sphere.<\/p>\n

If one were so inclined, he could use the Bible to make a case for probably every major political and economic school of thought out there.\u00a0 The Bible\u2019s protean nature (or, I should say, our nature really) makes it all too easy for us to read it as justifying and giving credence to, the economic system we already believed, and were brought up to believe, was superior to all others.\u00a0 It is very easy to read the Bible as justifying what we have always been taught, or already believed to be the case.<\/p>\n

My suggestion would be, not that we search the Scripture for prescriptions specific to economics per se, as if some verses could establish a pure, certain, and concrete view, but that we bring our economic theories under the wider umbrella of the Christian narrative understood comprehensively.\u00a0 Simply throwing some verses together (proof texting), or taking some random Old or New Testament examples, is probably not the best way to assert the Bible supports one modern<\/em> (again, putting aside the anachronism) economic system over another.<\/p>\n

While I haven\u2019t made a comprehensive, serious study of economic philosophies, I\u2019ve been influenced in my thinking by people like David Bentley Hart<\/a>, John Milbank<\/a> (the Radical Orthodox people in general), Stephen D. Long<\/a>, and William Cavanaugh<\/a>.\u00a0 I have found their critiques of capitalism very compelling.\u00a0 At the same time, I have found their openness to socialism and other types of economic and political understandings very thought provoking.\u00a0 Socialism is hardly the bogeyman<\/a> it has been made out to be by the fundamentalist\/evangelical world, which seem to be parroting a 1950s\u2019 American cultural view of economics more than anything Biblical or anything linked to an ancient, historical, or world-wide Christian understanding.<\/p>\n

Only someone blinded by ideology would not think it rational and wise to consider other forms of economic understandings at this point in history<\/a>.\u00a0 Christians should sit loosely when it comes to modern political and economic arrangements.\u00a0 We should be willing to consider, charitably, other forms of economic exchange, ideas of the \u201cmarket,\u201d labor, capital, etc., and such should include socialism.<\/p>\n

I have a Patreon<\/a> Page\u2014please consider supporting my writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was brought up to see communism as the brain child of Satan and the economic system practiced in hell.\u00a0 I was also told socialism was its slippery slope.\u00a0 Socialism was a high tower, with high ideals, and if one climbed to the top, there was a slippery slide that took one, ass over tea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3524,"featured_media":1044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[651,648,654,344,645],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-capitalism","tag-economics","tag-money","tag-political","tag-socialism"],"yoast_head":"\nWho\u2019s Afraid of Socialism?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was brought up to see communism as the brain child of Satan and the economic system practiced in hell.\u00a0 I was also told socialism was its slippery\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/12\/01\/whos-afraid-of-socialism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who\u2019s Afraid of Socialism?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was brought up to see communism as the brain child of Satan and the economic system practiced in hell.\u00a0 I was also told socialism was its slippery\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/12\/01\/whos-afraid-of-socialism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Divergence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-12-01T21:08:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1004\/2018\/12\/stock-exchange-1376107_640.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"550\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"290\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@darrelllackey1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/12\/01\/whos-afraid-of-socialism\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/12\/01\/whos-afraid-of-socialism\/\",\"name\":\"Who\u2019s Afraid of Socialism?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-12-01T21:08:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-12-01T21:08:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/d88a32b8d4b5f40fbd6ccbfce4e0f813\"},\"description\":\"I was brought up to see communism as the brain child of Satan and the economic system practiced in hell.\u00a0 I was also told socialism was its slippery\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/12\/01\/whos-afraid-of-socialism\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/12\/01\/whos-afraid-of-socialism\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/12\/01\/whos-afraid-of-socialism\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Who\u2019s Afraid of Socialism?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\",\"name\":\"Divergence\",\"description\":\"Commentary Regarding Fundamentalism - 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