Redistribution

Jim Wallis gets much of his social justice theory and policies from the prophets in the Old Testament. He considers himself a modern-day prophet, and is oftentimes criticizing political antics for their missing moral component. In the spirit and fervor of the OT prophets, Wallis often brings up biblical concepts such as redistribution of wealth when it is an opportune time (in his opinion).

Chapter 7 in his book, Rediscovering Values, Wallis takes the opportunity to point out that if we did to the Bible with verses on social justice what Jefferson did to the Bible on supernatural occurrences, we would find ourselves with a very tattered and skimpy Scriptures. In other words, the entire Bible is chock full of social justice theology.

That is all well and good, Jim, but what about the people who don’t share the values of the New Testament, let alone the Old Testament? What about the moral and ethical atheists out there who despise the Scriptures and do not wish to be held accountable to your interpretation of the Scriptures? How do we respect individuals and their freedom of religion or freedom from religion if they so choose? It’s one thing to advocate social justice in the manner of the Scriptures. It’s quite another to advocate national policy implementing one’s concept of social justice. The context of the Old Testament prophets was a calling to repentance those who were called the people of God. While YHWH may have chastised the other nations, the people of Israel were in covenant with the Lord, and had violated that covenant. America today is not in covenant with God. To imply that “we” ought to return to those principles on a national political level is to confuse categories of ego-boundaries and geographical boundaries.

To be honest, I don’t really care if some poor people get some of my income to help them. I don’t really care if some of my wealth is given to those who have very little or nothing in order to help them “catch up,” so to speak. It is one thing to advocate that the rich and the poor ought not to have too much disparity in material wealth. It’s quite another to insist that your subjective values and preferences are superior to that of others.

View Comments to “Redistribution”

dahcrb 10 April 2010 at 1:16 am #

I believe that you have posted comments on the Wallis blog concerning “A Covenant for Civility”….posted as xfree9?

I posted as dahcrb….basically calling Wallis out for his personal obsession with Glenn Beck and his own lack of civility.

My comment was deleted. I got no explanation, just a red banner above the blog pages that says I am blocked from making any new comments…..and there is no comment editor that appears on my page now.

How civil is that?
xfree9 2 May 2010 at 2:28 am #

At one point I got that notice, too, but emailed Ryan from sojo and he said that disqus software was being a bit buggy. I was able to post a few hours later.