By Dwight Swanson

We published responses to ‘The Rise of American Socialism’ last week. Not all readers were supportive of Gazelle viewpoints, however. Blogger ‘Lovely Cup of Tea’ was unable to post to the Gazelle for technical reasons. Here is what he had to say:

I'm not very left-leaning in my politics (or economics) so whilst I admit I feel a slight sense of schadenfreude over the fate of some of the banks this week, I quite strongly disagree with those in the media making the assertion that socialism and nationalisation are the new way forward for the world. There's nothing new under the sun of course, but I also find myself out of step with a lot of fellow Christians who lean to the left as a result of their theological commitments.

Christianity shares a lot of common language with socialism (think: justice, equality, redistribution, no more exploitation etc) but even despite my misgivings over what it is exactly that these terms mean, I think it is accurate to say that socialist societies have an exceedingly poor track record in providing for their people for a great many number of reasons. I also think it is truthful and accurate to say that capitalism has far outstripped any other economic system in terms of its ability to improve the living standards of large numbers of people, both in terms of actual wealth and high-technology, and this is why I favour it even as the least worst of all economic systems.

Anyhow that's for another day. Here's my comment from The Gazelle:

I think that while some of the more foolish elements of the free-marketeering crowd got their comeuppance this week, I'm not so sure that socialism has any real answers to the problems caused by more rampant forms capitalism. In the short-term, state intervention and bail-out of financial institutions helps, but in the longer term the restrictions that socialism places on the creation of wealth with the intention of reducing inequality and making society fairer means that far less wealth is created in socialist economies but conversely the state needs to spend far more money. The end result is that socialist societies are invariably far less developed and more backward than capitalist ones, as was clear from the economic course of the twentieth century. Liberal democracies and markets trumped socialism and planned economies in every possible sense. It's terribly un-PC to admit it, but there is a plausible argument to suggest that capitalism has brought higher living standards to a higher number of people than any other economic system has even come close to.

I find difficult as a Christian who has less sympathy for socialism than most because the biblical imperatives to help the poor are far harder to implement in the real economic world than working on the assumption that capitalism is the bad guy and that socialism (in some form or another) is the answer. There is a real danger whereby in protesting against the principalities and powers of the market we find ourselves crying out to Caesar to end our woes.

The answer to Naomi Klein's question is also not so cut-and-dried. Morally it would be an amazing gesture to bail out consumer debts and to wipe out people's mortgages, but it would be economically suicidal. The US govt has bailed out banks with tax money on the assumption that these banks will once again be able to lend money to create wealth so that tax revenues will continue to be generated and the state will continue to be funded, but if instead the US govt decided to give the money to those in debt so they could pay off their homes, not only would the money immediately all go back to the banks anyway (since these are the ones to whom the mortgage is owed), but if the banks had not been bailed out and had collapsed, any individual or employer who had borrowed money from a bank to fund their business would immediately find themselves bankrupted and out of a job. Not only that, but if the banks collapsed and could no longer lend money to sustain the economy and create new wealth, tax revenues would also collapse and decimate the social services that the poorest rely on. Starkly speaking, it makes more economic sense to bail out banks (who make it possible to create further wealth) than to bail out those who owe money to the banks.

It's a very difficult issue theologically since we know what we ought to do in some general sense (e.g. help the poor and establish justice) but beyond practicing church-based altruism there are very few plausible economic ideas in the theological academy and difficult questions need to be asked although I'm certain that socialism is not going to be the answer.

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By Dwight Swanson

Here are some almost random observations on this week’s news:

• ‘Globalisation’ has been a buzz-word for well over a decade now. Free Marketeers invoke it as a good thing; local non-Western economies have trembled at its name; arguably, this—rather than religion—is the cause of 9/11. Multi-national corporations, in America, Europe and Australasia, have been able to function beyond any national government by moving their money and jobs wherever they think fit and where they will pay the least taxes.

Is it not interesting (a loaded term) that it is these same helpless governments and the working people who actually have paid their taxes who now have no option but to save their skin?

When the dust finally settles from this grave crisis, the same governments must continue to work together to reign in these businesses who see themselves as beyond accountability to real people.

• At least it has brought finance people back to prayer.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk]

• All the British media gave significant attention yesterday to a University College London Professor of Genetics Steve Jones announcement that human evolution is complete [sticking with the Daily Telegraph]. In Jones’ words, ‘If you are worried about what Utopia is going to be like, cheer up – you are living in it now’.

Isn’t this wonderful news? This is as good as it gets! Hitchens and Dawkins should be encouraged to know that humanity has reached the apogee of its violent capabilities and peak of its inventiveness for economic chaos.

Not only that, but Utopian bankers turn to prayer!

By Dwight Swanson

The US election is in its final phase, and The Rest of the World waits with baited breath on the result.

The Gazelle Editor offers these reflections, from a distance, on the matter of Christian virtues and presidential candidates.

The first sentence of Mark Noll’s book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1995) reads: ‘The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of evangelical mind’ (according to the Amazon version; I am certain my copy—not at hand at the moment—reads ‘…there is no evangelical mind.’). The British media have always liked to look for the most outlandish stories in America for their documentaries, and so it is no surprise that over here we have been treated to large helpings of examples of evangelical Christian evidence which supports Noll’s observation. In search of balance, the Editor has searched the American websites—and has found ample evidence from evangelical sources, themselves, to verify this statement.

Of course, Mark Noll writes as an evangelical, and from a sympathetic evangelical perspective. But, hearing the truth from one of the family is hard to take. This article, like Noll’s work, is written with American evangelicals in mind, hoping to make contact with thinking people.

This headline should really read ‘an appeal to fundamentalists’, who make up the largest proportion of those who identify themselves as evangelical. In truth, they seem to think only they are the evangelicals. The Editor writes as a protesting evangelical, who is frankly embarrassed to admit to the designation due to fundamentalist extremism in politics and ethics.

Observations on how evangelicals vote.

The voting preferences of evangelicals/fundamentalists indicates that there is little correlation between profession of faith and ethics, and that conservative nationalist politics take priority over revealed truth. This article will focus on the first observation; the second will be discussed in a later article.

Before addressing ethics, it is useful to note that fundamentalists don’t automatically vote for fellow evangelicals: Jimmy Carter was the first professing born-again evangelical Christian to run for president, and get elected. Throughout his term of office he not only attended church regularly, but continued to teach a Sunday School class. Yet, he was vilified by Fundamentalists throughout his presidency, and rejected in favour of the nominal Episcopalian Ronald Reagan. All fundamentalists know that Episcopalians are wishy-washy liberals.

President George W Bush has been open about his faith, and makes frequent references to prayer and to God. Only a cynic would question his sincerity in this regard. This, and his continuation of the Republican promise to do away with abortion (without ever doing much about it) have endeared him to evangelicals. However sincere his personal faith may be, he seems to leave the teaching of Christ behind in his actions as president. The Gazelle has already gone on record concerning Bush’s record on torture and illegal ‘extraordinary’ rendition of prisoners, let alone the offensive war on Iraq on the basis of imaginary evidence. The names Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo will be remembered by ‘our enemies’ (to use a favourite phrase of the Republican candidates) for a long time as the policies of a Christian leader.

In this election, the clearest statement of Christian faith has been articulated by Barack Obama. He is unashamed of his faith, and speaks of it frequently. On the other hand, John McCain has been reluctant over the years to talk about his faith. When he has, it has been in the most vague of terms, kept at a distance, and only as recent as his prison years [see links to interviews in Christianity Today]. His is American civil religion at its most basic. Yet, fundamentalists reject Obama’s profession of faith, instead readily believing the anonymous circular emails and blogs of questionable origin that say that he is Muslim. And they don’t even bother to question the source of these libellous rumours before forwarding them to all their friends.

On the other, other hand, fundamentalists who were troubled by McCain’s tentative links to conservatism breathed a collective sigh of relief at the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice-President. She immediately became America’s Queen Esther, ‘come to the nation for just such a time as this’ (Esther 4:14; the ‘time such as this’ was the planned slaughter of all the Jews in the Persian empire. The only parallel between Palin and Esther that I can discern is that both were beauty contestants at some time). What Christian can fail to vote for a born-again Christian? [Um. See reference to Jimmy Carter above…] Whereas nothing Obama says about his faith can be accepted, no criticism of Palin’s Christian faith can be viewed as other than an attack on all Christians by secular, and godless anti-Americans.

As a Christian and an evangelical with a mind, I find there are serious questions to ask about Sarah Palin’s faith. Here is where there appears to be a disconnection between professed faith and ethics. The most significant and damning instance of this is found in the response to the report on her alleged abuse of power as governor in pursuit of a vendetta against her sister’s ex-husband. The independent investigation (accepted by Palin in advance of the report) found that Palin did nothing illegal. This result should be accepted. However, the panel also concluded that, whereas no law had been broken, her actions were unethical. What was Christian Sarah Palin’s response? ‘I have been fully vindicated.’

Fellow Christians, this is the question: Can a follower of Jesus Christ consider the finding of a failure of ethics to be a vindication?

It seems that Palin thinks anything is ethical as long as it is legal. Here is a disconnection between belief/faith and ethics.

It is surely not too much to look for a Christian candidate for highest office to act like a Christian when campaigning. It is certain that non-believers do. I am not so naïve as to think that Christian politicians do not compromise ideals at some time, nor that they have total control over what is done in their names. But there are examples in this campaign of higher standards: Obama has stayed largely above personal attacks; McCain has resisted pressure to attack Obama’s faith. Sarah Palin, however, has proudly attacked with what can only be described politely as innuendo bordering on libel. She knows as well as anyone in Republican central office that Obama neither supports terror nor is a terrorist. Yet, she draws on the anti-Muslim and Arab venom underlying the campaign by her accusation that Obama ‘palls around with terrorists’.
It is a lie, and she knows it.

What has been the result? Time and again we hear people saying they are afraid of Obama because he is a Muslim or Arab, with the implicit assumption that this equates with being, at the most, a terrorist, and at the least un-American. McCain rebuked one voter for saying it aloud, but it continues to be repeated as fact. The cry of ‘Kill him!’ in one McCain rally could only have happened in an atmosphere where extremists feel it is safe to voice such desires.

Palin has created this atmosphere. It is difficult to see what Sarah Palin’s faith in Jesus Christ has to do with her actions. A thinking evangelical will want to think about this.

There is a saying of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, ‘By their fruits you will know them.’ I urge thinking evangelicals to look at the fruit of the candidates.

By Dwight Swanson

Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine, offers what is possibly the most balanced presentation to be found of the presidential candidates’ Christian backgrounds and beliefs. They can be found here (in alphabetical order):

John McCain

Barack Obama

Promise that you will read them both.