What if God is a Commie?

As a father of five, you might think that you could predict how I would respond to Pastor Tom's warning about huge fines for multiple children...and you would think wrong. Only two of my children are by birth, the others are adopted, so my wife and I have not done more than replace ourselves in the world's population. We have to organize ourselves somehow to allocate resources. For example, we wouldn't like it if the one person who lived where all the...let's see....crude oil was didn't want to share any of it with the rest of us. And when there are disputes we require mediation. So if we are going to live together on this planet we will have to suffer through government of one form or another.

So, do I have a God-given right to have as many children as I like and care not a fig about how my family now consumes more than the smaller families around me? Surely not. Again and again the Bible calls us to care for the other, particularly the one who has little.

So what sort of government should we choose, big or little? Pastor Tom suggests that human depravity requires a small government so that we can all be left to our own devices. Now wait a minute, wouldn't that mean unregulated depravity run amok? Sure, big government could represent concentrated depravity, but it could also (and I would contend more likely) represent collective enlightened self-interest. In either case, human depravity doesn't seem to be a sufficient theological principle to argue for one form of government or the other.

So I'm more inclined to look for an example in the Bible. I think the absolute equality of distribution of the precious and rare commodity of manna might give us a glimpse into what sort of economy God prefers.

Blog you later,
Pastor Ian