Sorry, Mr. President: Socialism’s not in the Bible
John Aman – Guest Columnist – 5/22/2010 5:00:00
John Aman (Coral Ridge Ministries)Having placed 50 percent of America’s economy under government control, the Obama administration is now angling for a tighter grip on the financial sector.
The operative word is “fairness,” which is shorthand for Obama’s famous campaign promise to “spread the wealth around.”
When critics said that this remark to “Joe the Plumber” displayed Obama’s socialist leanings, Obama justified it by citing Scripture:
“My Bible tells me there is nothing wrong with helping other people,” said then-Sen. Obama. “That we want to treat others like we want to be treated. That I am my brother’s keeper, and I am my sister’s keeper. I believe that.”
But Obama, who once dismissed the Bible’s relevance to politics, saying, “People haven’t been reading their Bibles lately,” may need to go reread his Engels. Co-author with Karl Marx of The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels knew better than Obama about collectivism’s clash with Christianity, stating, “…if some few passages of the Bible may be favourable to Communism, the general spirit of its doctrines is, nevertheless, totally opposed to it ….”
Despite Engels and Marx (who dismissed religion as the “opium of the people”), Obama and many others still manage to see socialism in the Bible. They point to the early church which, at first glance, seems like a model socialist community. The New Testament reports that these first believers “had all things in common” (Acts 4:32) and “all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need” (Acts 4:34-35).
But unlike socialism, the sharing was voluntary, not coerced, and the money was given not to the state, but the church. As Southern Baptist leader Richard Land puts it on the new Coral Ridge Ministries documentary, Socialism: A Clear and Present Danger, “It’s one thing for you to give out of compassion to someone who’s less fortunate. It’s an entirely different thing for the government to confiscate your property and give it to someone else.” (Part 2 of the documentary airs Sunday, May 23, nationwide on The Coral Ridge Hour.)
While the Bible asserts property rights and the rights of inheritance, socialism assaults them. Marx and Engels put the “abolition of property” first in a ten-step program for implementing communism. That’s not exactly a Christian thing to do. The eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15) applies every bit as much to the men and women who hold the reins of political power as it does to everyone else.
So does the 10th commandment, “You shall not covet” (Exodus 20:17). Coveting, or envy, is a powerful driver of socialism, which is in a perpetual snit that some people have more than others. So when President Obama castigates “Fats Cats” on Wall Street, decries “economic inequality,” and warns, as he did in his 2009 budget statement that a “disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth has been accumulated by the very wealthy,” he stokes a destructive impulse that is condemned by Scripture.
Socialism also runs afoul of the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). Socialist governments seek to play God — to take His place as the ultimate sovereign. Consider the veneration that Russians once gave to the embalmed remains of Lenin and Stalin, the Nazi-prescribed prayer to Hitler (“Thy Reich [kingdom] comes, thy will alone is law upon the earth”), and the personality cult surrounding North Korea’s “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il.
The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder,” is also widely ignored by Marxist regimes. Marx and Engels proclaimed that their aims could be “attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” Their disciples, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other communist henchmen, killed 100-million people, a “tragedy of planetary dimensions,” as the French publisher of The Black Book of Communism put it.
Barack Obama may say that the Bible tells him to be his brother’s keeper (his youngest half-brother reportedly lived in a shack in Kenya on $1 a day at the time he said this), but he ought to go back and reread what God’s Word actually says. Engels was right. Socialism has nothing in common with Scripture.
John Aman is director of communications at Coral Ridge Ministries and a co-author of the new book “Ten Truths About Socialism.” This column is printed with permission.
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Part One – By Bill Salus Suicide Bombers, Car Bombers, Shoe Bombers, Underwear Bombers, and the latest, Brazier Bombers, what will the terrorist think of next? Terrorism has high-jacked humanity causing long airport lines with stricter security worldwide. What is it and did the Bible predict it? In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 George W. Bush declared war on Terrorism. Thus, Terrorism has officially become recognized as a bona-fide method of warfare. Israel had been waging war on Terror for decades, but the fighting was primarily confined to the Middle East. This isolation enabled the world to maintain a deaf-ear foreign policy regarding terrorism. However, since September 11, 2001 terrorists have toppled twin towers in America, derailed trains in Spain, and bombed subways in London. Terrorism has expanded from the Middle East into the backyards of most every nation. Terrorism, as we identify it today, predominately originated in the Middle East. It began within the ranks of the Palestinians (1) in an effort to antagonize the further development of the nation Israel. It quickly gained the support of the surrounding Arab nations that most closely border the nation Israel. These countries had waged four unsuccessful conventional military attempts against Israel, in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, in order to destroy the nation. As a result of these four failed attempts, these Arab nations adopted and generally embraced the unconventional means of Terrorism as a method of conducting war. A close examination of Jeremiah 49:16 and Obadiah 1:3-4, suggests the Bible predicted today’s Terrorism. According to these prophets, terrorism is the inspiration of the Edomites, who have ancestral ties to the Palestinians of modern day. (2) Furthermore the Palestinians are depicted in these passages as being deceived into thinking that the god of their religion endorses their terrorist behavior. As this prophecy unfolds in our day we have just cause to consider that the prophets Jeremiah and Obadiah were alluding to a link between the Palestinians, Arabs, Allah, Islam, and Terrorism. By cross – correlating, paraphrasing, and indentifying the idioms used by the prophets in the passages listed below we might conclude that they were attempting to warn us about today’s terrorism. Certain key terms and phrases are highlighted in order to explore the possibility of their modern application: The terror “tiphletseth” you [Edomites] inspire and the pride of your heart have deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill. Although you make your nest as high as the eagle’s, from there I will bring you down, says the LORD. (Jeremiah 49:16) (3) The pride of your heart has deceived you, You who dwell in the clefts of the rock, Whose habitation is high; You who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’Though you ascend as high as the eagle, And though you set your nest among the stars From there I will bring you down,” says the LORD. (Obadiah 1:3-4) Jeremiah and Obadiah speak of inspired terror coming from the ethnic group formerly known as the Edomites. What’s left of the Edomites today are a small group of Bedouins residing in Southern Jordan, and a larger remnant somewhat obscured within the modern day Palestinian contingency. The Hebrew word Jeremiah uses is “tiphletseth”, and it is translated in the Hebrew vernacular of his time, as a shuddering, horrific act of terror . (4) This gripping term is uniquely utilized within the entire Bible only in this single instance, yet it is possibly the most descriptive word available in the ancient Hebrew language to identify the relatively recently fashioned terrorism plaguing the nation Israel today. By cross – correlating and paraphrasing these two prophetic passages we discover the interesting possibility of a link between the Palestinians, Terror, Islam, and Allah. The terror you (Palestinians) inspire and the pride (arrogance) of your heart have deceived (mislead) you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, (spiritual covering) (5) Though you ascend as high as the eagle, (religious thinking) (6) And though you set your nest among the stars (angelic typology), (7) From there I will bring you down,” says the LORD (divine judgment) This suggests terrorism is the inspiration of a deceived group. Their deception is caused by their misguided theology. They are under the allusion that they are nestled among the stars, which in Bible typology is a reference to the angelic host. Their deception is rooted in their perception that from their vantage point they believe themselves to be divinely justified to inspire terror, and therefore protected from its consequence. The problem for this specific type of terrorism however, is that it is primarily targeted at the Jewish people through whom the Abrahamic Covenant is in force. This covenant formatted approximately 4000 years ago (8) between the God Jehovah, and Abraham the patriarchal father of the Jewish people, is still operable and in good standing. It specifically calls for a curse-for-curse-in kind reaction to all terrible-treatment-targeted at Abraham and / or his descendants. (9) This is where the “pride” of their “heart” has “deceived” them, them being the “Edo-Palestinians” . (10) It has misled them into thinking that their Islamic faith has the ability to override this critical “curse” component contained in the Abrahamic covenant. Analyzing these pertinent scriptures causes us to consider their potential for more than a literal interpretation. Phrases like, “you ascend as high as the eagle”, “you set your nest among the stars” and “you live in the clefts of the rock”, make it difficult to limit our thinking to airplanes, bird’s nests, and cave dwellers. Fortunately all of these phraseologies have Biblical typologies from which we can perhaps draw better conclusions as to what the prophets Jeremiah and Obadiah were describing.
