This Is Our City

Any Christian who bemoans wealth redistribution and had benefited from the tax-exempt status of Churches, is a stinking hypocrite. Taxation *is* redistribution by definition, and affirmed by both Jesus and Paul as right for the State to enforce. If you get out of a tax burden, guess what? You've shifted that onto someone else who must pick up the slack. Right or wrong, Church tax exemption has benefited every American Christian. If you refrain from picking up what you dropped in your field so the poor can get it, guess what? You've redistributed wealth. If you've forgiven someone who owed you money - same thing. I'll not waste my time with 40+ y/o books by American Christian Capitalist Apologists, as I do not trust them to be objective and report without agenda. Frank Schaeffer was at the forefront of this, and now completely denounces it. Good for him. For good, clear-headed Biblical and Historical Perspectives, I recommend NT Wright.

I've been slowly but surely breaking with 'Social Justice Christianity' over their support of Feminism. It seems to me that North American Feminism is mostly politically interested individuals pushing a Trojan Horse for abortion, affirmative action, and general Female Privilege. Do a search for the effects of Fatherless Families on crime and poverty, and realize what No Fault Divorces and Court-Custody bias has wrought in society. Look up the Tender Years Doctrine and who started it (no it wasn't "Patriarchy.") Traditionalism is just as bad, however. Phyllis Schlafly admitted that her reasoning behind opposing ERA was to protect Female Privilege. Look for the following resources online: A Voice for Men, National Coalition For Men, Community of the Wrongly Accused (formerly the False Rape Society,) saveservices.org, and YouTube users Girlwriteswhat, Fidelbogen and Typhon Blue. Those would be a good start.

I just checked through the Negative reviews on Amazon.com on Schoeck: I think I'll save my money.

More from Schoeck: "Anyone who harbours, or propagates, such guilty feelings must be suffering from a false perspective, explicable less in terms of ethics and theology than in terms of social psychology…It is possible to understand…people who…feel impelled to undergo some exceptional form of penance or expiation, go into voluntary exile in a place far removed from what we call civilization, where they devote their services to the people of the country. But it is not at all the same thing if, instead of undertaking such an ‘Albert Schweitzer mission’ oneself, one preaches it from one’s desk in London, Paris, Washington or Zurich as a duty universally incumbent on all other Westerners, so that anybody who cannot himself be an Albert Schweitzer or Peace Corps worker is ridden with guilt, and depreciates existentially whatever he is able to achieve within his life and his own field of activity." P. 322

Following up on the comment quoting Schoeck, I think many in evangelicalism want to place a burden of guilt on Christians that we don't deserve. We are neither responsible for the poverty and oppression of the poor world nor can we do much about it. Could we do more? Obviously! How much more? That is between each Christian and God. Schoeck thinks that people who feel guilty about the poor outside of their sphere of influence and responsibility fear the envy of others. Also, they have an unrealistic view of the world that believes all wealth should be evenly distributed and can be evenly distributed. The first is not true and the second is impossible. However, even if it were possible, it would increase, not decrease envy.