Hi folks, Bob again. A political “earthquake” of sorts took place this week. Eric Cantor is the #2 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving as House Majority Leader as a Congressman in Virginias 7th Congressional District. He is running for re-election for this fall and was expected to, once again, easily win re-election against his Democratic opponent. But first, he needed to win the Republican Primary. No biggie, right? Well, David Brat, a Tea Party conservative ran against Cantor in the Primaries, having less than a tenth of the money to spend that Cantor spent. Well, in an absolute shocker, Brat beat Cantor by a whopping 10 points. Its the first time in U.S. history a House Majority Leader lost in a Party Primary election. So now, it will be David Brat running against the Democrat this November while Eric Cantor has to decide what hes going to do next. While Eric Cantor is probably one of the most conservative of the “establishment” Republicans, David Brat is even more conservative than Cantor, a Tea Partier, opposed the Debt Ceiling increase and most importantly, opposes the proposed illegal immigration amnesty proposals that Cantor has caved in on. What this does politically is inject new life into the Tea Party movement. But theres another aspect of the David Brat story thats caught my attention. Time Magazine has run a feature story entitled “David Brats Biblical Views Shape His Tea Party Politics”, where they cite Brats support for Capitalism. Brat says “we need to synthesize Christianity and Capitalism”. Time points out how Pope Francis has made critical comments about Capitalism and how David Brat argues the opposite, that Capitalism is, in fact, a good and godly economic system. Personally, I agree with Brat. Yes, I know Capitalism has the capacity to breed greed and selfishness, but I would argue people in socialist systems have the same sinful capacity for greed and selfishness. At least with Capitalism, charity is voluntary, from the heart, without compulsion. Capitalism forces people to decide for themselves whether they will have a softened heart for the poor. It puts people in a position of having to decide what their response to the poor will be. In the socialist model, people are forced to give automatically, which in some people I think that can produce a hardening of the heart toward the poor. You stop thinking about helping others because “I already gave at the office. The poor already get part of my paycheck”. Also, in Acts Chapters 2 and 4, the disciples did NOT practice socialism. They did not petition Rome to take money from others and force a redistribution of their money. No, the disciples gave FREELY of themselves so that none were in need. Anyway, Im curious what you folks think about Christianity and Capitalism. Are they a good mix? Do you consider the economic structure of Capitalism a Christian friendly system......or not? time/2860967/david-brats-biblical-views-shape-his-tea-party-politics/
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 18:31:13 +0000