Calling J. Gresham Machen a forgotten libertarian is as unhelpful as calling Jesus a socialist

In a short essay entitled "Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus a Socialist?" which the author rather embarrassingly calls "epic", Lawrence W. Reed never quite gets it that the idea of socialism is a phenomenon of the modern age which didn't present itself to the minds of pre-modern men and that those like Gorbachev who paste the term on figures of the past are doing more to obscure their thoughts than to elucidate them. Regrettably Reed goes on to commit the same error himself.

Socialism is an intellectual category which only lately in history arose in reaction to the appearance of industrial capitalism in the Enlightenment West. To paint Jesus with the hues of this corner of time completely ignores his own time and its conditions in which as a prophet he preached the imminent coming of the kingdom of God in unique historical circumstances. But it will hardly do to also make Jesus a defender of capitalism, which couldn't be more anachronistic. A good student of Jesus' teaching would not miss, as Reed does, that personal poverty and distribution of assets to the poor was a condition of discipleship according to the Synoptic tradition. Jesus believed this precisely because it represented repentance to him, without which one would not survive the end of the world and God's judgment which were fast and certainly approaching.

Of course this underscores a major difference with St. Paul, whose thought was a preoccupation of the New Testament scholar John Gresham Machen, the subject of the recent essay by Reed entitled "God’s Forgotten Libertarian". If repentance required various acts of renunciation of the world to Jesus, to Paul it above all required belief in the lordship of Christ, whom Paul believed was still soon to return in judgment.

The irony of Reed's title is that like socialism, libertarianism is also a late product of the modern age, precisely from the clutches of which Machen sought his whole life to rescue thinking about Paul, especially in The Origins of Paul's Religion (1921).

It's difficult to imagine a better way to misrepresent Machen.

And Paul.

Libertarian Christianity would have been an utter contradiction in terms to the apostle to the Gentiles for the simple reason that there could never be any notion of personal autonomy in Christianity, as if one could give oneself one's own law to live by apart from the law of Christ, or could live in blissful isolation without being a member of the body of Christ or without a duty to the rest of humankind, or could actually own oneself. These are all core notions of libertarian individualism which are at war with basic Pauline ideas:

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

 

-- 1 Corinthians 6:19f.

Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price . . ..

 

-- 1 Corinthians 7:22f.

Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth.

 

-- 1 Corinthians 10:24

Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.

 

-- 1 Corinthians 10:33

[Charity] . . . seeketh not her own . . ..

 

--1 Corinthians 13:5

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

 

-- 2 Corinthians 13:5

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

 

-- Galatians 2:20

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

 

-- Galatians 6:2

So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

 

-- Romans 12:5

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

 

-- Philippians 2:4

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

 

-- Philippians 4:11f.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves . . ..

 

-- 2 Timothy 3:1ff.


Christianity may have become many things, but what it most certainly is not in its origins is a materialist philosophy. Those who say otherwise like Reed unfortunately know not whereof they speak. 

Lawrence Reed is still trying to convince himself that Jesus was a capitalist for whom private property was inviolable

Here:

"What about the reference, in the Book of Acts, to the early Christians selling their worldly goods and sharing communally in the proceeds? That sounds like a progressive utopia. On closer inspection, however, it turns out that those early Christians did not sell everything they had and were not commanded or expected to do so. ... It may disappoint progressives to learn that Christ's words and deeds repeatedly upheld such critically-important, capitalist virtues as contract, profit and private property."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Reed cherry picks his evidence, of course, leaving examples such as these still on the tree because they contradict his claims, all the while arguing against a straw man named the redistributionist state which is equally anachronistic:

And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.

-- Acts 2:44f.

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

-- Matthew 19:21 

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

-- Mark 10:21

Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

-- Luke 18:22

Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.

-- Luke 12:33

So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

-- Luke 14:33

Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee.

-- Luke 18:28

Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.

-- Mark 10:28

Then Peter said to Him, Behold, we have left everything and followed You.

-- Matthew 19:27

Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. ... Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.

-- Matthew 4:20, 22

When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.

-- Luke 5:11

And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him.

-- Luke 5:28

A libertarian whopper from Lawrence W. Reed

Here:

"It would hardly make sense for [Jesus] to champion the poor by supporting policies that undermine the process of wealth creation . . .."

In other words, Jesus couldn't possibly mean that capitalists should give away all their capital and come follow him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

-- Luke 13:2f.

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

-- Luke 14:33