Capitalism and our faith

I am in the middle of an interestig discussion over at the fairlds.org forum. Here is the link: http://www.fairboards.org/index.php?showtopic=3182

The topic started because the poster was wondering if Capitalism was compatable with Christianity and the gospel. Here is my post:

Musser, first of all I have to say I agree with you in most of your ideas. However I don't necessarily think capitalism is an evil, it is a system and of course can be used by good or evil men.

However I do think that the seeking of great wealth does detract for many of us from our worship of God.


QUOTE
24 ¶ No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Matthew 6:24

This is pretty clear, we are either focused on God or on Money, we cannot be focused on both. We can get wealthy through good works and being rewarded, but seeking after that wealth is in general an evil. The only exception of this is to seek after wealth in order to be able to do good works with it. However I read this as a requirement that if you get the great wealth you must use it for good, not hold on to much of it and use some of it for good works. That is not how it works.

How can a true follower of Christ justify buying luxury items when others are hungry and lack the basic necessities of life?

How can a true follower of Christ exploit people who are working for them, by using their labor to enrich themselves?

How can a true follower of Christ live in a society where we have the largest disparity of income between the wealthiest and the poorest, and not want to change that?

I don't think wealth is a problem. I do think, however, that it should be a people who get wealthy as a whole, not one individual over another.

Think about the society that was set up by the early Christians in Acts. They held all property communally. Those who failed to sell all their goods and kept some back were struck dead! Is this not an important lesson?

What kind of society did the early saints in our dispensation try to set up. It was a society where there were no rich and poor, where everyone gave as they could, and received as they needed. This was not capitalism.

What kind of society was the city of Enoch.


QUOTE
18 And the Lord called his people ZION, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.

Moses 7:18

What kind of society will we live under in the Millenium.

The perfect societies that we have examples of throughout history all have one characteristic. That is that they were righteous, and they lived communally, and there were no poor amongst them. Pure capitalism always will have those who are richer and those who are poorer. The closer you get to pure capitalism, the greater the disparity between the rich and poor.

So while capitalism isn't itself an evil, it is not leading us to the perfect society we have examples of in the scriptures.


- posted by Jolard @ 3:13 PM

 
I am Curious, why the strong support?

The LDS church has come out in favor of bans against gay marriage, has asked the members to support policies in their areas that deny marriage to same sex couples. However this just seems strange to me.

I know that homosexual behavior is wrong, and I don't believe that the Church should stop saying that, however it does seem that the church is working at counter purposes when it is asking for Government intervention into who can marry who. With our history of fighting the federal government for them to stay out of our right to have polygamist marriages, why would we now want the government to get involved in stopping someone else's marriage choices?

Now I realize there is one important distinction. That is that we mostly just wanted to stop getting prosecuted under bigamy and morality laws. There is an element of this in the current gay marriage issue, especially when you consider the recent fight over anti sodomy laws in Texas. However gay marriage advocates want their marriages to also be recognized under the law to allow them the same rights as heterosexual couples.

The argument will be that because we were only trying to avoid prosecution, and they are trying to gain rights under the law, that it is a different situation. However I do not think that this distinction is as great as many suspect. I believe that if we still had polygamy today, we would be demanding the same rights as other married couples, to have our children legally recognized, to be able to visit spouses in the hospital, to be able to have power of attorney over each other, to be able to make decisions on behalf of each other, to be able to claim all my wives as beneficiaries of my health insurance, etc. These rights would be fought for and expected.

Here is the crux of the argument. To most of the country, we would be seen as immoral individuals who are destroying the sanctity of marriage! We would have fought for those rights, and fought strongly to keep the federal government out of deciding what is moral and what is not. We would have fought to keep the state out of our bedroom so to speak. I also believe that we would have likely been allies (admittedly unlikely allies) with those now calling for gay marriage.

The arguments are the same. They basically come down to the following:

- The state does not have the right to intervene in the relationships of consenting adults.

- The state should allow individuals to make commitments to each other and then the state should not discriminate based on the makeup of the individuals involved.

- While the majority in the country feel that the practice of (polygamy/homosexuality) is immoral and destructive, we do not believe that is true, and we should not have to live under the tyranny of the majority.

Do you see what I am saying? I am not saying that we should allow homosexual marriage. What I am saying is that it surprises me that so many members have taken the stance that they have.
- posted by Jolard @ 2:34 PM