Christianity Today

To me, this article doesn't quite resonate. I'm in business school and frankly, a lot of the ideas mentioned here, we discuss in class, so I'm not sure there's as great a chasm as he describes. But moreover, for me, the main reason for Christians to be involved in business is because that's where the lost people are. If we're serious as believers about sharing our faith, then we have to actually go out and engage people where they are. And guess what? The vast majority of them have jobs (at which they spend the bulk of their waking hours) in the business world. Thus, I get opportunities over lunch, coffee breaks, tough meetings, conferences, etc...to interact with people that no pastor or ministry staff can re-create.

A Hermit: Truly sorry you feel attacked. I thought we were having a spirited and respectful discussion, at least until that last outburst. I don't mind being challenged. I hold my views strongly, not because they're mine or because I'm married to them but because I've arrived at them after a lifetime of experience in business (including business with the government) and after reading hundreds of books on economic theory and political philosophy, many of them not agreeing with my predispositions. Please don't feel attacked again when I observe that you seem not to have cracked too many books of that type -- I mean, books that genuinely challenge your prejudices. I've read Marx, Ron Sider, Paul Samuelson, and many others along with the free market theorists. If I'm wrong, I invite you to correct me with specifics. What economic and political thinkers have shaped your view of markets and government and their interaction? And no fair stopping with Jesus and the Bible.

Ahermit, so whatever is is the best of all possible worlds? Europe is falling apart, descending into chaos because of its socialism. The US is quickly following in Europe's footsteps for the same socialism. You're clearly devoted to the false religion of socialism and will distort the Bible any way possible to promote your ideology. BTW, the fact that you don't recognize state intervention in the economy as socialism does nothing but advertise your ignorance of what socialism is. And just as you will never tire of promoting socialism, I'll never tire or correcting you.

Your strategy is clear-you have your ideology of 'free markets'. You will attack anyone who clearly shows the flaws in your arguments, repeating the same theories over and over, believing that if you say anything long enough and loud enough, people will believe it. This I have not allowed you to do unchallenged. As to private property preventing pollution- it doesn't. That the government is responsible for the ethanol debacle-it is private for-profit farmers who acted politically to push the government for ethanol production. They wanted no part of a 'free market'. That the Torah supports 'free markets' is your own supposition- the Jubliee Year counters 'free markets'. That private businesses acted in the 1880s in America to create monoplies and cartels and that the government acted with anti-trust legislation is historical fact not 'socialist propaganda'. That modern nations combine both socialistic and capitalistic tendencies shows that that is what works, not 'free markets'.

PS, the terms "soteriology" and "trinity" and many other words we use today are not in the Torah. Does that mean the concepts are bogus, or evil? Systematic theology is the process of collecting and categorizing concepts that are spread throughout the Bible. So you won't find the exact terminology "free market" in the Torah, but you find the concept. The only government that God every created had no human president or legislature. No one made laws except God and the priesthood existed to teach God's laws to the people. It had no police force or standing army. There were no taxes, just voluntary contributions to the Temple treasury. God's laws on property were severe. People couldn't even sell their land because Jubilee meant that land could only be rented to others for 49 years. Socialists assume that Jubilee and the poor laws were early socialism, but they were strictly voluntary. Unlike the laws prohibiting theft and murder, God made no provision for enforcing poor laws by the state