Is Capitalism Biblical? (Part 5 of 5)

We’re honored to present this series of five posts exploring the question, “Is Capitalism Biblical?” Originally a lecture given at Biola University in May 2012, Philip Massey has graciously granted us permission to republish it here for the benefit of our readers. In Part 5, we consider the Biblical value of social responsibility by which to gauge an economic system, and provide a call to action. You can start the series here.

Philip Massey earned his MBA in finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, is a CPA with over 20 years’ experience as a corporate auditor, is on faculty at the Crowell School of Business at Biola University, and is currently earning his Master’s in New Testament from the Talbot School of Theology. Prof. Massey is an ideal Better Capitalism collaborator – one foot solidly in business and the other solidly in theology – to offer his studied views on this important question.

Which system does the best job of promoting a proper sense of social responsibility to the poor?

We come now to the last, and possibly most important, biblical value for judging an economic system. God’s heart for the poor is one of the most powerful themes throughout the Bible. If you search the website BibleGateway.com for the word “poor,” you will receive eight pages of results. Here is just a brief sampling of verses showing God’s tender heart for the weak and vulnerable:

• Exodus 23:6 – You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit.

• Deuteronomy 15:7 – You shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother.

• 1 Samuel 2:8 – He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap.

• Psalm 72:12 – For He delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper.

• Psalm 68:5 – Father of the fatherless and protector of the widows is God in His holy habitation.

• James 1:27 – Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.

  
  

Clearly, then, God expects us to take care of the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable. The crucial divide between those from a capitalist perspective and those from a socialist perspective is this: whose responsibility is it to provide for the needy? Typically, at least in America, conservatives argue for private philanthropy to help the poor, while liberals argue for government programs to do so.

Image Credit: Biblical Christian Worldview

As I read the Scriptures, I believe a compelling case can be made that God always places the responsibility for helping the poor on His people as individuals. He wants them personally to help the poor, not rely on a government agency to do it for them. We see this in passages such as the following:

• Leviticus 19:10 – And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner.

• Leviticus 23:22 – And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner.

• Deuteronomy 26:12 – When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled…

• Matthew 25:35-37 – For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.

• Mark 10:21 – And Jesus … said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

• Acts 4:34-35 – There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

• James 2:15-16 – If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

• 1 John 3:17 – But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

In the two Leviticus passages, God commands His people that they should leave a portion of their fields unharvested so that the poor and sojourner may freely eat of the fruit of the land. In Deuteronomy, God commands the Israelites to use their tithe to care for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. In Mark, Jesus commands the rich man to give to the poor out of his own wealth. In Acts, we see that the early Christians did exactly that: they met the needs of the poor themselves out of their own wealth. As a side note, this is why this passage in Acts cannot be used as a proof text for socialism. These early Christians were practicing voluntary individual philanthropy, not government redistribution of wealth. The passages in Matthew, James, and 1 John go on to show what such individual philanthropy looks like for the Christian.

God expects His own people to share of their own wealth in meeting the needs of the poor. He has not given us the option of abdicating this role to government welfare agencies that redistribute wealth in order to help the poor.

In fact, Christian charity is far more virtuous than government welfare. Government welfare is bureaucratic and inefficient, usually treating the aid recipient as a case number. Christian charity preserves the human dignity of those to whom it acts as the hands and feet of Christ. This is perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of capitalism. Capitalism is actually a superior system than socialism in meeting the needs of the poor, because it promotes the ability to care for the poor in the manner God has prescribed: individual responsibility, not governmental responsibility.

[Editor's note: This portion of Prof. Massey's lecture has been redacted simply for ease of blog reading. In this redacted portion, Prof. Massey further illustrates his research with examples that compare and contrast the greater total amounts of donations by private Americans citizen to foreign aid following a natural disaster with the lesser total amounts donated by moderate socialist European countries on behalf of their citizens.]

Therefore, if we accept the proposition that God calls His people to care for the poor themselves out of their own wealth, not hand it off to a government to do it for them, we return to the question of which system does the best job of promoting a proper sense of social responsibility to the poor. Based on the data we have presented contrasting philanthropy in the United States and philanthropy in Europe, we must conclude that capitalism does the best job of promoting social responsibility to the poor.

Conclusion

We began our discussion this evening by asking, “Should Christians be capitalists?” We set out to answer this question by exploring four biblical values that are useful for judging an economic system. We then explored each of those values in depth and saw that on each one, capitalism does the best job of promoting those biblical values.

Winston Churchill, in commenting about democracy, once quipped, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Perhaps we could say something similar about capitalism: “Capitalism is the worst system of economics, except all those other systems that have been tried from time to time.” As we said at the outset, capitalism is not perfect, but neither is any other economic system. Those who would assail capitalism by charging it with various sins must do two things:

1. They must show that such a sin is not a sin of fallen human nature that would exist under any economic system, but is uniquely an actual sin of capitalism itself.

2. They must demonstrate that some other economic system has a proven record in practice, not just in theory, of doing a superior job than capitalism on issues of biblical importance.

If, as we have demonstrated tonight, capitalism does the best job of promoting the biblical values we discussed, we are left to answer the question, “Should Christians be capitalists?” I believe the unmistakable answer is “Yes.”

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Thank you for joining Better Capitalism in this thoughtful series by Prof. Massey. We now have a call for action for you, depending on your current role and responsibilities in life:

• If you're a student, use the reasons Prof. Massey provides as your reasons to help fight for and fix capitalism.

• If you're a teacher, incorporate this lecture into your course material however best serves you and your students.

• If you're a business leader, start apply these principles to your business(es) so you can better be the witness you want to be.

• If you're a faith leader, courageously start teaching and preaching about how to create heaven on earth by healing our economic system.

• If you're a content creator, use these posts to help change the national conversation about capitalism and, in this way, help change and heal capitalism itself for the common good.

• If you're a politician, encourage and help business leaders run their companies for the benefit of more of your constituents.

  
  

If you would like tangible examples of how to carry out your call to action, we invite you to schedule a call directly with Paul and Aaron using our calendar link.

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