Socialism and Christianity are Opposites!

This OP-ED appeared in the Connecticut Post and is a response to David Horsey's OP-ED.

Mr. Horsey associates big-government programs (Socialism) as an extension of Christianity.

David Horsey's column in Monday's Connecticut Post continues an incessant drum beat that Socialism is a natural extension of Christianity. The truth is that the two philosophies are completely opposed to each other. It's about time that Republicans, Christians and other righteous folks understood this and acted to challenge this preposterous assumption.

Horsey tells us of David Beckmann, an economist and Lutheran Clergyman, who is planning a hunger strike and prayer vigil to convince the Republican Congress to spare social programs from budget cuts. Coincidentally, this past Sunday we heard in church that the Catholic Bishops are planning to ask for the same thing. Their message is the "Christian" righteousness of government "help" programs.

This assemblage of do gooders demonstrates how far Socialism's deceptions have penetrated into the Christian community.

Horsey, Beckmann and the Bishops have fallen pray to Socialism's false promise: namely that we need government to make life fair. Life isn't fair and nothing is going to change that. The closest thing we have to fairness in life is to allow individuals to keep the fruits of their labor. In this way you reap what you sow. This is also called the Free Market (Socialism's anti-Christ).

Socialism's group mentality is also repulsed by individuality. Christianity on the other hand celebrates individuality from every standpoint, but especially from the standpoint that we will be judged alone someday and how our judgement day goes will be based on what we have done individually, not as a member of collective or by how much money the government took from us in forced taxation for "help" programs.

Jesus is my savior. He told me to follow the Ten Commandments. Among the relevant Commandments are: Thou Shalt not Covet, Thou Shalt not Steal and Jesus added Love your neighbor as yourself. Here is all Christians need to know. Don't envy your neighbor's success. Don't steal from your neighbor. But if your neighbor needs you, you must help him.

Another way to look at it is: if a poor man enters the house of a rich man and takes his property, he is a thief and will go to jail. But a politician writes laws accomplishing the same result. Is this theft? Technically no, but in reality yes since one was deprived of his property to give to another. The euphemism for this act is income redistribution and it is wrong.

You might wrongly conclude that I am an advocate for the rich. I'm not. I am, in fact, an advocate for the poor, as my Lord Jesus Christ would want me to be. However, for the poor to be served well, it must be done following God's Commandments. He said: Thou Shalt not Steal. He did not equivocate. He was not abstract or unclear. Stealing is not washed clean of sin if someone else does the stealing or if the stealing is called something else like income redistribution.

You might also wrongly conclude that I don't want any government. Just like Thomas Jefferson I believe that governments are instituted among men to secure for each of us our unalienable rights, not to be used as a weapon against some for the benefit of others. And Jefferson warned us that our government might someday become destructive to these ends, and when it did it was our obligation to right those wrongs.

So Horsey et. al. argue that philanthropy must include governmental force, but can that be philanthropic? Why do we doubt that Americans will treat their neighbors well? Even with the weight of the greatest levels of taxation our nation has ever experienced it is still by far the most generous country on the planet.

We are Americans. We are generous. We are the most prosperous nation on the planet, because for the most part in our history we have valued to defend Life, Liberty and Property. Prosperity and unequaled wealth accumulation came from the freedom to pursue opportunities and by protecting the property generated by that effort. Generosity comes from Prosperity. We can only help others when we don't need help. A hungry government means more of us become needy, less prosperous, and less generous. When government takes so much from us, it deprives us of opportunities to be more Christian; to serve our fellow man.