A bit of Biblical clarity on "justice" vs. tyranny, confiscation and redistribution

Among the frustrating aspects of the Mohler/Wallis debate, as I noted, was the unexamined (and thus unrefuted) premise that Biblical "justice" means greater government confiscation and redistribution of the goods of the productive. Now comes Bill Flax with a word of clarity on the subject, titled Don't Like Handouts? Neither Does the Bible.

Everything Flax says is true, and it's a needed perspective for Christians who, in their thinking, must dodge at least two main errors. Josiah (my 16yo) and I were discussing this in our two-man Men's Fellowship just last Saturday, as we considered Proverbs 21:13 —

Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor
will himself call out and not be answered.

It is not godly not to care about the poor. But it also not godly to come up with a system to bankroll poverty as a lifestyle on the backs of the productive.

It is along this razor's edge that Flax's essay runs. He rightly points out the vastly differing contexts of the Bible's calls for justice versus the status in America, and warns against anachronistically reading Marxism back into roundly un-Marxist texts.

For instance:

America's poor are materially better off than even the richest biblical figures. The gravest dietary danger afflicting our lower classes is obesity. Even welfare recipients enjoy access to technological advances, nutritional, health and entertainment options unimaginable in antiquity.

By current notions, Solomon was deprived, ruling without modern medicine, electricity, air-conditioning, television, automobiles, cell phones, etc. David never took him to Disneyland. In absolute terms, our poor are wealthier than kings of yore. Basing state policy on relative measures devolves into covetousness.

And so in the Bible, people are urged to individual charity towards those in their immediate vicinity (Deut. 15:7-8; Prov. 28:27). But equally they are forbidden to subsidize sloth (2 Thess. 3:10).

ASIDE #1: one of the greatest titles in Christian publishing, ever, was in a response-volume. Ron Sider exuded a screed for the granola-n-whine set titled Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. In response, the late David Chilton produced Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators. Indeed.

And that is where we find ourselves. The blatherings of Wallis-types makes victims of people who are victimizers, and urge the enablement and subsidization of the profligate at the expense of the responsible and the productive. But no less moral is the stance of indifference and lack of care.

The right priority (as Mohler said, as do we all) is evangelism. What poor and rich alike need more than anything is the Gospel, they need to be reconciled to Christ. This is imperative, this is the sine qua non.

But that doesn't mean we preach to a starving man as we inhale our Big Mac and fries. It may mean, rather, that we give him our Big Mac, and preach to him. The greatest need is not to figure out how to rob more working parents to subsidize self-victimized victimizers; it is to point them to Christ, and then to help them get a grip on their lives and start producing, because that's what Christians who are able actually do (Eph. 4:28).

ASIDE #2: I'll admit that I am invariably affronted when strangers walk up to me in parking lots or at gas-stations asking me to hand over part of my salary. One thought I have is the response: "From which of my children shall I take money to help you remain idle? Will you write them a 'thank-you' note?" I don't say this. But I think it.

The boys and I were at a Messiah sing-along at a liberal Presbyterian church ("pastored" by Christie or Julie or Betty or some such), a performance marred by some stinky ecumenism ("Excuse me, that's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints") at the start. I had been intending to give to their charity as they asked; but it was "interfaith," and the ecumenism put me off.

But rather than congratulating myself on how orthodox I was (in keeping my money for some more fried chicken from Popeye's), I found a local Gospel rescue mission and made a donation, paying for it by a small self-denial.

I hope my only point is transparent: this is one way to try to keep the first things first.

Why does this man look so smug?

Look at this smirk:

He looks like he's just accomplished something wonderful, doesn't he?  Something that's left him giddy and proud. He might have just given the winning answer in a spelling bee. He might have just won a scholarship to a prestigious university. His girl might have just accepted his proposal of marriage. He might have just shaved his head on a lost bet with his buddies.

But no, none of those is the case. This is the smirking, smug grin of Jared Loughner, whose achievement in life is that he just murdered six innocent people, and wounded thirteen others.

Why so smug? Why the smirk?

Of course, it could be that we're looking into the eyes of insanity — whatever that is. We are surely looking into the eyes of an evil man, one who boasted "No! I won't trust in God!", and who lived out that creed by assaulting the image of God in a score of his betters. He couldn't get his hands on God, so he did next-best. If we call that "insanity," we mustn't do so in a way that removes the moral responsibility for this rebellious subject of the holy King.

So why the smirk?

In a just country, assuming that there were at least two witnesses to his murder of even one (let alone six) of the victims, Jared Loughner's remaining days would be very few. Guilt would be established, he would be offered a last opportunity to hear the Gospel, and he would be put to death — in a just country (Genesis 9:6; Acts 25:11; Romans 13:4; 1 Peter 2:14, etc.).

However, sadly, Jared Loughner does not live in a just country. Jared Loughner lives in a country that has left its roots in justice and truth far behind. Already Jared Loughner — who as far as we know accomplished not one praiseworthy, noble act in his entire life — has seized the nation's attention. He has temporarily thwarted the will of voters who elected Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (whose physical and spiritual health should be in all our prayers). In fact, Loughner temporarily thwarted the will of the entire nation, as Congress decided not to pursue the undoing of legislative tyranny for a week, in unwitting honor of this disgraceful man. Further, our liberal overlords are doing what they always do, exploiting sin as a reason to rob the law-abiding of yet more rights.

But that is not all.

The odds favor that Loughner can expect his victims to pay for his room, board, and healthcare for the rest of his long life. He can expect to remain a subject of interest and attention by our depraved media. He can expect proposals of marriage, books, perhaps even a movie.

Not justice.

And what's worse, this reality not only sullies the innocent dead and the innocent wounded, not only wounds their families — it harms the society Jared Loughner has already harmed (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

Well might he smirk.

And all the more should we pray, speak, and act. We should pray for Loughner's conversion, and we should pray for justice.

Only in the Cross, and as explained in God's Word, can both meet.

When justice is forgotten (capital punishment)

A brutal creep with a history of abusing women stabs a young lady and slashes her face. Amy Leigh Barnes calls emergency, and dies while on the phone, with her last breaths gasping out the identity of her murderer.

The judge scolds the young man who murdered her. Calling him "evil," he says

“You are a bully who will hit and injure anyone who gets in his way. Particularly women. And particularly women with whom you are in a relationship. You are dangerous beyond words.”

Wow. Harsh. Judge sounds all riled, eh?

Sentence?

Well, for the young lady, death. She's dead now. She'll be dead next year. And in five years, ten, fifteen, twenty years....

And she'll still be dead when her murderer gets out of prison — assuming he serves the whole 24 years of his sentence.

The value of her life, then? Twenty-four years of taxpayers supporting, housing, guarding, and picking up the medical bills for her murderer.

Then there's actor Kelsey Grammer, whose deep, mellifluous voice I wish I had. Ah, but did you know that his younger sister was brutally murdered in 1975? Yes, when 18, Karen Elisa Grammer was raped, and then stabbed to death. A man was sentenced to... free support for life on the taxpayers' dime.

But wait, there's more.

Grammer's sister is still dead, and it clearly still tears him up. But the murderer is still alive. He was initially sentenced to death — which makes sense, as he was found guilty of murdering three people. But that sentence was commuted to (A) life, all expenses paid; and (B) the possibility of parole.

So now a parole board was considering freeing this three-time murderer. And Grammer had to persuade them not to do so.

They decided not to.

But the murderer gets another go in 2014.

My point is very simple. In some cases, justice is complicated. In murder, it is not. The value of a human life is beyond measure. I take $50, justice is that I pay back $50 plus interest. I take a human life by murder, my own life is forfeit, period. The suggestion that I can "pay back" by any other means necessarily cheapens the life of the victim.

The Bible's attitude is clear and univocal and just.

Ours is not.

So we have the pathetic spectacle of victims' survivors having to plead and reason to keep a murderer in jail. They should not be subjected to such lifelong suffering. The memory of their loved one should not be so cheapened.

The murderer should not be alive.

But we've opted instead for relativism, psychology. Madness. Inconvenient children get the death penalty on a whim. Murderers get room and board for decades, then freedom.

"...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD,
so what wisdom is in them?" (Jeremiah 8:9b)