Bible doesn't command wealth redistribution, presenters say at theological meeting

MILWAUKEE (BP) -- Scripture does not require governments to redistribute wealth to help the poor, presenters in a session at the Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting said this fall.

"Class warfare, wealth redistribution, and socialism can, at best, make people only equally miserable," Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Craig Mitchell wrote in a paper he presented during a session titled "Does God Require the State to Redistribute Wealth?"

Mitchell asked, "Is it surprising that free markets, which respect property rights, maximize both producer and consumer welfare, and create wealth (rather than dividing it) are far more compatible with biblical Christianity?"

The meeting, attended by more than 2,000 evangelical scholars in Milwaukee, included the election of two Southern Baptists as officers. Thomas Schreiner, a professor of New Testament interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was elected president-elect, and Gregg Allison, professor of Christian theology at Southern, was elected secretary.

Focusing on the theme "Caring for Creation," plenary session speakers at the Nov. 14-16 meeting included Russell D. Moore, senior vice president for academic administration and dean of the school of theology at Southern, and E. Calvin Beisner, founder of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.

In addition to Mitchell, the session on wealth redistribution featured Scott Rae, professor of philosophy of religion and ethics at the Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, Calif.; Art Lindsley, vice president of theological initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics in McLean, Va.; and Wayne Grudem, research professor of theological and biblical studies at Phoenix Seminary in Arizona.

Mitchell, chair of the ethics department and associate director of the Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, said those who argue that the Bible requires governments to redistribute wealth often take Old Testament passages out of context. He told Baptist Press that the Land Center's website includes audio, video and printed resources on economics from a Christian perspective.

God required Israelites to leave a portion of their crops in the field after harvest for the poor to gather, Mitchell said, and He instituted the Year of Jubilee, when land was returned to its original owner every 50th year. But neither Old Testament requirement means that modern governments should redistribute wealth to the poor, Mitchell said.

"The laws concerning the gleaning of fields in the Pentateuch (Leviticus 19:9-10 and also Deuteronomy 24:21) require the poor to work by picking up the leftovers at the edge of the fields," Mitchell wrote. "Those who own the fields do not have their produce taken by the government and then given to the poor. Since the Old Testament extols the virtue of work and deplores the vice of laziness, the contemporary concept of wealth redistribution is alien to the Ancient Israelite conception of justice or righteousness."

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