Yesterday afternoon, iconoclast and keen skeptic Spartacus
sent
out an email I was intrigued to read and think on:
-----Original Message-----
From: "Spark" le Klaus [mailto:SpartaCuss@Yabbadoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 1:30 PM
To: Aging Child
Subject: Jesus Was a Socialist
Post election '08 and so many "Christians" are still
having panic attacks over the "S word" (Socialism). The sad thing is,
Obama is not a socialist, so they are worrying themselves over nothing.
What's so wrong about being a socialist anyway? Let them try to
wrap their heads around this concept:
JESUS WAS A SOCIALIST
Think about it.
I found the following article quite interesting:
By David Chandler
[Originally published in the Tule River Times "Left in
America" column.]
The "Religious Right" (Moral Majority, Christian Coalition,
etc.) gets so much media attention for its conservative political activism that
a casual observer would think conservative Christianity somehow equates to
conservative politics. This is not the case. In fact many people with
left-leaning political views find a solid basis for their positions in the
Bible. There are many sides to this topic, but we will limit our focus to
attitudes toward the rich and the poor.
America is as much an economic phenomenon as it is a nation. It is
built on a system whose driving force is the profit motive. Our economy
blatantly rewards greed. In classic economic theory greed is good. A person who
is motivated by greed will create, as unintended byproducts, benefits for
everyone, such as employment and the development of new goods and services. Let
the rich get richer, the saying goes, and the benefits will "trickle
down" to the rest of us. "A rising tide raises all boats." Under
a pure capitalistic system, the government keeps hands off and allows the
market to decide how the money flows. The problem is, as we have found in this
era of deregulation, the money flows to the top. [The original article
contained a variant on the graph shown on the L-Curve web site.] Tampering with the
market system to redistribute the wealth or assure that the poor are protected
is labeled "socialism."
[Take a moment and have a look at the data and analysis on the
above website!]
By these standards Jesus was a socialist.
Jesus spoke remarkably often about wealth and poverty. To the poor
he said, "Blessed are
you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God," (Luke's version). To the rich
he said, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth," and "go,
sell what you have, and give to the
poor." When the rich turned away from him because they couldn't follow his
command, he observed, "it is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
For Jesus, helping the poor and the outcast is not optional: it is
the essence of what it means to love God. In the parable of the last judgment,
he welcomes the righteous into heaven, saying, "I was hungry and you gave me
food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed
me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in
prison and you came to me." When the righteous answered that they didn't
recall doing any of these things, he said, "as you did it to one of the
least of these my brethren, you did it to me."
We are to "forgive our debtors" and "give to everyone who begs from
you." But don't handouts contribute to moral decay? Jesus was more
concerned about the moral decay in those who are so attached to their wealth
that they would hoard it for themselves. In our better moments, most of us
recognize that giving does not corrupt. We sacrifice to give good things to our
children, and do our best to provide them with years of carefree existence as
they grow up. We do this to give them a sense of security and a foundation for growth.
People who have been devastated by misfortune, or for whatever reason are down
and out, may need even more help because they may not have what it takes to
recover on their own. Many of us will help a friend in hard times, even though
we know we will never be repaid. It is when dealing distantly with people in
the abstract that we fall back on the "moral decay" argument.
What's wrong with trickle-down economics? Every time I hear that
phrase I think of the story Jesus told about a rich man and the beggar Lazarus "who desired to be fed with what fell from
the rich man's table." Needless to say, the story ends with Lazarus going
to a better place than the rich man. Trickle-down theory is about crumbs. Those
who say we should settle for crumbs would make us a nation of beggars.
Greed may be a driving force for the economy, but Jesus saw it is
as destructive to community. Greed may leave a few crumbs behind for the poor,
and it may do some unintended good, but it destroys compassion. Compassion is
in short supply in our society today, where workers are being downsized in the
name of efficiency, prisons are being expanded to insulate society from its
underclasses, and the middle class is abandoned by the rich to fight it out
with the poor for the table scraps.
Jesus' response to economic inequality is very direct: we are to
share the wealth. I once heard a talk about world hunger. The point was that we
produce far more food than is needed to feed everyone on earth. The problem is
not lack of supply; it is maldistribution. Many people are simply too poor to
buy the food they need. This talk gave me a new perspective on the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus was out in
the desert followed by a huge crowd. The disciples were concerned that it was
getting late in the day and they didn't have enough food to feed the crowd. My
suspicion is that Jesus sensed there was plenty of food in the crowd, but whereas
some had plenty, others had nothing. Sensing an opportunity to make a point, he
instructed his disciples to take their five loaves and two fish and distribute
them freely to the crowd. By the sheer audaciousness of this act he induced
those with food to join him in giving it away. The result is everyone was fed
that day with twelve baskets left over. If Jesus simply did a magic trick and
made food appear, what's the point? Whoopee! He's divine. He's not like us. But
if, by his act of giving away all he had in the face of the overwhelming crowd,
he demonstrated the power of a sharing community, he achieved a real miracle!
Sharing is a lesson we especially need to learn today.
[Note: I don't buy into the stupid, deconstructionist assertion
that at Jesus' and the Apostles' example and encouragement, everyone threw
together their own fish sandwiches; my mind and heart can easily wrap around
the concept of the miraculous. But this matter of faith/belief is tangential to
the issue of Jesus and socialism.]
Is concern for the poor to be simply a private matter to be
handled by charity, or does it have anything to do with politics or government?
The Bible calls upon the rulers to create a just society. In a democracy, we
are the rulers. We have the power to make the rules. The actions of the nation
are extensions of our own actions. By our active participation or passive
consent, we share responsibility for what our nation does in our name. We have
inherited a system that works efficiently to produce tremendous wealth, but
fails to distribute that wealth equitably. It neglects the poor and it corrupts
the rich. On both counts it destroys community. A decent life for all is a
matter of simple justice, not charity! There are remedies that will make the
system work better in the interests of all the people, but it takes active
political involvement to bring them about.
For anyone who has studied and meditated on the life and teachings
of Jesus – or even someone merely vaguely familiar with them – the argument and
rationale are inarguable. This perspective on Him is awesome.
So being the socially-conscious Christian I am, I forwarded the
article to a couple very conservative Christian friends to see how they might
respond. This can be likened to poking a very short stick deep into the tiger's
cage. Surprisingly, Anon E. Mouse answered very quickly – generally I don't
hear from her when I send "left-wing" stuff her way… although I do
rather regularly receive from her plenty of garbage from the other end of the spectrum, most of which I delete…
unless I feel like poking another stick.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mouse, Anon E. [mailto:AEMouse@SOL.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 4:34 PM
To: Aging Child
Subject: RE: Jesus Was a Socialist
No, Gene, Jesus did
want us to help (key operative word) our fellow man, I cannot believe that
He wanted us to give and give to those who do nothing but take and won't
do a days work for a days wages. I see nothing wrong with the Puritan
work ethic. I don't get paid for doing nothing yet part of my
wages go to those not willing to work.
I can testify from personal and professional knowledge that Ms.
Mouse is indeed a hard-working woman. She has a big heart, too… it just doesn't
bleed a whole lot. Still, since she was kind enough to clarify further her feel
for this issue, I felt I needed to counterpoint:
-----Original Message-----
From: Aging Child [mailto: AGeneChilde@YouWho.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 5:00 PM
To: ' Mouse, Anon E.'
Subject: RE: Jesus Was a Socialist
Hi, Anon!
I hope all's well by you guys (and kids and pups) at the farmstead.
I don't disagree with you there, but how are we to tell… say, if
faced by a total stranger hitting us up for a buck? Or someone passed out on
the street? We just don't know, and this may be where we are told in the Bible not to judge. We can't ignore the needy because some small
percentage of their number are lazy, or/and parasitical.
Go straight back to Jesus's bare words, and look also in Acts –
where people in the early-Church community were designated to take care of the poor and widowed – and at the Letter of James (especially
the second chapter) – where Christian faith without these
deeds is, bluntly, called "dead". Jesus didn't put injunctions on His
calls to us to see to the needy among us. At least, not in every Bible I've
read.
If there is a need, we must fill it, or be hypocrites as Christians.
And just feeding the poor isn't enough, nor is even helping them make ends
meet. Retraining the unemployed for new types of work is often called for
(e.g., Detroit and the Rust Belt), and implementing some functional means of
bringing these people back into a productive segment of society. This is the
old push of "A hand up, not a handout",
with which I agree.
The Puritan work ethic is quite sound, but what about where there
is no work? And there'll always be parasites, but why shut everybody out due to
the handful of bad apples? I think you and I agree that there has to be
accountability for those who receive assistance… let's just not make the
problem all the more dire.
Disappointingly, yet typically, Anon did not respond further – I'm
assuming she left work early yesterday and had today off. Just so he could see
what was going on with the original article, plus to elicit a read from the
farther left, I'd bcc'd Spartacus on my note back to friend Mouse; I followed
up with a note to him:
-----Original Message-----
From: Aging Child
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 4:22 PM
To: "Spark" le Klaus
Subject: RE: Jesus Was a Socializer
Coincidentally, I was listening to Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain" while reading this article. I forwarded it (the email, not
the MP3 track) right away to "Anon E. Mouse" and a couple other
conservative friends (including brother Sarge, who tends to favor the
Repugnicant ticket, and the tired old Reaganesque tinkle-on economics).
I'm mulling blogging this – will allow me to resume some
religion-ruminations I'd like to put up soon. Any thoughts/background you'd
care to add? You'll have the soapbox for this posting.
Regards,
Freddy Engels
I'd hoped to lean on his greater depth of knowledge/familiarity
with economic and political issues. And Sparks never disappoints; he wrote back
this evening (something's off with his email-clock, though):
-----Original Message-----
From: "Spark" le Klaus [mailto:SpartaCuss@Yabbadoo.com]
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 12:18 PM
To: MT2mb
Subject: Re: Jesus Was a Socialist
"I don't want my
hard earned to go to a bunch of lazy, good for nothing deadbeats!"
That is the automatic, guaranteed reaction when mentioning even
the mildest, semi-socialistic ideas to any of the right wing persuasion. How
about trying to think a little bit out of that worn out old box before reacting
with that worn out reactionary response? Not everyone who is in need of help is
a lazy, good for nothing bum. For the past 40 or so years, wages for the middle
and working classes in the USA have either stagnated and/or
declined (adjusted for cost of living). During the same period, income for
the wealthy has more than tripled (adjusted for cost of living). Today the
average American worker is working longer hours for the same or less money
(adjusted for cost of living), and with fewer benefits than he/she did 30-40
years ago. The concept of "job security" is a joke. The risk of your
job being outsourced, downsized, etc is great. Losing one's job, having
yourself or a family member come down with a serious illness is a dire
catastrophe in this economic climate. Yet with all this, American productivity
measured per worker has never been higher. That doesn't sound like a bunch of
lazy deadbeats to me! Why should working Americans be denied a fair piece of
the pie?
Had the minimum wage kept pace with the cost of living, it would
be over $20 per hour today. Conservatives are fond of talking about family
values--what kind of family values can you have when mom and dad are out
working 16 or more hours per day because the minimum wage jobs they have don't
provide a living wage? And God help them if they develop a serious disease.
It is so easy for those ensconced in the middle class to dismiss
those making less than them as "lazy deadbeats". Tell that to the
former factory worker whose job was shipped overseas. Tell that to the single
mom working at Walmart (part time with no bennys) and KFC, barely making
it from paycheck to paycheck.
Hell--tell it to my sister--she worked for over 20 years as an
electronics assembler. The pay wasn't great, but at least she got some bennys
for her family. Her husband worked as a heavy equipment operator, which is
basically a seasonal job (when the ground is frozen, not much earth gets moved,
though he did pick up extra $$ plowing snow, doing odd jobs, etc). From early
Spring to late Fall, he made good money, but no benefits. Between the 2 of
them, they were able to live modestly with their young daughter. "Between
the 2 of them"--that is key--neither one of them made enough $$ to provide
a living wage on just one income--it took their combined salaries to make it.
Then the electronics job folded (shipped overseas to maximize
profit) and her husband left her for another woman. My sister is no dummy and
no lazy slob--while working her assembly job for all those years, she also took
on the responsibility of helping the purchasing manager. Based on that experience,
she was able to get a job as an assistant purchaser at another company, and
started going to night school taking biz classes. Then that job folded (company
went belly up). Through a friend, she got a similar position down in [another
state].
Then that job died (the company moved its manufacturing operations overseas to
maximize profits). Now things were really dire. She looked everywhere for a
job--but employment opportunities are few and far between for a 40+ year old
woman. She was reduced to going on food stamps, and getting whatever other
assistance she could (and after Clinton gutted the federal welfare program,
that wasn't much at all--certainly not enough to live on). Our family helped
out where we could, but we are not exactly rolling in the dough either, so we
were limited in what we could do. Finally, she was able to take advantage of a
state program and enrolled in a re-training program. It took her 5 years to get
her associate degree in medical office technology because she couldn't go to school
full time (she had her daughter to take care of). She graduated cum laude and
with a handful of glowing letters of recommendation from her profs and from the
company she interned with--and couldn't get a job after over a year of
looking--how many companies are going to hire an almost 50 year old woman when
they can hire some 21 year old kid?
She finally took a job hounding people who are delinquent on the
credit card bills (something she doesn't have to worry about because she
declared bankruptcy a long time ago, therefore she has no credit card). The job
is psychologically punishing and heartbreaking--she has to call people on the
phone and ask them for money, people who are tapped out and can't make ends
meet. She can't stand it, but it is the best paying position she was able to
find--and even so, she is about a paycheck away from total economic disaster.
She is now part of "the working poor". She still has to rely on
foodstamps and local food banks. We pooled some $$ together so she could get a
better car after her junker's tranny died and she needed $500 for the repairs.
If she doesn't have a car she is sunk. She lives in a crappy little trailer on
the outskirts of town, her next door neighbor is a drug dealer, and she prays
that her daughter (who is now 18) will find a boyfriend and move out, because
that would at least lower her living expenses--can you imagine the guilt and
anguish that kind of thinking has caused in her?
There used to be concepts ordinary Americans tried to base their
lives on, such as "the common good", "the Golden Rule",
"social justice", "basic fairness", and "simple
decency". It is abundantly clear those concepts are foreign to those on
the right, people motivated by greed and fear.
I believe people have a right to accumulate wealth for themselves
and their families, but I don't believe anyone has a right to make an obscene
amount of $$ while others, who are just as hard working and worthy, struggle
from paycheck to paycheck just because the economic structure is stacked against
them. That's what it really comes down to--a system which is structured in
favor of the wealthy. Is that right? Is that just? The working man contributes
just as much to this society as the CEO, but he certainly isn't compensated
fairly for his efforts. The essence of Socialism is social justice--all the
rest is just details for the remedy.
Since I'd bcc'd Sparkle on that note to Mouse, he now has her
email address. He's also a gentleman, and likely did not bcc her on his email
to me… although I'm scared to ask. But I think I'll forward it her way myself;
I suspect she'll simply delete.
She's also on my list of professional references – no need to
provoke her, either. Tiger's cage, short stick… but underemployed. Uh –
