Where does the Bible command us to…(and other nonsense)

Last updated on: August 18, 2011 at 7:31 pm by Roger E. Olson

Where does the Bible command us to…(and other nonsense) 2011-08-18T19:31:17-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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To those who ask where the Bible commands us to “take” rather than “give,” I ask: Where does the Bible command us to do many of the things we do routinely (and claim are “biblical”)? Where does the Bible command us to create denominations? Where does the Bible command us to protest at abortion clinics? Where does the Bible command us to promote constitutional amendments banning gay marriage? Where does the Bible even mention ordination of ministers? Where does the Bible….? The list could go on forever. It’s a specious argument from silence and fallacious insofar as we Christians all do and support things that are not specifically commanded in Scripture.

I agree with philosopher John Caputo who writes in What Would Jesus Deconstruct (BakerAcademic, 2007) “Nothing is settled by identifying what Jesus did [or did not do] in the New Testament and then trying to literally reproduce it today. … That is why we require hermeneutics. It is our responsibility to breathe with the spirit of Jesus, to implement, to invent, to convert this poetics into a praxis, which means to make the political order resonate with the radicality of someone whose vision was not precisely political.” (p. 95)

This we do, for better or worse, all the time. The question “Where does Scripture command us to take rather than give?” is simply a cavil and a dodge and nothing more. The real question is about justice. Scripture clearly commands God’s people to show compassion for the poor. Now that many of God’s people have political power insofar as they do not use it to show compassion for the poor they are disobeying God. (Irresponsibly throwing around terms like “socialists” helps nothing here; it verges on demagoguery. Anyone who has lived long enough knows that redistribution of wealth to ameliorate the gap between rich and poor was embraced by Republicans as recently as the 1960s. “Socialism” is public ownership of the means of production. Let’s use labels responsibly, please.)

Does that mean we who advocate political structures and policies that help the poor are attempting to create a theocracy? Again, that’s nonsense. The same could be said of any religiously motivated person who enters the political arena to promote a cause. But it is especially a false charge in light of the fact that reason can be used to support redistribution of wealth. John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice is a completely secular approach to justifying redistribution of wealth.

Finally, redistribution of wealth does not have to mean taking money from some people and simply handing it unconditionally to others. It can (and should) mean taking money from the wealthy to create social systems that create real equal opportunity and that meet basic human needs for everyone. The best redistribution of wealth is job creation.

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