On Capitalism and Evolution

I recently watched a youtube video featuring Alex Jones, a radio talkshow host, calling Obama a wicked, wicked devil and then screaming in anger into his microphone. It was ridiculous. No wonder liberals think conservatives are idiots. Like I often do when I witness the aburdity of conservative strategy and protest, I just sighed and shook my head. I'm not sure exactly how Obama is a wicked devil, (he's a muslim socialist, right?), but the incident reminded me of Christian (over)reactions to darwinism/evolutionary theory, and the misguided commitment to capitalism.

The church has an unhealthy affinity for capitalism, probably because most Christians haven't read the Bible, for if they did they would see that biblical economics are much closer to socialism than capitalism. That is to say, any system based on greed and acquisition, which capitalism admittedly is, is oppossed to the gospel of Christ. Calling someone a socialist is not an insult. Socialism is not demonic and one does not have to be an atheist to be a socialist. This doesn't mean that Christians necessarily should be socialists, or that socialism even works on a large scale, but there is no moral or theological reason why it should not be as highly regarded as capitalism, if not more so. The Christian opposition to such systems says more about the Church's cultural captivity than it does about socialism in itself. In many ways, capitalism has had disatrous consequences, especially for laborors and the environment.

John D. Rockefeller, the railroad tycoon, was a Christian. He even taught Sunday school. But he ran his business without any regard for the well being of others. He acted in a way that is anything but ethical. The culturally captive church says that religion is for church and home, but has no place in society. It is merely civil religion, created to support the status quo. We shouldn't publically live out values that may oppose society's political mantra. That would create dusharmony, which is bad for progress/portfolios. By such standards, we can't be good Christians and good businessmen because in order to succeed in the business world, we need to disregard the well being of others, somethin no good Chrisitian would do.We've seen how self-defeating a system of limitless greed and acquisition is. It can't be sustained. Really, there is no reason why spiritual discipline can't enter the realm of econimics. There is no private gospel. The gospel is to be lived, which means we are to love others, even, or perhaps especially, through the way we handle our money and run our businesses. Justice is a christian value. The rich sharing reasources with the poor is Christian behavior.

The second issue I thought of was evolution. It is absurd to me that Christians are still fighting evolution tooth and nail. Let me be very clear. Acceptance of evolutionary theory does not preclude belief in God. God doesn't work through magic. To say that creation evolved over billions of years does not mean that God was uninvolved in the creative process. The Genesis text even states that God says "Let the earth bring forth." This means that God gave creation some creative freedom. Perhaps evolution can be viewed in this light. It is the freedom that the created order exercises over itself. It allows itself to be, which means changing, adapting, growing, and sometimes dying. Evolution being true does not disprove the existence of God anymore than evolution being untrue somehow proves the existence of God. These are silly arguments. God is not part of the created order and thus cannot be proven to exist through empirical means.

All in all, we shouldn't call be devils because we don't agree with them. Most of the time they are not trying to do evil. A little empathy and some dialogue goes a long way