Can a Christian Be a Free Market Capitalist?

[Finn_Jarber]

Originally Posted by chuckmann

Sincere question.

I myself see numerous conflicts between the message of Jesus and the doctrines of free market capitalism. The accumulation of massive wealth? Greed is good? My house is a house of prayer? It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle?

How do you as a Christian reconcile your Christian beliefs with your free market capitalist beliefs?

Free market system is not synonymous with accumulation of wealth and greed, it is simply an economic model. The free market system has proven to be a successful model and has created a wealthy nation out of the US. As a result the citizens can afford generousity, which in turn has resulted in US churches do some amazing things. For example since WW-II US has sent out 75% of the world's missionaries. Also, US spends billions supporting poorer nations and to defend our ally, Israel.

[DRob4JC]

From the OP...

Originally Posted by chuckmann

Sincere question.

I myself see numerous conflicts between the message of Jesus and the doctrines of free market capitalism. The accumulation of massive wealth? Greed is good? My house is a house of prayer? It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle?

How do you as a Christian reconcile your Christian beliefs with your free market capitalist beliefs?

Greed and capitalism are two separate things. A person can be a greedy capitalist or a greedy socialist (usually the leaders).

One can be a capitalist without being greedy.

Look at it this way.

Capitalism is a method of how a person gets ahold of money.
Greed is a state of being when money gets ahold of the person.

[Mikelee81]

Originally Posted by Heartsong

Please provide us with just one verse from the New Testament wherein Jesus Christ endorses seeking after material wealth and promotes private ownership.

Luke 18:20
Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.

One cannot steal what was rightfully belongs to someone else. The problem is not the possession in itself but coveting the possession. The problem is sin not the medium of exchange.

I predict you will probably use the parable of the talents, which actually has nothing to do with worldly wealth.

Correct but it does show the mind of God. He is a capitalist in the sense that he wants a return on his investment. Salvation from Perdition/Justification before a Holy God is a free gift and demonstration of God's Grace (unmerited favor) and love toward us (Romans 3,4,5)(Ephesians 2:8-10) to those that come to him by Christ.

Rewards; however, is what the parable of talents is talking about. If a Christian has an ability to teach, God wants him/her to use that talent to edify the body. If a Christian has an ability to evangelize, God him/her to use that talent to win the lost.

And if a Christian has the financial resources to help struggling Spirit-led ministries, missionaries, etc - God wants him/her to use their position that he gave them anyways to reach out and help his cause.

John 19:10-11

10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?

11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

Nothing we have is by our merit, but has been given from above.

Remember Jesus Christ is YHWH God incarnate. This is the same God talking to Abraham and Job - both were wealthy in the financial sense (well Job was prior to his testing). While they both were relatively wealthy, they were both men of God. They put him first... They had servants and I'm sure they took good care of them.

The Scriptures actually tell us to learn a trade. Learning a trade means we are to trade that trade.

The Lord is anti-socialism. Satan is pro-socialism as it gives him what he wants - control and power over the masses. And we know the fruits of socialism historically has led to genocide.

We are to be in not of the world. Being in the world includes paying the bills. Giving all our money over to the Government socialists will result as it always has in oppression of the people restricting mobility of the gospel message.

This is contrary to God's will.

[Mikelee81]

Originally Posted by chuckmann

Thanks for your response. I suspected it would be pretty much as you stated, and I agree one hundred percent.

Cant give you more reputation at the moment, but you deserve it for this one.

Thanks for the kind words.

Seeing the world through lens of the Word has made everything crystal clear. The bad news of the Scripture is that our sin has separated us from our Maker, and that no matter what we do or how good we are we can never reconcile our self to him by our efforts. The good news is that He entered his Creation in Messiah to pay our way for us if we accept it, recognize our offense, and turn to him through Christ believing on him in His works - death, burial, resurrection.

Isaiah 53:5
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Salvation from Perdition is gift freely given (Romans 3:24) by God's grace because we can never earn it. The Scriptures speak in accounting terms.

Romans 4:4
Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

If we are working/attempting to earn grace that it is reckoned as debt. The Scriptures are clear the "wages of sin" is death and that we are in debt to our Maker with a debt we can not pay not the other way around. So the debt is freely paid.

Jesus' last words on the cross were "it is finished" translated in the Greek "tetelestai" meaning "paid in full". He paid the wages of sin for all those that come to God by him.

Romans 4:5
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Counted - Strong's G3049 - logizomai

1) to reckon, count, compute, calculate, count over
a) to take into account, to make an account of
1) metaph. to pass to one's account, to impute


Blue Letter Bible - Lexicon


"Counted" is an accounting term.


Romans 4:8
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.


The word for "impute" is logizomai. God either sees us as our debt as paid or owed (with a balance we can't pay). God sees white or black with the sin issue. Forgiven or not forgiven.



Colossians 2:13-14

13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;


"handwriting of ordinance" is the certificate of debt.



The Lord not only put it all in writing, he uses accounting terms to describe our debt to him.



So in a sense God is a debt collector - one that will freely cancel the debt upon recognition in repentance.


No need for a debt collector in a Socialistic society; however, as everyone is in the collective. There is no personal accountability for each individual's personal debt that they must pay. Someone can eat their way permanently into a wheel chair and someone else gets to pay their bill.


Their is personal accountability and debt; however, is what the Scriptures say, and it's a debt that must be paid. Either it will be paid on that cross or we'll have to pay it ourselves which the latter is not good news at all.

[ted08721]

Originally Posted by Heartsong

Yep, most of them probably do label themselves as Christian:

I almost hope Romney wins the election just to show those who despise Obama that things can and will get worse. The GOP has spent every moment since President Obama was elected deliberately trying to crash the economy so that they can have the Executive power back. And apparently the middle class GOP voters think that is just fine and are going to allow this crazed party to cut all the social safety nets out from under the elderly and disabled by destroying Social Security and Mrdicare. There are no jobs coming back when Romney takes office. And you can kiss unemployment benefits goodbye. For decades the right has been hell-bent on destroying public education. And have despised poor immigrants who only came here because the free trade laws have forced them to leave Mexico to look for work. They (the GOP) are not ashamed to be against health care for all. Sadly, I have friends and blood relatives who have had a hand in this insanity. I think they do not even know what they are doing because the right wing hate talking heads have so filled them with rage that they can't even think.

Is it any wonder that we have millions of people walking the streets homeless and out of their minds. They have been despised and left behind and this pattern started with Ronald Reagan. I know because I was 18 when he was first elected and one of the first things he did was cut off my tuition benefits that I was to receive for having grown up with no father since my dad died suddenly of a heart attack when I was six years old. College tuition has increased 600 percent since 1981 ! And 60,000 factories have left America in the past two decades. We're not going to be able to vote our way out of this mess.

I have to agree with this post and your first post in this thread, I do hope Mit beats out Obama because if Obama wins nothing really going to change oh there might be some window dressing done throw a bone to this group or that group just to keep the illusion going.
If Mit wins we will reach the tipping point quicker where we will have hundred of thousands in the streets protesting instead hundreds or a few thousands, to many people are still reluctant to open their windows and yell that they are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore.
Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to start change.
I refuse to vote for the lesser of the evils of the 2 party system because it would still be voting for evil.
My vote will go to Jill Stein of the Green Party.