This is part three of “Why Liberalism is incompatible with Christianity.”
To do this, I have to introduce a couple of difficult concepts, God, Government, Rights and Wealth. These definitions are based on my understanding. I feel I have to define these things because it seems so many people I talk to don’t understand them. This is a big picture argument and discussion. I know some people will be challenged by it.
To talk about God, a difficult topic in its own right, I will To do this, I will take the path our founders, who believed the lowest common denominator for all the religious texts (this did not include Islam, which in its purest radical form is pure evil) is deism. Deism, embraces the idea of natures god, a god based on reason. This is the path that Thomas Jefferson and I believe Thomas Paine took. I believe that the true source for conservatism is natures law, while is summed up under the heading of natures god. These beliefs are not a summation of dogma translated from different mystical texts but instead are based on reason, observation and science (of economics). I am going to use the term God for the rest of this discussion, this can mean Jesus, Jehovah or natures god.
While I am at it then let me define government for the sake of this discussion. Here in the US, we have with some variations 4 levels of government. We have different governments for our cities, counties and states. Then we have the all encompassing Federal government. For the most part this discussion focuses on the Federal Government because it is the most powerful and the farthest removed from the people.
Our rights are the things we are born. The best way to understand rights is to imagine yourself stranded on a desert island. There you have the shelter and property that you can build, but you don’t have cable. On an island, you have food that you can find but no health care. What you have if you are by yourself with no one around are your natural born rights.
Finally there is wealth. Your wealth is everything that you build up in your life. These things include your family, relationships, reputation, property, knowledge, income and lastly cash. Your build your wealth by focus and discipline. Some people value different things so they will have more family and relationships then income and property, but they are just as wealthy. The people that don’t understand all the components and nature of wealth are doomed to be poor. The people who focus on the less substantial parts of wealth will acquire the more substantial parts. Do not think that some who wants to “redistribute” your wealth will ever be satisfied dealing with only the substantial aspects of it.
It is my understanding that one of the basic differences between liberals and conservatives is their views on God. Looking at the graphic above, you can see that conservatives believe that God is the source of all rights and wealth. Christians will also say that God is the source of Love. These attributes and blessings flow from God to Man. It is then Man’s responsibility to give some of these rights and wealth to the Government for the protection and betterment of the society. Liberals, on the other hand believe that God bestows all rights and wealth on the Government. So that Government has control off all the blessings of God and that the Government has total discretion as to the distribution and control of all rights and wealth. When you eclipse God, with something God tends to become irrelevant.
Christians are taught to not only worship and respect God, but to love God above all else. You can to worship God when you make him subservient to the laws of man. You can to respect God and you eclipse him with the laws of man. You cannot allow others to respect or even acknowledge God when you set Government between him and his blessings. Overtime liberals tend to forget all about God and focus on their love and worship of the government because they believe that is responsible for all of their rights and wealth. To that end, I believe that liberalism is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.
Since conservatives believe that we allow the existence of Government, we should be able to cut off the flow of wealth and rights to it, effectively starving and reducing its size. Because liberals have started to see Government as their God, they see a reduction in its scope as blaspheme.