Or, another title could be, “The Death Knell of Gnosticism.” Scriptures commend those who have the eyes to see that which is unseen. But there is more than one kind of “unseen,” and we have to make sure we are not limiting the eye of faith to just the heavenly realities. It is good for …
Football Players or Pirates?
I don’t believe in complicating economic discussion more than is necessary. The Bible requires some form of capitalist society in the basic commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” This command presupposes the institution of private ownership — private property as a divine institution — and sets up a fundamental protection against assaults on the right to …
Timeshare Servants
As Rodney Stark has shown, one of the great contributions of the first Christendom was the development of free markets. And I would want to maintain that one of the great results of the next Christendom will be the restoration and preservation of them. Free markets are the economic expression of the apostolic teaching that …
Wells They Did Not Dig
Rodney Stark’s book, The Victory of Reason, is a wonderful assembler of pieces. He pointed out a number of things I already knew, but had not considered the implications of before, and then added greatly to the number of such facts — and all with the same implications. For those who understand that economic liberty …
Free Markets and Free Grace
In Rodney Stark’s very fine book, The Victory of Reason, he notes a problem with using the word “capitalism” in discussions of economics. He says capitalism “is very difficult to define, having originated not as an economic concept but as a pejorative term first used by nineteenth century leftists to condemn wealth and privilege. Adapting …
A Very Pink Pig
One of the fundamental distinctions we need to learn to make is the one that exists between market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs. The terminology here is DiLorenzo’s — Rothbard made the same distinction, talking about free-market capitalists and state capitalists. The difference is not a slight one — think of a boar free in the …
A Fat Roll of Twenties
I was speaking with a friend the other day about some of the economic muddles that our sorry republic is currently being pelted with, and he said something like, “But isn’t it true that our health care system is broken?” Well, yes and no. Big chunks of it, like Medicare, are not so much broken …
Exactly So
When Scripture prohibits adultery, this presupposes the validity of the bonds of marriage. Without marriage, there is no such thing as adultery, and the prohibition becomes nonsensical. These marriage bonds are established by God (“what God has joined together”) and are to be recognized by the state. When the state refuses to honor the institution …
Lungs Full of Mountain Air
Living in community means that the very nature of the case requires that we submit to demands from outside our selves. These demands encompass every aspect of our lives, and this means that our use of money is included. No man is an island, as Donne put it, and so we don’t have the right …
Confusions About Economic Freedom
I have written many times that free markets depend on free men, and free men are not to be had apart from the gospel. Another way of putting this is that men who are slaves to sin will not be able to create or sustain any kind of significant liberty anywhere else. Freedom from sin …