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Arizona_Mike
Guest
Interesting survey from an Evangelical site:
christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/october/survey-bible-reading-liberal.html
christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/october/survey-bible-reading-liberal.html
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Irish_Eyes_826
Guest
It definitely made much more liberal in many of the ways mentioned in the article. Especially in areas like social and economic justice, women’s rights, and environmental stewardship.
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kmuestwin
Guest
Is it liberal to support fair immigration? Social justice?
Is it conservative to support the right to life? the sanctity of marriage?
Cathloicism is neither liberal or conservative. It is correct and Godly and it is our duty to bring about positive social change.
Is it conservative to support the right to life? the sanctity of marriage?
Cathloicism is neither liberal or conservative. It is correct and Godly and it is our duty to bring about positive social change.
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losh14
Guest
I think it depends upon your starting point. If you begin with the frame of mind that God is Holy and demands accordance with a strict moral law, you’ll probably shift more “liberal” as far as embracing social justice and charity as part of your Christian life. If you begin, on the other hand, with the perspective that God is all-forgiving and all-loving, you may be surprised at the call to holiness and embrace a more strict understanding of behavior.
One of my Presbyterian buddies shared a quote during Lent (he’s good like that - he likes the idea of embracing 40 days of focused study) to the extent that God is both loving and holy. If we teach holiness without love we embrace only a strict legalism, and if we teach love without holiness we provoke an ineffectual emotional outpouring, but when both are preached together we find that God is always relevant, always approachable, and always deserving of obedience.
Good question.
One of my Presbyterian buddies shared a quote during Lent (he’s good like that - he likes the idea of embracing 40 days of focused study) to the extent that God is both loving and holy. If we teach holiness without love we embrace only a strict legalism, and if we teach love without holiness we provoke an ineffectual emotional outpouring, but when both are preached together we find that God is always relevant, always approachable, and always deserving of obedience.
Good question.
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tjwdsssc2015
Guest
JMJ
In short, I would say that it makes you liberal in the proper sense of the term: more free to do God’s will. The more one is familiar with the Scriptures, the better he can hear and understand that which the Father asks him.
Interesting note: the classical use of the word “liberal” means to remove God from daily life (into which He should permeate unreservedly, in every dimension). So, classically, all modern, American politics–both republican and democrat–are liberal. As a professor of mine put it, one example: democrats remove God from the bedroom (promoting contraception, same-sex unions, fornication, etc.), and republicans tend to remove God from the economy. … Again, just an interesting aside about the word “liberal”.
God love you!
In short, I would say that it makes you liberal in the proper sense of the term: more free to do God’s will. The more one is familiar with the Scriptures, the better he can hear and understand that which the Father asks him.
Interesting note: the classical use of the word “liberal” means to remove God from daily life (into which He should permeate unreservedly, in every dimension). So, classically, all modern, American politics–both republican and democrat–are liberal. As a professor of mine put it, one example: democrats remove God from the bedroom (promoting contraception, same-sex unions, fornication, etc.), and republicans tend to remove God from the economy. … Again, just an interesting aside about the word “liberal”.
God love you!
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Abu
Guest
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Precisely, on faith and morals.
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Khalid
Guest
I already was a socialist (that is, social justice as a duty of all of the organizations of men), but, beyond that, reading the Bible didn’t make me more liberal in any way concerning “environmental stewardship”, women’s rights, gay rights, fornication, the love of promiscuous sex, etc. (the standard definition of “liberal” in modern American politics); I’m still a staunch social (i.e. moral) conservative, as is the Catholic Church and the teaching of the Magisterium as I understand it. I read the Bible daily.
If I was an economic conservative/staunch Capitalist, I can’t imagine how I could remain one in good conscience after reading the New Testament (or the Old, for that matter). Laissez-faire Capitalism is an outgrowth of the teachings of some of the leaders of the Protestant Revolt, especially John Calvin (it goes very well with the double predestination/damned-saved dichotomy), wherein material success became equated with spiritual success, and had one of its first strong historical expressions in the late years of Charles I, before he was deposed by Cromwell, and during Cromwell’s Protectorate: it became a fixture of the land ever after that, even after the restoration of Charles II, and was spread over the surface of the earth by the British Empire and Commonwealth.
The Apostles weren’t only socialists, they were full-blown Communists, which worked for them because they were holy. Communism is one of those things that looks good on paper, but doesn’t work in real life, due to the fallen nature of man (generally described by Protestants as the “understandable laziness of a man when he can gain nothing for himself by working”, as if it was an acceptable excuse - especially when they’re all either wealthy themselves, or are making the ruling capitalist class wealthy by working under them, and only being paid a tiny proportion of the profit they make for “the boss”, while thinking they’re doing well - both in Heaven and on earth - because they can afford a Mercedes-Benz).
[BIBLEDRB]Acts 2:44-45[/BIBLEDRB]
In modern English, that is, “their property was owned by the community, not by individuals, and they took from each according to their ability (or what they could give), and they gave to all according to their needs”.
If I was an economic conservative/staunch Capitalist, I can’t imagine how I could remain one in good conscience after reading the New Testament (or the Old, for that matter). Laissez-faire Capitalism is an outgrowth of the teachings of some of the leaders of the Protestant Revolt, especially John Calvin (it goes very well with the double predestination/damned-saved dichotomy), wherein material success became equated with spiritual success, and had one of its first strong historical expressions in the late years of Charles I, before he was deposed by Cromwell, and during Cromwell’s Protectorate: it became a fixture of the land ever after that, even after the restoration of Charles II, and was spread over the surface of the earth by the British Empire and Commonwealth.
The Apostles weren’t only socialists, they were full-blown Communists, which worked for them because they were holy. Communism is one of those things that looks good on paper, but doesn’t work in real life, due to the fallen nature of man (generally described by Protestants as the “understandable laziness of a man when he can gain nothing for himself by working”, as if it was an acceptable excuse - especially when they’re all either wealthy themselves, or are making the ruling capitalist class wealthy by working under them, and only being paid a tiny proportion of the profit they make for “the boss”, while thinking they’re doing well - both in Heaven and on earth - because they can afford a Mercedes-Benz).
[BIBLEDRB]Acts 2:44-45[/BIBLEDRB]
In modern English, that is, “their property was owned by the community, not by individuals, and they took from each according to their ability (or what they could give), and they gave to all according to their needs”.
Of the utmost importance. It’s only that the usual liberal definitions of “social justice” are warped, considering gay marriage, sexual “freedom” and license and general promiscuity of all orientations, subsidized abortion, the handing out of condoms to middle school children, contraception, financial disincentives to marriage, financial incentives to having children out of wedlock, etc. as social “justice”: the latter two are especially applicable to people of lower wealth.
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Abu
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Incorrect. The Sacred Scriptures have been misinterpreted, and Christ supported free enterprise.
By His parable of the Talents Jesus is not implying that anyone should seek wealth first in their lives. He is preaching and rewarding prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, rather than attacking those who accumulate wealth legitimately, He is lambasting the slothful. In the Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concerns), 1987, #42, Pope John Paul II emphasises “Likewise, in this concern for the poor, one must not overlook that special form of poverty which consists in being deprived of fundamental human rights, in particular the right to religious freedom and also the right to freedom of economic initiative.”
With Lazarus, a shallow preoccupation with wealth obscures the real sins – pride and selfishness are the culprits. St Augustine effectively says “It was not Lazarus’ poverty that saved him, but his humility. Nor was it wealth that kept the rich man from bliss, but his pride and selfishness (Sermon 24,3).
“Catholic tradition has always had a balanced view of the responsibilities, temptations and opportunities of wealth, and it has never sought to canonize the poor or to demonize the rich. Catholic social doctrine, rather, calls all people to responsibility, generosity and holiness.” Inside The Vatican, June 1997].
Free enterprise economic development started in the great Catholic monastic estates of the ninth century, and a solid basis of economic Catholic thought developed from the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century the Late Scholastics who were Thomists (followers of St Thomas) “writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca in Spain, sought to explain the full range of human action and social; organization.” They “observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value…” For these reasons Joseph Schumpeter applauded them as the first real economists. (Thomas E Woods Jr, The Church And The Market, Lexington Books, 2005, p 8).
Incorrect.
Dr Chafuen notes that “many people close to Jesus were quite wealthy for their times. Joseph seems to have had his own business and perhaps a donkey; Peter owned a fishing boat, and Matthew was a tax collector. Jesus praised the rich man Zaccheus. It was the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea who kept faith even when the Apostles were beset by doubt (Mt 27:57). Jesus does not condemn the possession of riches but, rather disordered attachment to them.” Notice also that Jesus did not ask His Apostles to renounce their property. Christians For Freedom, Ignatius 1986, p 45].
“Voluntary sharing and communal living in a religious community have nothing to do with Communism or other such forced appropriations and destruction of freedom.
“We see in Acts 4:34-35, A Catholic Commentary On Holy Scripture, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953:
(This) shows “that property was sold, from time to time, by the owners of it, according as the Church’s need dictated. The sharing of goods was always voluntary. The story of Ananias and Saphira, cf. 5:4, makes it clear that they were not bound to sell, and that after they had, the price was still theirs. When Barnabas gave all his property, such exceptional generosity was chronicled. There are examples of houses held privately in Jerusalem, !2:12; 21:16. St James, in his Epistle, reveals the existence of rich and poor there. The community of goods does not seem to have been very successful, 6:1, and other churches had continually to send alms, voluntarily, ‘each man according to his ability’, to Jerusalem, 11:29.”
In Acts 2:44-47, where the faithful lived together and owned everything in common, these so-called “Apostolics” were condemned by St Thomas and the Late Scholastics, who quote St Augustine. Why?
In his Summa, II-II, Q. 66, art. 2, resp., St Thomas quotes St Augustine: “Augustine says: ‘The people styled apostolic are those who arrogantly claimed this title for themselves because they refused to admit married folk or property owners to their fellowship, arguing from the model of the many monks and clerics in the Catholic Church (De Haeresibus 40).’ But such people are heretics because they cut themselves off from the Church by alleging that those who, unlike themselves, marry and own property have no hope of salvation.”
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Wesley7
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I think it can. OT is very strict & convservative. NT more liberal
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Swiss_Guy
Guest
Communism is where the government has a monopoly on the means of the economy. The apostles were sharing, and redistributing the wealth, but they weren’t communists.
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Khalid
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I take “communism” in this context not as “forcibly redistributing all wealth” (which is improper, and, as I said above, doesn’t work with fallen man, and the modern plans to try and force it upon people, while at the same time endorsing violent revolution and extreme secularism, i.e. Marxism and Leninism, are pure evil: thus, I am not a “communist” [by which you mean “Marxist”] as in ‘Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union’, but a “socialist”, as in, ‘Northern and Western Europe’), but simply “the redistribution of wealth”, it meaning, as Acts says, that “all things were held in common”, i.e. communally. The state of all things being held communally is “communism”. I can think of no other word for that state, but I suppose a neologism, “communalism”, would work as well.
The forcible redistribution of wealth combined with the outlawing of religion, violent revolution, etc. ao you have taken the word “communism” to mean; this is not communism, as an idealized, abstract idea (which was instantiated by the apostles in Acts, in which the rich do not exploit everyone who is less rich as is the status quo in laissez-fair economies, or even semi laissez-fair economies like America), but Marxism, which is a concrete and violent secularist program of government. “Communist” governments of the 20th century were Marxist or Leninist.
Communism is a state where goods are held in common, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Marxism is taking that idea - communal life - and making of it a violent secularist political philosophy of great evil. Don’t confuse the ideal or state of “communism” or “communalism” with the ideology or implementation of Marxism, which is often called by that name.
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Raskolnikov
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Not really. Communism generically means a society in which all property is held in common. The system you describe is more a particular kind of socialist. Communism, however, does not even necessiate a government at all. One can have and anarchic communist society in which people freely share everything entirely with each other. In that sense, perhaps the apostles were communists.
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Raskolnikov
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Btw, how’s the weather down there in Columbus? I have a friend who goes to Ohio State and according to him, it’s always a few degrees warmer than it is where I am, in Cleveland, where we’re already beginning to feel the prelude to winter.
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Khalid
Guest
Ranging anywhere from 35 to 68 Farenheit (one fluke this week), about 45 F on average now.
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Abu
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What Bl John Paul II accepted and developed in Centesimus Annus, 43:
If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.
Free enterprise has never been “unregulated” – no laws. It has been badly regulated, and many governments have savagely finagled with the free economy precipitating the unnecessary catastrophes of the last 80 years.
The Welfare State type usurpation as in Europe is condemned:
The reality from Bl John Paul II in Centesimus Annus, 1991:
#48. “Another task of the State is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the State but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society. The State could not directly ensure the right to work for all its citizens unless it controlled every aspect of economic life and restricted the free initiative of individuals. This does not mean, however, that the State has no competence in this domain, as was claimed by those who argued against any rules in the economic sphere. Rather, the State has a duty to sustain business activities by creating conditions which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those activities where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of crisis.
“In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called “Welfare State”. This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the “Social Assistance State”. Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.”
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No. See Acts in post #8 – their property was their own and a sale meant they kept the proceeds and decided what to do with them. Barnabas’ exceptional generosity was specifically mentioned.
It is a gross canard to feel that “the rich exploit everyone who is less rich” in free enterprise economies but, as bad, to assume that free enterprise, based on natural law and which has enabled countless millions to rise above subsistence over hundreds of years, and supported by the Popes, is inherently exploitatively evil.
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