Social media is a funny thing. You never know what’s going to come across your news feed. The other day, a young Christian mom on my friends list shared a six-month-old post from a “Socialist Memes” site. They, in turn, had reposted it from a millennial who was sharing her heart as it relates to our country.
“I just want people to be okay,” she wrote.
The rest of the post continued on that theme: People should have food and water, a home and medical care. “These are not radical desires,” she concluded. “These are fundamentals for a moral society.”
Dear Millennial, if you ever read this reply, please know that I have nothing but respect for your desire to see everyone cared for. And please know that I want the same thing.
So does every average American.
So does every Christian in the country.
So does every rank-and-file member of both major political parties.
The only thing we disagree on is how to accomplish it. But from what we’ve learned in the last nine posts, socialism is probably not the answer.
Summary
Love Thy Neighbor 1: The Appeal of Socialism
The promise that “everyone will be okay” is a tempting one. Since God is in the business of saving people, too, the church should become informed on what socialism promises.
Love Thy Neighbor 2: The Next Generation
Sweden is a social democracy – a capitalist welfare state. Bernie Sanders and others say they want the kind of socialism that’s practiced in Sweden. Problem is, that isn’t socialism. Even in democratic socialism, the government owns or controls the way you make or sell things, which doesn’t describe Sweden.
Love Thy Neighbor 3: Christianity in Practice
Socialists quote the Bible to convince Christians that their cause is just. But where the socialists are trying to save mankind from wealthy corporations, God is trying to save mankind from spiritual darkness. The church needs to be educated enough to not allow others to twist the Bible to their own ends.
Love Thy Neighbor 4: What Would Jesus Do?
The Fathers of Socialism had a lot of things to say about Christianity. Marx pioneered the idea of giving Christianity a socialist tinge. Engels pointed out the irony of saying “Christianity is Communism.” He said Christians ought to “know the Bible better,” because its doctrines are opposed to socialist communism.
Love Thy Neighbor 5: The Early Church
The church in the Book of Acts did not, as socialists claim, practice socialism. They freely sold all they had and devoted themselves to prayer. The plan resulted in absolute poverty, and Paul had to take up a collection among the Greek churches for them. He also established a new rule. “No workie, no eatie,” as my dad likes to say. (2 Thessalonians 3:10)
Love Thy Neighbor 6: The Plymouth Plantation
People don’t want to work without a reward. That’s probably why every worker’s revolt has ended up with a dictatorship. Somebody has to force people to work. That’s why socialism never advances to Marx’s dream of communal living, where government is no longer necessary.
It’s also human nature to never give up control willingly. Small wonder that dictatorships don’t usually end without a fight. “But,” the American socialists argue, “we won’t have a dictatorship. We’ll have a democracy!” Never mind the tyranny of the 51%. If Marx’s plan holds true, and the working classes rise up in revolt to become the ruling class, that will indeed be the dictatorship he predicted.
Love Thy Neighbor 7: The Spanish Missions of California
State control of the means of production resulted in poverty. But the biggest lesson of the missions is that it’s dangerous for the church to partner with the state. The state will always take over, and it will mess up the mission of the church.
Love Thy Neighbor 8: The Promise of Communism
Marx and Engels said the end goal of socialism was to create communism. As we saw from studying the USSR, Cuba and China, that has led to a lot of death and poverty. We don’t want to go there.
Love Thy Neighbor 9: Stand Fast in Freedom
The maps speak for themselves. Freedom finds itself at home in Western, capitalist countries. Not so much in socialist ones. Why would that matter? Because we are told that “for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then…” (Gal. 5:1, NIV.)
“I Just Want Everyone To Be Okay”
If we want to take care of people, freedom is a good place to start. Just look at those maps from Part 9. Most of our country is okay. Our nation ranks among the highest level of wealth per person.
That makes our job easier as a church. Instead of having to rescue the entire country from poverty, we can focus our resources on the ones who struggle. That also should free us to spend more time sharing the gospel.
We do want people to be okay. The Bible commands compassion for the poor. But the gospel doesn’t make it the responsibility of the government to do this. It’s on us as individuals and on the church as a whole. Let’s not give up our job to the government. As we’ve learned, they make a mess of it.
One more lesson from California History
After Mexico disbanded the missions, life for the citizens of California remained a struggle. The problem was the governors Mexico sent, along with their armies. They took ‘volunteers’ from the jails in Mexico, put them in uniform, and sent them north. Sometimes it seemed like the military’s motto was, “We’ll pillage a village, and won’t that be fun?” Californios grew tired of it. (Californios were the Spanish-speaking citizens who were born in California.)
In 1836, they ran the governor right out of the state. But the concessions they got from the government were soon lost, and they were right back to fighting for some independence. Finally, the Californio leaders held a secret meeting. What foreign country should they ally with? France? Britain? The US?
Governor Pio Pico, himself a Californio, recommended joining either France or Britain rather than suffer any longer under Mexico’s rule. In fact, there would soon be British warships parked outside Monterey Bay, hoping for that very thing.
On the other hand, General Mariano Vallejo thought they should join the United States.
“Why should we shrink from incorporating ourselves with the happiest and freest nation in the world, destined soon to be the most wealthy and powerful? Why should we go abroad for protection when this great nation is our adjoining neighbor? When we join our fortunes to hers, we shall not become subjects, but fellow-citizens, possessing all the rights of the people of the United States, and choosing our own federal and local rulers. We shall have a stable government and just laws.”
(Joseph Warren Revere, A Tour of Duty in California, 1849, page 29.)
The meeting was tending to side with Governor Pico, so General Vallejo convinced his supporters to leave. Without a quorum, there could be no vote. A short time later, the foreign settlers in Sonoma took matters into their own hands. It was as if they said, “Ok, you guys can’t make up your minds, so we’ll take care of it.” They hoisted the Bear Flag, took over the presidio, and sent word to the U.S. Army at Sutter’s Fort that they needed help.
Lieutenant Revere, grandson to Paul Revere, was stationed on a U.S. ship in Monterey Bay. His admiral thought, “If I don’t do anything, that British man-o’-war is going to claim California. Then we’ll be neighbors with Britain again!” (This was only thirty-some years after the War of 1812.) So he sailed to port and hoisted the U.S. flag. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Mexico had declared war over that little matter of Texas, and California got swept up in the fight.
Stand Fast
“The Happiest and Freest Nation on Earth”
General Mariano Vallejo, 1848
Here’s my point: The church in America is smack dab in the middle of what Mariano Vallejo called, “The happiest and freest nation on Earth.” It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Yes, the verse is talking about spiritual freedom. But America is blessed with a great deal more, including our core freedoms of speech and religion. The church must speak out to preserve that freedom. As the saying goes, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”
“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”
(John Philpot Curran, 1790.)
Image credits: header flag and binoculars.
Links to the entire series can be found online in this index.
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