SPECIAL EVENTS |
Socialism V CapitalismFriday 14 Nov 2008
Christians
throughout the world need to be aware that the Free Enterprise Capitalist System
that Christianity created is under serious attack and will be greatly
undermined and eroded in the coming years if we are not more strenuous in its
defense. A big mistake the Church has
made in the past century has been to stay away from explaining and defending
the Free Enterprise System on which our members heavily rely.
The good news is that some of our leaders are
standing up. Rick Warren appeared again on
Fox's Hannity & Colmes show and spoke out against the Socialist concept of
wealth redistribution. "I'd rather
like to have the government let us keep it and then you'd learn to give it away
yourself, because then you get the credit and then you get the character
development and then you get the heart of generosity," Warren said. "If the government takes it from you and
gives it away instead of me giving it away myself, I don't get the personal
development," he said.
Hopefully
more of our leaders will follow Pastor Warren’s lead, because, if the Free
Enterprise system of the world is watered down; or curbed unnecessarily, in any
way, the impact on the Church will be very significant. Small business will be the hardest hit;
meaning that giving can be expected to fall away sharply and missionary
outreach programs everywhere, that depend on such generosity, will be
negatively affected. In such light, we
can expect the persecution of Christians to increase.
Watch what is Happening
If you doubt that this is true, you need to
be monitoring the news and listening to what world leaders are saying. You also need to be cognescient of the
outcome of the recent US elections and what this could mean for a big shift
left in world politics and the global approach to managing the World Economy. It does not look good for free enterprise and
Christianity.
In a speech at the Manhattan Institute in New
York before recent talks among leaders from the Group of 20 nations, outgoing
Republican President, George W. Bush said the world policy makers should resist
the urge to meddle too much in the free markets as they try to fix the current
financial crisis. President Bush urged the
world leaders not to abandon free market Capitalism, calling it the ``best
system'' for delivering growth.
``History has shown that the greater threat
to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market,
but too much,'' President Bush said. ``Our aim should not be more government,
it should be smarter government.''
``The answer is not to try to reinvent that
system. It is to fix the problems we face, make the reforms we need, and move
forward with the free market system.''
President Bush is right, but there is a lot
of evidence to suggest that no one is listening. It is too easy and too convenient to be a
critic of Capitalism in these times.
Lacking
Credibility
Unfortunately, President Bush has also lost a
great deal of credibility among conservatives and the public by his actions in
the recent crisis. His warnings and advice are therefore almost
certain to fall on deaf ears. The “talk”
is right, but, unfortunately, as Christians say, he has not “walked the walk”.
Along with Republican Presidential candidate
John McCain, who was expected to be a maverick and a defender of the Conservative
cause on this issue, the Bush administration recommended and worked with the left-leaning
Democrat controlled house and senate to implement a massive $700 billion
financial rescue program which was and still is widely unpopular. His
administration also backed unpopular government bailouts of American
International Group Inc., Bear Stearns Cos., Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
Consequently, the President and the US are
now easy targets for the rest of the world’s leaders who are taking every
opportunity to blame him for the demise and capitalize on this situation to
impose their own agendas.
America
and Free Enterprise under Attack
Among his detractors, French President Nicolas
Sarkozy and Australian Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have called for
greater government control of free markets and have criticized the U.S. for not
imposing greater control on investors and speculators.
While defending Capitalism as the ``most
efficient system ever created,'' Sarkozy has also said that the view that
``everything could be solved by deregulation, free competition and the market''
is over. The French president is taking this
opportunity to push to remove the US dollar from its current position of importance
in world markets. He says it ``can't
claim to be the only currency of the world anymore.''
In addition to this move that would have dire
consequences for the US economy, proposals ranging from curbing executive pay, restraining
hedge funds, to raising capital requirements for banks and subjecting credit
rating companies to stiffer oversight, are all being discussed and have
considerable support.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is speaking
out about ``greed, speculation and mismanagement''. Australia’s Kevin Rudd is talking about ``the
root of this malaise'' being in the ``twin evils'' of greed and fear that went
unchecked because of ``obscene'' failures in oversight.
Sitting on the sidelines and watching all of
this unfold, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that, ``there should be
no heightened expectations,'' for anything major to come out of this meeting. The reason being, that, President Bush will be
out of office in two months; and the world’s left-leaning leaders are looking
forward to working with and testing President-elect Barack Obama.
Joe
Biden’s Warning - Obama’s Test
We can only wonder if this is the “early test”
of the Obama presidency that vice-president elect, Joe Biden referred to on the
campaign trail. If it is, we can only pray that he will not fail the system
that has given him his historic opportunity.
For certain, in this climate, we can expect
that the rest of the world will gang up against America and free enterprise and
try to achieve a greater role for Europe in the world. Russia, China, Brazil, and all of America’s
enemies want to see this happen. If this
is achieved, it will mean and significant shift towards greater government involvement
in the free enterprise system and all the potential dangers that come with such
a change. The world will have taken a
giant step towards becoming a global socialist state.
The Impact
If this
happens, what will it mean for the World, and particularly the World’s
Christian population?
Firstly, none
of us should ignore the fact that history has a bad habit of repeating itself;
and if we do not learn the lessons of history, then they almost certainly
return to haunt us.
Secondly, none
of us should forget that the former Russian state was the United Soviet
Socialist Republic (USSR). The reason for
saying this is to remind Christians who are quick to say that Socialism is not
Communism, that this difference is only recognized in Western, non-socialist
countries. Wake up America! Wake up Christians everywhere!
Thirdly, as
every dissident in every Communist state of the world will tell you, Socialism
is not Social Justice; and millions will echo this from the grave, if you can
hear. Everywhere Socialism is
encouraged, Christians suffer.
Considering
all these things, the outlook for Christianity and small business free
enterprise is not good. Unemployment
therefore can be expected to rise. As
previously suggested, if free enterprise is undermined, the flow on affects
will be that giving to the Church and its causes can be expected to fall away
sharply. This means that missionary
outreach programs everywhere will be negatively affected. When this happen, as we know from experience:
the persecution of Christians will increase because we are easy targets to
blame.
Recommended Action
What can we
do? We must speak out! As we have been saying through this column
since we launched this service in August this year, Christians must engage in
the War of Ideas that is raging throughout the world. We must see the spiritual warfare and
understand what is happening and sound the alarm. It is our Christian duty to do so.
“If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned;
if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his
iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.” (Ezekiel 33: 6)
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