Mark Tooley, here:
Creating new businesses is a Christian moral imperative, recalling the Savior was Himself a small businessman, and knowing that only business can meaningfully alleviate poverty, fund charity, and sustain liberty. Why aren’t more Christians speaking of business and economic expansion as central to true social justice???
This claim that Jesus was a small businessman stands on the strength of Mark 6:3 alone in the New Testament:
"Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
But of course Matthew has corrected this narrative at 13:55 of his own gospel:
“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?"
Apart from the fact that I rather doubt that Michael Novak would find a happy audience among his fellow Catholics if he similarly pressed these passages to insist Jesus' brothers and sisters were the progeny of the ever virgin Mary, to insist that Jesus was a small businessman is to miss completely from the gospels his vocation as eschatological prophet and his message of repentance, which required "saying goodbye to everything that one has" according to Luke 14:33. Fisherman are called to drop their nets and follow, in other words leave their jobs behind and become completely dependent on God in order to escape the wrath that is to come. The same for everyone else, rich and poor alike, from miserable tax farmers to princes in soft raiment. All are required to give up their former pursuits and come follow, bringing nothing to the table. Indeed, the more you've got, the more it is likely to hold you back.
Jesus' message is not about alleviating poverty. It's about increasing it. The meaning of Jesus' gospel is to become the poor.
Yes, distribution to others who are poor is required. You can call this funding charity if you wish, but Jesus expected the recipients to give it all away, too, and also come follow so that his movement would give and give and give without producing anything new until the eschaton of God's judgment intervened, which Jesus believed would happen imminently.
In other words, sustainability was the last thing on Jesus' mind.
Actually, liquidation of businesses is the moral imperative of the teaching of Jesus, not creating new businesses, because God's judgment is right around the corner. Well, if you said that today, they'd call you nuts, too.
If there is a stumbling block in the gospel it's this, not the cross of later invention.
