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Showing posts from March, 2010

Matthew, Marx, and Luke

Some of my friends may now think I am the enemy. I have heard from them, and I am now to understand that the causes to which I am committed are viewed as Marxist. What causes are those, you ask? Apparently it’s any cause that smacks of “social justice.” If I am an enemy, I sure hope my friends will love me like Jesus instructed in Matthew 5:43-48! Fortunately, saying that social justice is Marxism doesn’t make it so. On the other hand, it does give evidence of a somewhat naive view of Marxism. The part I really like is where my advocacy for health care reform in a capitalist economy where health care is controlled by the health insurance industry puts me in league with Marxists of all historic stripes. It is easy to dismiss me as a Marxist or pro-big government or subversive of our free-market economy when I say that I believe everyone in this country deserves to have access to quality affordable health care. First of all, unlike Marx, I do not view human hist

Glenn Beck and the Common Good

I suppose that if Glenn Beck had his way, any religious organization that cared about the quality of human life in our society, and did something to improve it, should be castigated as un-American and politically seditious. Last week the Fox News commentator exhorted all Christians to flee from their faith community as fast as possible if there was anything about it that smacked of “social justice” or “economic justice.” And what does Mr. Beck have in mind with the notions of social and economic justice? Apparently, he views them as code words for “Communism” and “Nazism.” Let’s step back from this for a moment and think through the idea of Christians and social justice. As Christians, we live in two worlds, two spheres, each with its own values and mores, beliefs and attitudes, rules and roles, publics and practices, heroes and villains. On the one hand, we inhabit a religious world, the world of the church where we do the things that are characteristic of ecclesial life: worshi