Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 9:19pm

The Conservative Bible

This is pretty funny, but at times it makes me cringe.

Nonetheless it is humor so don’t take this seriously at all!

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Joe Hargrave
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 12:27am

Now you’ve done it, you intolerant fascist!

::braces for the anarch-attack::

This was funny 🙂

Michael J. Iafrate
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 1:07am

What great human beings you are.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 6:03am

Hilarious! I’d pay to see Jon Voigt in a spoof of the Da Vinci Code!

Paul Primavera
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 6:43am

I find no condemnation in what Conservapedia is doing:

http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

If you don’t like their Bible translation, then don’t read it.

BTW, the NRSV is decidedly liberal with its inclusive language. Why does no one make fun of their translators?

John Henry
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 7:19am

This Colbert interview with Andy Schafly, who is in charge of the ‘Conservative Bible,’ is amazing. An actual quote: “Most of the parables of Jesus are free market parables.”

http://www.hulu.com/watch/113891/the-colbert-report-andy-schlafly

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 8:30am

The Red State guys’ riff on the Conservative vs. Liberal Jesus was a hoot. Which got me to thinking about Conservative vs Liberal Mary…

I guess Our Lady of Fatima would be the “conservative” Mary because of her anti-Communism while Our Lady of Guadalupe would be the “liberal” Mary because of her association with all those illegal aliens…

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 8:32am

Or maybe Our Lady of Lourdes would have to be the Liberal Mary because her devotion to healing the sick proves she’s in favor of universal health care!

Michael J. Iafrate
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 11:11am

I find no condemnation in what Conservapedia is doing

Then you aren’t very perceptive. They aren’t simply doing a translation. Look at their principles one more time. They are deleting parts of the Bible. Even the supposed “liberal” Bible translations do not do that.

Joe Hargrave
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 11:37am

Free market parables? That’s unbelievably ridiculous.

Michael J. Iafrate
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 1:57pm

Paul, just to elaborate, here is #8 of their principles:

8. Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story

You see no problem with this? Seriously?

Tom K.
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 2:15pm

Our Lady of Guadalupe would be the “liberal” Mary because of her association with all those illegal aliens…

Yeah, but the Spanish were there to stay.

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 2:30pm

Something like the “Conservative Bible Project” can most certainly use a good mocking.

Michael J. Iafrate
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 2:46pm

Something like the “Conservative Bible Project” can most certainly use a good mocking.

We agree on something.

So the question is this: if we all agree that although Jesus’ parables and ultimate message were thoroughly economic, but that they are not “free market” messages, why the unwavering defense of the free market in your circles? Clearly the economic dimensions of the scriptures are more in line with the ideas of socialism. What is it that makes you all free market types, defenders of capitalism, etc. then?

S.B.
S.B.
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 3:15pm

Jesus’ parables didn’t touch on matters of civil government at all.

John Henry
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 3:25pm

I don’t agree that Jesus’s parables and ultimate message were thoroughly economic. I find that kind of reductionism repulsive, actually.

As to individual property v. state-controlled property, I think there are fruitful tensions running throughout the New Testament, and, not surprisingly, Caritas in Veritate and the other papal encyclicals on the subject.

Michael J. Iafrate
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 4:12pm

S.B. – What I said was economics, but your claim is false as well.

I find that kind of reductionism repulsive, actually.

Well, it order to call talk of “free market parables” “reductionistic,” there would have to be at least a little talk of the “free market” in the parables. Or else you could not “reduce” their meaning to promotion of the free market at all. There is NOTHING about the “free market” in the parables at all. That would be anarchronistic.

As to individual property v. state-controlled property, I think there are fruitful tensions running throughout the New Testament, and, not surprisingly, Caritas in Veritate and the other papal encyclicals on the subject.

Again, anarchronistic. Especially the notion of “individual property” which is an Enlightenment idea. It’s not present in the scriptures. Modern papal encyclicals, certainly, but we are talking about scripture.

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 4:31pm

I think that the idea of the “conservative bible” is mockable for roughly the same reason that I think that extreme left leaning re-interpretations of the Bible (say, the Book-of-Ruth-as-inspiring-Lesbian-incest-parable reading) should be mocked: because trying to shove your own interests and agendas into God’s Word rather than actually reading God’s Word to see what it tells you rather than what you want to tell it is something which should be rejected, and if necessary mocked.

I don’t agree that Jesus’ parables and ultimate message are primarily (or even much) about economics, free market or otherwise. And I don’t think that the economic dimensions of the scriptures are even remotely in line with the ideas of socialism. (Indeed, socialism was explicitly rejected by the popes in their social encyclicals.)

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 4:46pm

Well, clearly there are some parables you could “reduce” to an economic message if you looked only at their surface meaning: The parable of the talents, the treasure in the, the pearl of great price. However, if you took those as being primarily about how to succeed in business (or, indeed, at all about how to succeed in business, except to the extent that Jesus was drawing on the everyday economic instincts of his listeners to make a point through analogy), you’d clearly be missing the boat.

As for whether or not the concept of individual property existed at the time of Christ — there may not have been a formal theory of individual property as was developed in the Enlightenment by Locke and others, but that doesn’t mean that the concept was not in use in an everyday form. Clearly, the fact that people are at least practically in control of their property is implicit in the everyday interactions which Jesus uses in the telling of several of the parables. That doesn’t mean that the parables are about individual property, but it would be mistaken to suggest that those before the Enlightenment didn’t have any concept of individual property (or the communal obligations which over-rule one’s ability to decide how to dispose of one’s property.)

Joe Hargrave
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 4:57pm

Individual property was an Enlightenment idea?

I beg to differ. Aristotle had quite a bit to say about private property, as well as common property.

Many of the thinkers of the Enlightenment, though certainly not all, based at least some of their ideas on the thinkers of antiquity.

Joe Hargrave
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 5:00pm

As for the parables, I’ve heard that the parable of the talents is supposed to be a “free market parable”, which is nonsense – it is an analogy, not an endorsement of any economic system. We may as well conclude that the parable of the vineyard was an endorsement of total equalization of wages regardless of the amount of work done by the individual laborers.

That isn’t to say that I think Jesus had nothing at all to say about economics – but I don’t believe any of it is to be found in his parables, which are meant to illustrate much different things.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 5:00pm

Private property has been around since Cronk chased away the fellow who got too close to his club.

Rick Lugari
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 5:21pm

There’s an awful lot packed into the seventh commandment about private property. I can’t even believe it’s become a talking point.

The conservative bible is worthy of profound contempt, but as others have pointed out, so are other ideological attempts at conforming God’s word to their pet ideologies.

S.B.
S.B.
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 5:29pm

if we all agree that although Jesus’ parables and ultimate message were thoroughly economic

Why would we all agree on one of the dumbest ideas ever?

Check out Exodus 20:17 “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbour’s.”

You think that came from the Enlightenment?

Michael J. Iafrate
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 7:49pm

And I don’t think that the economic dimensions of the scriptures are even remotely in line with the ideas of socialism. (Indeed, socialism was explicitly rejected by the popes in their social encyclicals.)

Not even remotely? Are you kidding? You have read the Bible, right? Not the Book of Mormon, but the Bible?

And what does the fact that many popes rejected various forms of socialism have to do with what the Bible says?

Clearly, the fact that people are at least practically in control of their property is implicit in the everyday interactions which Jesus uses in the telling of several of the parables.

Oh, you mean the parables about absentee landlords and landless day laborers? What was that you said about reading your own politics into the scriptures?

Well, clearly there are some parables you could “reduce” to an economic message if you looked only at their surface meaning.

The so-called “surface meaning” would certainly not be in conflict with the imposed “spiritualized” meaning, right?

For all the Enlightened pro-capitalist liberals on this site, I’m kind of surprised that you think “private property” as described by capitalists is in the Bible. That’s simply anarchronistic. Actually I’m not surprised. The confusion of the definition of “private property” is precisely what free market types do to keep less intelligent people supporting capitalism: “You mean those socialists want to take away my flat screen TV?!? I’d have to share my DVDs with the neighborhood?!?”

Donna V.
Donna V.
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 8:52pm

Uh, Michael, check out S.B.’s post above. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, wife, etc.” In other words, keep your mitts off other people’s property. It’s a rather irksome Commandment for socialists, I would say. If capitalists must be wary of greed, the besetting sin of socialism is envy.

Michael J. Iafrate
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 9:01pm

Donna – Sounds like you’re one of the people I referred to in my previous comment. Socialists like myself have no problem with that commandment.

Rick Lugari
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 10:00pm

Socialists like myself…

Not that I think being a socialist is a good thing, but at least you’ve landed on a term that aligns with your ideology. The whole anarchism can mean supporting an all powerful state which owns and controls all capital was never really convincing.

Michael J. Iafrate
Saturday, December 12, AD 2009 10:21pm

Rick – Perhaps you are not aware that anarchism is a subset of socialism?

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 12:15am

State ownership of the means of production is “a subset of socialism”? Ha ha. Just try to stay clear on the concept of anarchism while rolling the phrase “state ownership” around in your mind. Doublethink nirvana, that’s what you’ll have.

Blackadder
Blackadder
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 9:23am

I don’t think the parables are about economics. However, if you were to treat them as if they were about economics, a number of them would take on a distinctly free market flair.

Blackadder
Blackadder
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 9:37am

Btw, if my word were law, I’d probably banish the words ‘socialism’ ‘capitalism’ and ‘anarchism’ from political discourse. All three terms have so many confusing connotations associated with them that it can be quite difficult to reach understanding when they are invoked. Michael, for example, uses all three terms with a meaning that is different than what I suspect is the meaning associated with the terms by most people here (Michael’s not wrong, it’s just not the popular understanding). If people understood what he was saying, I suspect they would find it less objectionable, though I think they still would not be close to agreeing with him (admittedly, it is hard to disentangle how much of the difference is due to differences in the speaker’s values or perceptions of fact, and how much is just a matter of language).

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 9:45am

Not even remotely? Are you kidding? You have read the Bible, right? Not the Book of Mormon, but the Bible?

Sigh… Yes. I’ve read the Bible. All of it at least once, parts like the Gospels dozens of times. (Actually, I never read more than the first two chapters of the Book of Mormon — but don’t tell those nice Mormon missionaries who come to the door that.)

Rhetorical questions work better when they’re not unlikely and sarcastic.

And what does the fact that many popes rejected various forms of socialism have to do with what the Bible says?

Well, perhaps if Christ had preached socialism then the popes would not have condemned it as incompatible with Christianity…?

“Clearly, the fact that people are at least practically in control of their property is implicit in the everyday interactions which Jesus uses in the telling of several of the parables.”

Oh, you mean the parables about absentee landlords and landless day laborers? What was that you said about reading your own politics into the scriptures?

Um, well, yes, at a strictly historical/sociological level, it would certainly seem that the parables involving land owners and laborers and parables such as that of the Talents (which involves a master demanding to see return on his investments) would suggest that Jesus’s audience assumed that capital was usually controlled by private ownership, not collective ownership.

Now, I certainly wouldn’t say that this means that Jesus was telling people that capital/means of production should be privately owned (or, indeed, that they shouldn’t) it’s just that in seeking to tell stories that illustrate a point, Jesus talks about situations which would have been familiar to his audience, and those situations clearly imply that private ownership of capital was common enough as to be assumed by his audience. Now does Jesus condemn this, rather he condemns the failure of those with food, shelter, clothing, etc. to share it with those who do not have it.

So now that you bring it up, you have me curious: Obviously, the parable of the bad tenants (Matthew 21:33-46) is primarily about the relationship between God and Israel, but if you think it says or implies anything about Christ’s message on economics, what do you think it tells us?

“Well, clearly there are some parables you could “reduce” to an economic message if you looked only at their surface meaning.”

The so-called “surface meaning” would certainly not be in conflict with the imposed “spiritualized” meaning, right?

I must admit, I’m a little confused by this reply. Let me take a very specific example, the parable of the treasure in the field. I would describe the “surface meaning” (which, yes, I’m aware is not a technical term in exegesis) or perhaps more precisely, the surface story as being one of sharp dealing. A man finds out that there’s a treasure buried in a field which the owner doesn’t know about. In what Adam Smith’s charming 18th century prose would describe as “sharp dealing” he sells everything that he has and buys the field, so that he can then claim ownership to the treasure, which we will then assumedly dig up and turn a massive profit on his deal since he bought field and treasure for the price of just the field.

Now, is the idea that one should stake all one’s wealth to turn a huge profit based on inside information the point of the parable? Absolutely not! Christ is making an analogy between something everyone in his audience understands (the desire to turn a big profit on a sharp deal) and what they should really be willing to stake all that they have on: achieving the eternal kingdom.

This is not a “free market parable” because Christ is not urging his listeners to stake all their possessions on a sharp business deal — rather it’s a parable which draws on the existing business sense in the audience to point out to them that the returns they are pursuing in this world are inconsequential in eternity, and that rather than staking everything to get rich, they should stake everything to achieve salvation.

For all the Enlightened pro-capitalist liberals on this site, I’m kind of surprised that you think “private property” as described by capitalists is in the Bible. That’s simply anarchronistic. Actually I’m not surprised. The confusion of the definition of “private property” is precisely what free market types do to keep less intelligent people supporting capitalism: “You mean those socialists want to take away my flat screen TV?!? I’d have to share my DVDs with the neighborhood?!?”

This is an arbitrary distinction. There is no clear difference between saying, “you’re still in charge of the flat screen TV that you bought” and “you’re still in charge of the business that you bought” or “you’re still in charge of the production of the farm you bought”.

Different attempts at socialism and communism have drawn up different rules as far as how far one’s ability to have “private property” goes, but it’s always an essentially arbitrary distinction and at root a selfish and materialist one: you can own “personal” property which you use strictly for your own purposes within set limits, but you can’t actually own a business or other productive asset which you work to provide value both to your customers, your employees, and your dependents.

And, indeed, it’s the attempt to ignore human nature and demand that people work only for the betterment of the abstract “society” rather than directly to provide for their family and loved ones which has caused socialist experiments to fail again and again.

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 11:29am

Darwin,

I have to say that I don’t find your logic sound.

“Well, perhaps if Christ had preached socialism then the popes would not have condemned it as incompatible with Christianity…?”

The Popes condemnations of socialism are not based on any parables of Christ, or any sort of direct condemnation of any sort of even quasi-socialistic idea. It’s just not in the Gospels.

While I don’t think Jesus preached, or would have preached, any sort of state socialism or collectivism (if we’re going to speculate), I have a hard time imagining him preaching the gospel of economic growth too.

If we look at some of the economic practices of the Old Testament, for instance – the jubilee year of debt forgiveness, the restoration of property (see, there’s private property in the Torah too, clearly), the ban on usury, on financial parasitism, on God’s commands throughout the entire Bible to be mindful of the orphan and the widow – we see an economic philosophy that is mindful of private property but absolutely insistent upon a social obligation as well.

I don’t see any reason to believe that God, as Jesus, would depart from the economic structure He set up in the Torah or Pentateuch. It looks like the early Christians tried to preserve it to some extent as well.

Blackadder
Blackadder
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 11:58am

I don’t see any reason to believe that God, as Jesus, would depart from the economic structure He set up in the Torah or Pentateuch.

I don’t think we can take the economic regulations found in the Torah or Pentateuch to represent any sort of ideal. Several of the prominent regulations (e.g. debt forgiveness and usury) turned out to have some significant negative unintended consequences, which is why both Christian and Jewish law ultimately found ways to render them a nullity.

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 2:14pm

Negative from what standpoint?

Our first consideration is the state of our souls, not the level of ‘economic growth.’

At no point did God say, “stop doing that debt forgiveness and open up a debtor’s prison instead.”

It was once every seven years, a way to wipe the slate clean as an act of goodness. What economy ever collapsed because of debt forgiveness or prohibitions on usury? On the other hand an excess of usury is arguably why this economy has collapsed. Greed is not good. It is a sin for a reason.

Of course the economic regulations in the Torah are an ideal – they correspond to ideal moral behavior, they correspond to an ideal disposition which regards moral goodness and purity as the top priority. That being said, I see no reason to believe that they destroy economies either.

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 3:37pm

I will add that I think the Catholic Encyclopedia has a good overview of the subject. There seems to be room for interpretation on usury, though the exploitation of the poor through it (or through any other means) is explicitly and severely condemned. And I think this was the spirit of the original law – usury is evil when it is used to take advantage of a person’s misfortune.

Unfortunately, in our society, people who excel at just that are hailed as “smart” and “inventive.”

Tito Edwards
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 3:59pm

Joe,

…George Soros comes to mind as someone as “smart” and “inventive” when he took advantage of the poor.

Blackadder
Blackadder
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 4:08pm

Joe,

The seven year debt forgiveness was modified not because it impeded ‘economic growth’ but because it was found to be harming the poor, i.e. the people the law was (presumably) intended to help. The problem with negating all debts every seven years is that creditors know that it is going to happen, and so won’t lend unless the loan will be repaid before the next debt forgiveness. That means, for example, that if you are in the latter part of the sixth year, it is going to be impossible to find anyone who will lend you money.

It was this sort of problem that led rabbis such as Hillel to create the prosbul, which allowed loans to avoid the seven year cancellation.

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 4:55pm

So basically what you’re saying is, God instituted a bad law that human wisdom had to make better. God is an incompetent economic bungler.

The law didn’t hurt the poor – people who sought to circumvent the law hurt the poor. Human greed hurt and continues to hurt the poor – not the economic precepts of the Bible or the Church.

Blackadder
Blackadder
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 5:15pm

Joe,

Obviously the law wasn’t intended to hurt the poor. At the same time, the poor were made worse off by the existence of the law than they would have been otherwise. You can say this is because of the dastardly actions of lenders. Fine. Still, the fact that lenders will respond to the law in a dastardly way means that the law is a bad idea. I don’t think that makes God an “incompetent economic bungler” anymore than the various laws about cleansing make God a medical and scientific illiterate. What it does mean, however, is that we can’t take the Old Testament law as being some sort of ideal legal code, rather than something that served a purpose only in a particular time and place.

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 6:06pm

“Still, the fact that lenders will respond to the law in a dastardly way means that the law is a bad idea.”

I don’t see at all how one follows from the other. People respond to all sorts of laws in “dastardly” ways; that is not an adequate justification for their abrogation!

I’m not convinced that this law meant that the “poor were worse off.” It can be argued, but I doubt it could be proven.

As for the comparison to laws about cleansing, they have no relevance. There isn’t that much of a difference between lending money today, and lending money 3000 years ago. The same could not be said of medical advances. I’ll grant that some OT laws must be updated given our technological advancements – but I will maintain that the Biblical economic laws do not fall into that category. This is not about adapting to a new situation which did not previous exist, but rather circumventing a law that one finds inconvenient.

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 6:13pm

And on further thought, I have to point out that you are arguing that the law was faulty from the beginning – so I’m not sure what historical context has to do with it. If people “reacted badly” to it as soon as it was instituted, then it was bad then as it is bad now, in your view at least.

How does this not make God, in your view, an incompetent bungler?

Better to say that is we who fail to live up to the “ideal”, in reality, the law, that God established.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 6:29pm

There isn’t that much of a difference between lending money today, and lending money 3000 years ago.

One is occurring in the context of regular year-to-year improvements in real income drawn from technological applications and more deft division of labor. The extension of credit can commonly be a capital investment. The opportunity for that is fairly uncertain and constrained in an economic context where secular improvements in living standards are at a very low rate and often succeeded by periods of secular decline in living standards.

With regard to lending for purposes of consumption, if I am not mistaken there are differences in practical effects seen when this is done in agricultural economies where specie is comparatively scarce. It has been so long I have forgotten the analysis, though.

I am not sure why it is ‘dastardly’ to limit your extension of credit to contracts of a limited term of years.

And I think this was the spirit of the original law – usury is evil when it is used to take advantage of a person’s misfortune.

That sounds like a critique of loan sharks or payday lenders or (perhaps) pawn brokers. Auto finance companies? Not so sure.

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 7:07pm

Joe,

I think I might have been less than clear, or perhaps we mis-understood each other a bit: I certainly don’t think that the Church has set down a ruling on the sort of economic system endorsed by the parables of Christ — I don’t think that any economic system is endorsed by them. My point was more that if Christ clearly endorsed a socialist economic system in his parables (which is what I thought Michael had suggested — rather to my surprise) that the Church would not have turned around and condemned socialism when it became a political issue. Given the fact that the Church _has_ condemned socialism, I would assume that (unless the Church is false) socialism is not a system which Christ peached.

Indeed, I would agree exactly with your point that to the extent that we see any economic philosophy in Christ’s teaching (and I don’t think that economics, as I would use the term, was at all a major facet of his message to humanity) it is one which in which private property is implicit, yet our obligations to our brothers and sisters are emphasized most of all.

My only point about private property and “free market” surface values in the parables is that it seems to me that several of the parables are clearly addressed to an audience which is indeed with capital and the means of production being privately owned. I don’t think Christ says anything particularly for or against that, it just seems to be the way that people assumed things often worked in first century Palestine.

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 8:05pm

Darwin,

I hear ya. 🙂

Blackadder
Blackadder
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 8:18pm

People respond to all sorts of laws in “dastardly” ways; that is not an adequate justification for their abrogation!

It depends on whether such dastardly behavior defeats the purpose of the law. If the purpose of a law is to help the poor, and people react to the law in a way that leaves the poor worse off, then yes, that justifies getting rid of the law.

I’m not convinced that this law meant that the “poor were worse off.”

What is the source of your skepticism here? Is it that you don’t think lenders would refuse to lend money that wasn’t to be repaid before the jubilee? Or is it that you do think they would do this, but you aren’t sure poor people being denied loans would make them worse off?

There isn’t that much of a difference between lending money today, and lending money 3000 years ago.

Did the ancient Israelites have credit cards? Adjustable rate mortgages (or any kind of mortgage, for that matter)? Venture capital? Was there a bond market? Was there even a banking system?

Even aside from technical advances, the difference between a largely poor, agriculture based society like ancient Israel and today’s society is going to be enormous just based on the amount of lending involved. The Ancient Israelites didn’t have a whole lot of surplus capital, so there wasn’t going to be a huge amount of lending (particularly long term lending) in any event. So the rule may not have actually had much of an effect at the time, and served a mainly symbolic purpose, which is what you would have to say about some of the cleansing rituals as well (sprinkling a man with dove’s blood is not just a less effective method of treating a man with leprosy than what we can do with modern medicine; it’s not an effective treatment at all).

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 9:29pm

First of all, I’m not convinced that the law was established merely to help the poor. People at all levels of society lend and borrow money. The purpose, if I am going to make an educated guess, was to encourage solidarity and forgiveness among the people, as well as to demonstrate that there things of much greater importance than money. In addition I believe the purpose was God’s benevolence towards His people.

Secondly, the argument still doesn’t hold up. People argue that the illegality of prostitution or narcotics makes things more dangerous for all parties involved – in Europe they have “sex workers unions”, in some places, legalized prostitution. The theory is that “people will do it anyway, so let’s make it safe.” This extends to sex education, where children are given condoms because they’re supposedly incapable of doing what is right.

The logic is the same here – people are going to be tight-fisted with their money, so let’s make it easier for them to do so rather than, as a society, make a clear statement about our values by declaring this behavior illegal.

Whatever ills befall us because of obedience to an inherently good law must certainly be more bearable, from the standpoint of our salvation, than whatever temporary benefit we derive from an inherently bad one.

That being said, I’m willing to accept that the tradition of the Church has allowed for moderate usury in certain historical circumstances. What I am not willing to accept is that debt forgiveness or prohibitions on exploitative usury are so bad that we must essentially declare God incompetent and do things however we see fit. It is our behavior that must be modified, and our attitudes – not God’s law.

The source of my skepticism, to answer your second point, is that I am not aware of any historical evidence that debt forgiveness or prohibitions on usury caused either the Israelites, the early Christians, or Christian society throughout the Middle Ages any serious social catastrophes. I’m open to the possibility that it may exist, but I haven’t seen it.

Finally, I think my last point is misunderstood. We may have different financial devices, but the essence of the matter is the same – to, or to not, forgive debts and charge onerous rates of interest for profit.

You admit that you don’t really know what effect the rule had at the time, nor do I think we can say that we know for certain what effect the rule would have today if it were applied in certain cases. I wouldn’t argue that a businesses’ debt fell into the same category as a family that took out a loan for something essential. I think the application can be selective, provided that it fulfills the purpose God originally intended, on which I speculated earlier in this reply.

Michael J. Iafrate
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 9:30pm

State ownership of the means of production is “a subset of socialism”? Ha ha.

State ownership of the means of production is one type of socialism. But socialism does not need to be statist. More generally, socialism involves communal ownership of the means of production. It includes non-statist forms such as indigenous socialisms and various forms of anarchism. Even in Marxism, the goal is a stateless, classless society, not state ownership of the means of production. Hope this clears things up for you.

This is an arbitrary distinction. There is no clear difference between saying, “you’re still in charge of the flat screen TV that you bought” and “you’re still in charge of the business that you bought” or “you’re still in charge of the production of the farm you bought”.

No, it’s an important distinction if the central issue is who owns the means of production, which is precisely the issue.

…it’s always an essentially arbitrary distinction and at root a selfish and materialist one: you can own “personal” property which you use strictly for your own purposes within set limits, but you can’t actually own a business or other productive asset which you work to provide value both to your customers, your employees, and your dependents.

Interesting use of the word “selfish,” that.

And, indeed, it’s the attempt to ignore human nature and demand that people work only for the betterment of the abstract “society” rather than directly to provide for their family and loved ones which has caused socialist experiments to fail again and again.

This makes no sense.

Given the fact that the Church _has_ condemned socialism, I would assume that (unless the Church is false) socialism is not a system which Christ peached.

Socialism is NOT a “system” at all but a tendency. There is no one form of socialism. The Church has NOT condemned “socialism.” For example, countless indigenous societies are organized according to indigenous forms of socialism. The Church obviously has not condemned these forms of socialism. The Church has not condemned the socialism of monasticism. The Church has not condemned democratic socialism. Please stop parroting the lie that the Church has “condemned socialism.” It hasn’t.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 9:39pm

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but in Old Testament times, I believe the only means many “ordinary” folk had for repaying large debts was either to sell their ancestral lands (what we might call the “family farm”) or sell themselves and/or their children into slavery. The jubilee year provisions for debt forgiveness, freeing of slaves, and return of land to its original owners was a way to give affected families a fresh start, and prevent them from turning into a permanent “underclass.”

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Sunday, December 13, AD 2009 10:06pm

Did the Mosaic practice of forgiving debts every seven years persist among Christians, Joe? And even into the Middle Ages?

I’d be curious to read about that if you have a citation on it.

I must admit, the only context I’d heard about it in was in a talk I heard by an economist who was Jewish, who used the example of how Rabbinical teaching modified the original law (because of its bad effects on poor people wanting to borrow money) as an example of how attempts to regulate debt don’t always work as intended. I had never heard the practice was carried on into Christian times — though obviously various practices for forgiving debt of those unable to pay were supported by the Church in various times and places.

I’m not sure that saying the seven year debt forgiveness law wouldn’t work well would necessarily suggest incompetence on God’s part. There’s a _lot_ of Old Testament Jewish law, and clearly Christ considered some of it to be sub-optimal. (Divorce, being the key example.)

That said, clearly charity, justice, and social stability all suggest the need for some kind of debt forgiveness for those who can’t pay. Morally, I’d say we’re calling not to profit unreasonably from the need of others, and that can at times mean personally forgiving debts owed one. At a secular level, that’s what bankruptcy is for. And indeed, in that regard, the US is particularly generous, having bankruptcy laws far more favorable to debtors than one finds in Europe. (Some have observed this probably has a lot to do with the historical fact of so many people having emigrated to the US to escape their debts in Europe.)

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