{"id":988,"date":"2010-09-04T22:45:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-04T22:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/09\/labor-day-weekend-reflections-on-christianity-economics-and-social-justice\/"},"modified":"2010-09-04T22:45:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-04T22:45:00","slug":"labor-day-weekend-reflections-on-christianity-economics-and-social-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/09\/labor-day-weekend-reflections-on-christianity-economics-and-social-justice.html","title":{"rendered":"Labor Day Weekend Reflections on Christianity, Economics and Social Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A lively conversation has been taking place in the comments section of a recent post<\/a>\u00a0about\u00a0what Christian or Judeo-Christian principles may be relevant to the approaches to economics and social justice in one\u2019s nation. It seems like an appropriate conversation to have in the period leading up to Labor Day. <\/p>\n

The U.S. Secretary of Labor has released this video<\/a> (there\u2019s a transcript of the text on the Department of Labor\u2019s website<\/a>):<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UsXxMbFbZWQ?fs=1<\/a><\/div>\n

I had an opportunity to live in a post-communist society. Communism was a disaster. It guaranteed employment (just let that sink in: 0% unemployment) but it also undermined any motivation to work, leading to a lack of productivity and economic decline. As the Romanians sometimes said about their system, \u201cPeople pretended to work, and the government pretended to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Nevertheless, I\u2019m not happy when people talk about capitalism as \u201cthe lesser of two evils\u201d since I don\u2019t think we should assume that there are only two options. <\/p>\n

I also had the opportunity to live in the UK, where socialist influences are greater than in the US, and there is a national health care system in place which is certainly far from perfect, but it allows one to live without fear of not being able to afford necessary medical care \u2013 or not being able to afford the ever more costly insurance coverage. <\/p>\n

Christian principles include selling all one has<\/a> and giving to the poor<\/a>. Judeo-Christian principles include the legislation about the year of Jubilee<\/a>. And so while I think one can\u00a0argue that the Bible\u00a0does not offer\u00a0one consistent teaching on economics, and doesn\u2019t offer a system that can be directly transplanted into our own time, it never ceases to shock me that there are people who seem to think that the Bible actually is at odds with social justice concerns. It is as though they\u2019ve never read the Book of Amos.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Let me be clear that what I\u2019m trying to do here is to get a conversation started. I don\u2019t want to propose an economic system as allegedly\u00a0\u201cBiblical\u201d or even as \u201cmost in keeping with Christian principles.\u201d I\u2019m not an economist, and while I\u2019ve heard a lot of good ideas, I\u2019m well aware that every system that has been tried or proposed has weaknesses as well as strengths. But what I\u2019d like to see more of is this: Christians who believe that everyone should have access to health care, education, and employment opportunities, and who have some expertise in economics, making suggestions for what we can do to offer innovative solutions to longstanding problems. Presumably if there are flaws with the ways in which things are being done now in various countries around the world, the answer is not to either eliminate the systems currently in place without putting something in their stead, or to simply leave things as they are, but to ask what we haven\u2019t tried that might be better.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And of course, these are issues that may be addressed one way on a national level, in one\u2019s own country, if one has the freedom to advocate for legislative change. But\u00a0poverty and\u00a0injustice\u00a0are also global issues, and on that level may need to be approached differently.<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lively conversation has been taking place in the comments section of a recent post\u00a0about\u00a0what Christian or Judeo-Christian principles may be relevant to the approaches to economics and social justice in one\u2019s nation. It seems like an appropriate conversation to have in the period leading up to Labor Day. The U.S. Secretary of Labor has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLabor Day Weekend Reflections on Christianity, Economics and Social Justice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A lively conversation has been taking place in the comments section of a recent post about what Christian or Judeo-Christian principles may be\" \/>\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\/religionprof\/2010\/09\/labor-day-weekend-reflections-on-christianity-economics-and-social-justice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Labor Day Weekend Reflections on Christianity, Economics and Social Justice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A lively conversation has been taking place in the comments section of a recent post about what Christian or Judeo-Christian principles may be\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/09\/labor-day-weekend-reflections-on-christianity-economics-and-social-justice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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