This document discusses why Christians should care about economic freedom. It provides 5 reasons: 1) It aligns with the Christian view of human anthropology as image-bearers called to work. 2) It is the best way to serve the poor through market trade that has lifted billions out of poverty. 3) It allows people to find fulfillment through using their talents to serve others. 4) It supports the biblical concept of property rights and stewardship. 5) The Bible does not support massive redistribution through the state but a limited government that protects negative rights. Overall, the document argues that economic freedom correlates with higher levels of human flourishing consistent with biblical values.
3. Why Should Christians Care?
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our
human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over
all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’
---Abraham Kuyper
5. Economic Freedom
Individuals have economic freedom when property they acquire without the
use of force, fraud, or theft is protected from physical invasions by others and
they are free to use, exchange, or give their property as long as their actions
do not violate the identical rights of others….
James Gwartney and Robert Lawson et al.
Economic Freedom of the World: 1996 Annual Report
6. Economic Freedom Measures
1. Size of Government
2. Legal System and Property Rights
3. Sound Money
4. Freedom to Trade Internationally
5. Levels of Regulation
7. Overall Economic Freedom Index
and the Top 10
Hong Kong
Singapore
New Zealand
Switzerland
Australia
Canada
Bahrain
Mauritius
Finland
Chile
0 2 4 6 8 10
Score (out of 10)
Source: The Fraser Institute.
9. 5 Reasons
1. Christian view of human anthropology
2. We are called to serve others, especially the poor
3. We are called to flourishing
4. Property rights are Biblical
5. Limited government is Biblical
11. Cultural Mandate
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of
God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and
increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over
the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every
living creature that moves on the ground.”
---Genesis 1:27-28
12. We are image-bearers of God
We are created to work (Genesis 2:15)
We are born with something to contribute, we need
freedom to do it.
13. 2. Serving the Poor
The righteous care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern.
---Proverbs 29:7
14. “Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the
most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to
focus on questions of distribution. In this very minute, a child is
being born to an American family and another child, equally
valued by God, is being born to a family in India. The resources
of all kinds that will be at the disposal of this new American will
be on the order of 15 times the resources available to his Indian
brother.
15. This seems to us a terrible wrong, justifying direct corrective
action, and perhaps some actions of this kind can and should be
taken. But of the vast increase in the well-being of hundreds of
millions of people that has occurred in the 200-year course of
the industrial revolution to date, virtually none of it can be
attributed to the direct redistribution of resources from rich to
poor. The potential for improving the lives of poor people by
finding different ways of distributing current production
is nothing compared to the apparently limitless potential of
increasing production.”
---Nobel Laureate, Robert Lucas
16. The best most productive and well-tested way of helping
the poor is through market trade.
Enabling people to use their gifts and skills to serve
others has lifted billions out of poverty over the last
hundred years. Billions.
18. Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?
April 13, 2008, New York Times
19. 3. Called to flourishing
God calls us into community with each other
He gifts us with talents and skills so we can find personal
fulfillment and serve others.
20. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those
I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they
produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for
your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too
may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not
decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to
which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it,
because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
--Jeremiah 29:4-7
21. 4. Property Rights: Stewardship
Property rights are part of the biblical narrative of
stewardship
We are given dominion over the earth (stewardship)
That dominion is reinforced in the 8th commandment
Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal”
Theft is a violation of property
22. “The eighth commandment, while one of the two shortest
in the Decalogue (Ex. 20:15; Deut. 5:19), taught that
stealing was not only taking another person’s property, but
it also included
all forms of coercion,
fraud,
or taking another person’s possessions or property
without consent,
along with all forms of cheating or harming property by
destroying its value in one way or another.
23. Thus theft involved the following:
robbing victims directly;
using indirect and legal means of gaining benefits not
deserved;
or by being part of a corporate group that steals.”
---Walter Kaiser
24. 5. Limited Government
There is no place in the scripture that calls for massive
redistribution through the state
The left claims certain aspects of scripture
1. Acts 2-5 (communal property)
1. Not a once and for all divestiture
2. Giving was voluntary
3. Temporary measure
4. Cant get “ought” out of “is”
25. 2. Leviticus 25:10 (Jubilee)
Restoring property after mortgaged to a creditor
Lease/sets stage for contracts
Meant you could never be enslaved
No debt forgiveness because already paid
Old Testament/New Testament distinctions
Israel was a theocracy
OT prophets did warn other nations about violating
negative rights
NT state as a protector of negative rights (Romans 13)
26. Stewardship
Economic Freedom helps us better us our scarce
resources which have multiple and competing ends.
Free-market economics correlate with certain biblical
truths that can bring us higher levels of flourishing or
shalom.
30. It’s not just about the Benjamins
Economic Freedom is correlated with
More income and opportunity for the poor
Lower child mortality
Longer lifespan
Better performing and cleaner environments
Life satisfaction
Less political corruption
Better protected civil liberties
Its about Flourishing!
Editor's Notes
1. Size of Government;2 Legal System and Property Rights;3 Sound Money;4 Freedom to Trade Internationally;5 Regulation.
It’s no accident that the material poor have so much more in the US than they do in Bangladesh.
1. Size of Government;2 Legal System and Property Rights;3 Sound Money;4 Freedom to Trade Internationally;5 Regulation.
Correlation between Economic Freedom and per capita GDP. It’s direct and positive. Countries which have made changes toward EF have gained income and stability. Examples: Zimbabwe and Rwanda. Countries can move the opposite way as well. The US ranked 2 in 2002, fell to number 6 in 2010 and is now 10.
Women had few rights, minorities had no rights and were slavesAverage children declined from 7 in 1880 to 3.5 in 1900Worked in farms, produced their own food, children worked at age 12, women had few opportunities outside the homeElectricity had just been invented so most people and cities did not have accessMost people didn’t have a way to make ice, if you did have it was delivered by clipper ship up and down Atlantic coast, most people used cool springs or drank warm milkPhonograph had just been invented so most people did not have access and entertained by signingSyphilis plagueHigh infant mortality rate, smallpox, diphtheria, measles, lack of medical knowledgeLife expectancy 47 years