Letter Bag: Does the Bible Promote Liberalism?

Well sports fans, it's time for the Biblical Conservatism Letter Bag! Although this time we got something very, very rare: A legitimate question and not anonymous to boot! So, unlike previous Letter Bag posts where I get to make up a fun nickname, we're going to answer this one straight:

I happened upon your website when I googled the bible and conservatism. I googled the subject because I attend church with god loving people who are sometimes pretty liberal. What do you say when people bring up the redistribution of wealth is supported by Jesus because of scriptures such as "give all you have to the poor and follow me" then they don't and then Jesus says "it's harder to get a rich man in heaven than a camel to go through the eye of a needle". Like you I am a Christian conservative, but I find myself having to defend conservatism more and more even with church friends. Also, do you recommend some reading material on this subject?

Thank you for your time,

Daryl

Dear Daryl:

It's definitely a claim a lot of liberals like to make. Most are Neighborhood Liberals who mean well but just don't understand the line between Jesus' command to care for the poor and the Left's attempt to say government should care for everyone.

I ask them "Show me the part in the Bible where Jesus says 'give your money to the government, and let the government care for the poor.' "

Of course, there is no such passage!  Which is particularly interesting considering that the government in Christ’s time was, at least partially, the church!

Let’s look at God’s original plan to care for the poor:

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.
-  Leviticus 18:9-10

And here’s another example:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God. -  Leviticus 23:22

It’s interesting that there’s no mention of the government taking care of the poor, am I right?

That's because Jesus didn't command us to let government take care of the poor, but rather instructed US to directly care for them. In the time of Jesus it meant giving alms. Today, the practical application is largely through giving to our churches and other charities, not the government, although directly providing for those in need is also possible. 

I suspect you're dealing largely with what I refer to as "Neighborhood Liberals."  Neighborhood

Liberals tend to see only the compassionate intention of government programs, rather than the results. They legitimately care, but don't bother to look at the results of these big government programs.

As far as the supposed Biblical railing on wealth, ask them if they think Abraham entered the Kingdom of Heaven? How about King David? There were many heroes of the faith who God blessed with wealth.

The Bible never says wealth is evil, but only the LOVE of money.  Not only that, but there is tremendous hypocrisy on the Left on this subject. They claim the Constitution has a "Separation of Church and State" which by the way is not in the Constitution at all) but then want to use Biblical principles to push their agenda.

It is indeed frustrating!

Ultimately, if you’re dealing with a Neighborhood Liberal, ask them if they want to see the poor actually helped, and then explain the complete failures of liberal programs to actually HELP the poor. Conservatives DO want to help the poor. We just want to ACTUALLY HELP THE POOR, not just give them free benefits that never lift them out of poverty. We don’t want to set a bunch of money on fire in an effort to help without actually helping.

Furthermore, the Bible is not a socially liberal document by today’s standards (although it certainly was in its own day).  The woman caught in adultery was not told “Neither do I condemn you, go and keep doing exactly what you were doing because that’s who you are.” She was told “Neither do I condemn you, go and SIN NO MORE.”

The liberal mentality is “everything you’re doing is fine, period,” and “to love the person, you must love their actions.” This is not the Biblical mentality AT ALL. The Bible preaches “love the sinner, hate the sin” and “go and sin no more.” Despite what liberals will tell you, the Bible doesn’t promote the liberal mentality of “if it feels good, do it.”

Ultimately, the Bible is not, nor has it ever been a liberal book. Attempts to do otherwise are either Neighborhood Liberals are misguided enough to believe that compassion equals government spending or Activist Liberals who want to falsely convince people to follow their mentalities.

Daryl, thanks for writing and for reading!

Biblical Conservatism Week in Review (Week of 12/3/12)

Biblical Conservatism returned from a month long break after Election 2012 and began our new biweekly format. In addition to this new format, Biblical Conservatism will be publishing a "Week in Review" post every Saturday, giving both posts together.  

This week, our focus was the Fiscal Cliff debate.

Monday, December 3, 2012 - Obama Fiscal Cliff Plan: Ignore the Real Problem

Today, we're going to talk real math on the President's Fiscal Cliff solution...raise taxes on people making over $250,000 a year. Yep, that's basically the entire stated plan. Sure, he's used cliches like "balanced approach" but really the only stated thing he has said he would do was raise taxes.

So, how much would this plan really raise, exactly? I'm so glad you asked. The number being repeated is $850 Billion. That number does sound very serious, doesn't it? Sure, until someone tells you that's the TEN YEAR PROJECTION. So that means the annual increase in revenue is only $85 billion.

Let's compare that to the last federal budget, 2012, passed under President Obama's tenure, shall we? In 2012, the deficit was $1.327 TRILLION on a $3.796 Trillion budget. The math on that is this: about 35% of the budget was borrowed. Quick math tells us that this "increase in revenue" raises only 6.4% of the actual deficit.

Let me give you a real world example, shall we? Let's take an American family with a household income of $60,000 per year. That family spends above and beyond the money they have in line with what the Federal Government does, which means they spend $81,000 per year, every year. But hey, good news! The boss is giving you a small raise this year! That's right, a 2.24% raise (which is what the new taxes the President wants equals in tax receipts). So now, instead of having $60,000 per year incoming, this family has $61,334. Yahoo! That's totally going to make up for the fact that the family is spending $21,000 more than they have...oh wait, no it doesn't. It's a drop in the bucket.

Actually, to cover the deficit that family has, they would need a raise incoming. revenue 35% JUST TO COVER THEIR CURRENT EXPENSES. 

Friends, in America there is no way to raise that much revenue without flat out confiscating every cent earned over $250,000. That will work precisely ONE TIME, because after that, nobody will work one second harder than it would take to earn $250,000 per year. It also would equal a massive depression because businesses would stop hiring people. It simply wouldn't be worth the risk.

As I've said for years now, our real problem isn't that we don't have enough revenue. The problem is we spend far, far too much money. We will not solve our problem without dealing with our spending. Period. However, I believe we can expect no such logical approach.

America, in it's infinite foolishness, saw fit to re-elect the petulant child President Barack Obama. He is now emboldened. Friends, I fear for America. I believe we are headed the way of Greece. The fact that Obama was re-elected means we are in trouble, fiscally speaking, America. Katy, bar the door. We're in trouble.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

What Does the Fiscal Cliff Show Us About the Democrat Party

Simply put, it shows us that they care only about their political agenda, and not solving problems.

Consider this, friends: Harry Reid signaled last week that Entitlements were "off the table" in these negotiations, and continue to press to be able to raise taxes on the top 2% of wage earners.

Earlier this week, we showed how little of a difference Obama's tax increases would make. Specifically, it would run the government for eight days. As of right now, we have to borrow money to cover 127 days worth of spending each year (35% of our budget is borrowed).  If the Republican party gives in and gives the President his tax hikes, you know how many days we're borrowing for NOW? 119 days. A full 119 days of spending each year STILL has to be borrowed.

Translation: This tax increase doesn't make a mouse's fart worth of a difference in solving our REAL problem.

Yet the Democrats and the Drive-By Media keep pushing this idea that "if the Republicans would just agree to let taxes be raised on the rich, we could solve this Fiscal Cliff problem!" That's not what's happening. The Democrats are insisting on a foolish non-solution and if we don't give in to their tantrum, they're taking their ball and going home.

I'll give you a comparison. As some of you know, I love the New York Mets. The Mets recently signed their best player, David Wright, to a long term contract extension.

Now imagine during the negotiations there were two issues in the contract negotiations. Problem one is the fact that David Wright wanted his contract to be eight years long and worth about $140 million, and the Mets want the contract to be seven years long and $120 million. Problem two is that the Mets wanted to write into the contract that Wright has to wear a multicolored beanie with a propeller in the Mets clubhouse for five minutes, once a month, every month during the baseball season for the duration of his contract because, darn it all, Mets owner Fred Wilpon thinks it would be simply hilarious.

Now let's pretend Fred Wilpon was going to the New York sports media and saying "If David would JUST agree to wear this beanie for FIVE MEASLY MINUTES every month, WE COULD GET THIS DEAL SIGNED!" That'd be highly inaccurate, yes? My friends, this is exactly what Democrats are doing with their story about "just let us raise taxes on the rich." They are focusing on one tiny aspect of the issue, ignoring the big one, and blaming the multicolored beanie and not the $20 million gap in contract negotiations.

(Thankfully, all this is moot, and David Wright signed an eight year extension. To my knowledge, a beanie was not part of the discussion.)

It turns out, as has been shown so many times before, this tax increase will not solve the problem. At all. So one must ask why does the Democrat party have such a massive desire to raise taxes?

At best, it's all about their PR. At worst, it's an attempt by the Democrat Party to continue to pretend the problem is we don't tax enough. If they do that, they can continue the facade a little longer (until America is so bankrupt that we can't even afford to borrow more money). Not only is it the height of dishonesty to keep focusing on the multicolored beanie, it shows a complete disregard for solving the real problem. Further, they have stated they are willing to take us over the fiscal cliff just so they can make us wear that stupid beanie. Who isn't looking out for America, friends?

America, this is who you elected. I hope you're paying attention.  Because this is EXACTLY what you wished for, whether or not you knew it. This is who the Democrat Party has been for decades and continues to be.

Explaining the Conservative Abortion Stance

Abortion is, of course, one of the biggest hot-buttons in the world. The Left has done a really good job of presenting their side of the issue in such a way that I regularly speak to people who tell me they absolutely never would have an abortion themselves but still consider themselves pro-choice.  The reason given by these individuals almost universally is either "I can't tell some other woman what to do with her body" or more generally "I can't tell other people what to do."

Conservatives as well as Pro-Life liberals and moderates (my childhood pastor, for example, is a staunchly Pro-Life liberal) are simply not explaining our argument simply and concisely. I'm going to attempt to do just that right now.

Simply stated, we believe that unborn child is a human being. Admittedly, this is a default perspective focused on being 100% sure that life is protected.  The fact is no human being knows when a fertilized human egg has become officially human.  One thing we can say with scientific certainty is this: It happens no sooner than the moment of conception.  That's why the vast majority of individuals have no issue with legitimate contraception.  (For the record, legitimate contraception is defined by something that stops a human egg cell from being fertilized by a human sperm cell, whether done via a barrier or medication.) 

If life begins no sooner than conception, stopping said conception from occuring is not destroying anything.  To give an analogy: Fire does not cause explosions on it's own. Neither does gunpowder.  Only when fire and gunpowder are combined do we get an explosion.  Similarly, a sperm cell on it's own does not create a human, nor does an egg cell on it's own.  Only when the sperm cell and egg cell are combined is a human being created.

Abortion, on the other hand, is quite different.  Abortion takes a human that has already been conceived and destroys it by removing it from the womb during development. What Pro-Life individuals say is this: you may stop the conception of a child, but once it is conceived it has a right to life that cannot be infringed upon by another person's right to liberty or pursue happiness.

The woman who is desiring to abort her unborn child has a right to pursue happiness, which in this case means not having a baby.  However, as I have stated so many times, I believe that Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are a heirarchy.  I believe my right to Life outranks your right to Liberty (that is, to be free to do what you want), and that might right to Liberty outranks your right to Pursue Happiness. Your Right to Pursue Happiness ends at any danger to my Liberty and my Life; and your Liberty likewise ends at any danger to my Life.

So here it is, short and sweet, why conservatives and people of faith of all political ilks are opposed to abortion: We cannot abide by the either purposeful destruction of a human life.  There's actually a word for purposefully destroying a human life (except in cases of war, self defense, genuine accident, etc): Murder.  Yes, I know that's a harsh point.  But a human being does have a right to be alive.

Now, let me qualify that statement: One, the vast majority of people who have had abortions have done so in ignorance, believing they are simply removing "a mass of cells from their body." I do not think they ought to be tried for murder.  It's an act of ignorance 99% of the time and not malicious.  I want the practice stopped, not the individuals prosecuted.

Now it's time to ask you well meaning Neighborhood Liberals a question: Can you understand where we're coming from?  We see that child as human and having a right to life. We also see it as completely independent of the mother's body, albeit reliant on that mother.  Then again, my best friend and his wife have an almost 1 year old, and he's completely reliant on his parents too...so the argument that the baby can't survive without the mother in utero becomes really silly.  (As a matter of fact, I think I was about 12 years old before I could even potentially care for myself in any real way, and even then I would have sucked at it...so by the aforementioned logic killing a 9 year old isn't murder either.)

My point is that we are not going to put aside our beliefs on this...and frankly anybody who says we ought to deserves to be smacked.  We're talking about a human life, friends. We're not talking about a mass of cells and we're not talking about a "choice with one's own body." We're talking about destroying another person's body, that unborn child's.*  And that is something we cannot morally fathom.


*I know some atheist or another is going to send me that picture of a cracked egg and a caption that says "this is not a chicken." I'll spare you the trouble: Yes, actually, it is a chicken. I just have no issue with eating chickens.