A Christian social vision is never a simple enactment of Jesus-sayings, both because the Gospels are embedded within a wider canon of Scripture and because Christian social thought is conditioned by an eschatology — a sense of what is yet to come, and that we’re not there yet. Every Christian social vision is forged in this “not yet.” In light of that, Christianity is certainly not incompatible with free markets. Indeed, in many ways, the emergence of such markets — and the prosperity produced by them — depends on the capital of a Christian worldview that prizes both flourishing and freedom. But Christianity may have become incompatible with “contemporary” capitalism — with what seems to be increasing inequality in society. (Things might not be as bad as Thomas Piketty suggests, by the way.) Christianity is incompatible with libertarianism — an ideology rooted in social atomism that pits all against all in a war of wills. Capitalism is not inherently libertarian, so the more it is wed to such a distorted social ontology, the more it becomes inconsistent with Christianity, which is fundamentally communitarian. When capitalism ceases to be an engine of the common good, it is inconsistent with Christianity.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 05:11:37 +0000
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