Leviticus 19:10

Leviticus 19:10 "Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God."

This scripture is really at odds with many of the concepts of business that we have. The common idea of making sure you know where every penny goes, and getting as much profit as possible in order to be a success is at odds with this idea. This speaks to the heart of the problem that modern capitalism seems to have with an obsession with the bottom line.

How do we compare this agrarian method of welfare to today? What would this be comparable to? My own opinion is that it would be comparable to continuing to give raises and bonuses even when it hurts overall profit. Without a doubt, the turning of priorities from purely the survival of the corporation through the efforts of the workers to the survival of the workers through the resources of the corporation.

Some of you will say that is not good business. I say you are wrong. I have worked in places directed by men who genuinely cared for their employees and gave raises and bonuses even when profits were not good. Those places thrived with a morale you could not find in most factories and warehouses. Taking care of your most important assets is good business.

The other thing we see in this verse is the phrase "poor and alien". There are many other verses about how to treat the alien that is living in your country. Here we see that God wants the alien to be given help if he should need it. We don't see them being kicked out of the country, or marginalized like leeches.

AC

Exodus 30:15

Exodus 30:15 "The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the LORD to atone for your lives."

The shekel was the most common coin in Israel. The gold shekel was worth about $9.60 and the silver about 64 cents. So this offering was less than ten dollars and probabally around five dollars.

This says several things about the rich and poor. Number one, they were equal in the sight of God. Number two, the rich person could not get more redemption for more money. Finally, the poor person was required to locate this amount of money. It was not a huge amount, but it was the equivalent of a meal or two. God did require the poor to do something, and did not just let them off or lower the bar. While this may seem callous to some, I think that this requirement contributes to a feeling of dignity among the poor, of being taken seriously, on equal standing with the richest in the community. The requirement stands, no more or no less.

What is so difficult about studying this subject is how different the Eastern viewpoint of the poor is to the Western, mainly protestant based viewpoint all of us are under. Many people in the rest of the world see poverty as a fact of life, as one of many stations that people live under, and not as a sign of failure.

AC

Reaching to the Choir

Please read this excellent article by Ayelish McGarvey called:

"Reaching to the Choir"

This is a more full view of Evangelicals that are questioning the dominance of only the Conservative view in Christian politics.If you enjoyed the article about Jimmy Carter, you will really enjoy this one!

AC

Nothing Modest About Small Charity's Impact

Many conservatives argue that increased government spending on social programs would be better spent if given to independent charity groups. I'm not sure one way or the other. While the government can have a reputation for sluggish bureaucracy, how will these charities be monitored to determine that they are helping everyone equally? I'm still working on an answer to this one.

Here's an interesting story about a charity with a unique niche, they give small amounts of money, nothing over $1000 out to 300 people a month for various emergencies, here's a quote from the article that explores how this relates to the Conservative Right's idea that the poor are better served through charities than government agencies:

Proponents of laissez-faire capitalism often point to organizations like Taylor's when arguing against the need for social safety nets such as welfare and Social Security. It's in our own self-interest to look after one another, the thinking goes, and in the absence of a state-funded social welfare system, we're more likely to come to one another's aid before letting someone slip through the cracks.

The idea that you are better served by your family, friends and church making sure you don't fall through the cracks does seem to be supported in the scriptures. The problem is that America and Canada have become such nations of individuals that no one is connected to the rest of the world in the same way they used to be. Taking this one step farther, our social networks have devolved into many acquaintances, few real friends and family that rarely meets or pools resources.

Like many social problems in our world, if the church at large were doing what it was supposed to be doing, the government would not be forced to take up the slack.

Read the rest of the article here:
"Nothing Modest About Small Charity's Impact"

Thanks,

AC

Darwin's Influence on Ruthless Laissez-Faire Capitalism

Here's a link to an interesting article regarding Social Darwinism and Laissez-Faire Capitalism.

Darwin's Influence on Ruthless Laissez-Faire Capitalism

AC

Exodus 23:6,10-11

Now we will start examining each of the first list of scriptures and see how they reflect on God's attitude towards treatment of the poor. I think its important to note that while this is the Old Testament, Jesus and Paul both said in the New Testament that the new law of love did not erase these statutes, it just made covered all of the laws with one. If you love your neighbor, you will obey the heart of the laws of the Old Testament. Because some of use have lost sight of these old laws, that is why I am examining each reference.


Exodus 23:6,10,11 "Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits."
vs 10. "For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops,
vs 11. but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove."

Verse 6:This would point to the establishment of a judicial system without built in preference to the rich. At least in the United States of America we need some work on this. Its commonly reported that court appointed lawyers have way too many cases to give their poorer clients proper representation. Those with the money for lawyers do have the advantage.

Verse 10-11: This points to making resources available to the poor. Since Israel was mainly an agrarian society, everyone was commanded to leave food for the poor to gather. But there was a responsibility to those that needed assistance; they had to go and gather the food out of the fields, and convert it into flour, or wash it, and then prepare it.

Here's a question that we may try to answer in the future: Would there have been homeless people in Israel during the period after they settled in Palestine after fleeing Egypt, at least in the same way that they exist here in the United States or Canada?

AC

Scriptures to Consider Part I

Well, to start the study of Christian views towards poverty, lets look at some scriptures from the Laws to the Children of Israel presented in the Pentateuch and go from there. These are all in the New International Version.

Exodus 23:6,10,11 "Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits."
vs 10. "For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops,
vs 11. but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove."

Exodus 30:15 "The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the LORD to atone for your lives."

Leviticus 19:10 "Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God."

Leviticus 19:15 "Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly."

Leviticus 23:22 "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God."

Leviticus 25:35 "If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you."

Leviticus 25:39 "If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave."

Deuteronomy 15:4 "However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you..."

Deuteronomy 15:7 "If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother."

Deuteronomy 15:11 "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land."

Deuteronomy 24:11-15 "When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into his house to get what he is offering as a pledge. Stay outside and let the man to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you. If the man is poor, do not go to sleep with his pledge in your possession. Return his cloak to him by sunset so that he may sleep in it. Then he will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the LORD your God. Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. Otherwise he may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin."

Deuteronomy 24:17-22 "Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this. When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this."


This post will be a work in progress for a couple of days while I continue to look over them.

Thanks for reading.

Jimmy Carter interview

Check out this interview by Jimmy Carter:
Carter's Crusade

I don't agree with all of it, but I respect him and he is an intelligent,sincere man. But it was good to see him finally speak pragmatically about the two "elephants in the living room" that keep most Evangelicals from voting Democratic: Abortion and Homosexuality. I'm still ruminating on my final thoughts on what he said. Any comments?

AC

A Fully Christian Society....

Here's a quote from the C.S. Lewis book, "Mere Christianity" about what a fully Christian society would be like.

"The New Testament, without going into details gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian society would be like. Perhaps it gives us more than we can take. It tells that there are to be no passengers or parasites: if a man does no work, he ought not to eat. Everyone is to work with his own hands, and what is more, everyone's work is to produce something good: there will be no manufacture of silly luxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buy them. And there is to be no 'swank' or 'side', no putting on airs. To that extent a Christian society would be what we now call leftist. On the other hand, it is always insisting on obedience-obedience(and outward marks of respect) from all of us to properly appointed magistrates, from children to parents and(I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular) from wives to husbands. Thirdly, it is to be a cheerful society: full of singing and rejoicing, and regarding worry or anxiety as wrong. Courtesy is the one of the Christian virtues; and the New Testament hates what it calls 'busybodies'.

If there were such a society in existence and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression. We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, 'advanced', but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old-fashioned-perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic. Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing. That is just what one would expect if Christianity is the total plan for the human machine. We have all departed from the total plan in different ways, and each of us wants to make out that his own modification of the original plan is the plan itself. You will find this again and again about anything that is really Christian: everyone is attracted by bits if it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest. That is why we do not get much further: and that is why people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity"

Introduction

The subject for this blog has been cooking on the inside of me for some time now. Every time I read "A Christmas Carol", and when I have read books like "Nickel and Dimed" and other books about the poor, I find myself trying to reconcile the viewpoint of the Republican Party and that of historical Christianity. I haven't been able to put it reconcile the two, but I'm going to try to figure it out, and thats what this blog is for.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I was raised a conservative Christian, and even went to seminary for a couple of years. My folks were both rich and poor. Their prosperous business failed during the Reagan years, and then they ended up declaring bankruptcy. I had Christmases where I got everything I wanted, and at least one where I got nothing. They were good people and did the best they could. They never blamed the government, or Reagan's policies. Politics was not spoken about, but I was taught what was right and wrong.

In my own life, I've worked in almost every kind of "Joe Job" imaginable. Fast food, factories, delivery truck driver, and now work in a call center (click here for that blog). As long as I have voted, I have voted Republican, because of their stance on certain social and military issues. But I am starting to have my doubts lately, if they are the party that really has a plan to help the working poor. Tax cuts can't be the answer for all of our society's problems.

I think the fact that I have been indoctrinated in the Christian Right, and am trying to find the truth beyond the party line seems like a good foundation.

Thanks for reading.

AC