The Sean McDowell Show - Why Christians Should NOT be Leftists

Episode Date: January 3, 2026

Today, we're going to examine the book Why Christians Should Be Leftists by Philip Christman. While affirming areas of genuine common ground like concern for the poor, moral accountability and the dangers of unchecked consumerism we need to ask a deeper question: Can leftism be consistently aligned with a biblical worldview? This is not a partisan conversation, but a call for clarity, humility and faithfulness in a deeply polarized age. READ: The Virtues of Capitalism, by Scott Rae (https://amzn.to/4q14NkL) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org   Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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Life Audio. Maybe this is uncharitable, Scott, but when somebody says we believe in biblical authority and keeps advancing such a bad argument, it makes me question the commitment to biblical authority and only say on this issue, something is overriding biblical authority from the culture. Being a Christian doesn't make you feel like you're on top of things. It actually makes you feel like you're under things and in need of. grace. I get why people are drawn to the left. I understand it. At the very end, though, why I think I'm not, is there's no other way to put it, then it's just divorced from reality. Should Christians

be leftists? Can leftism consistently be wed with a Christian worldview? And is leftism gaining ground in the church and in the culture? Scott Ray, we've got a fascinating new book we're going to do a review on by Phil Christman called Why Christians Should Be Leftist. You ready to rock and roll? I'm ready. Let's get to it. All right. So this is really more of an essay than it is a book. It's kind of a testimony of his experience, which we'll get to. But before we dive into the case that he makes, what does the author mean by leftism? What are we talking about here? Well, he distinguishes it from liberalism, which he's referring to political liberalism there as opposed to, and just to be clear for our listeners,

the term classic liberalism is different than political liberalism, which is different than leftism. The classic liberal tradition is what our founding fathers had in mind of individual rights, free expression, limited government, things like that that form, I think, sort of the, the, the, the, the heart and soul of political conservatism today. Political liberalism is a different view of that, which takes a larger view for the state, heavier taxes, more services, things like what we might call democratic socialism, which we see in Scandinavia and parts of Europe,

it's a different arrangement where taxes are higher, and services are more provided. And there's less space for what we call mediating institutions that stand between the state and the individuals. Leftism is political liberalism on steroids. Okay. And the leftism that he's describing here

is, I think, sort of heavy on deconstructing the institutions, mainly of the market economy. Where he does, where the liberal, I would say political liberals, want to remodel the house. Leftists want to tear the house down and create something new. Create an entirely different system

because he describes the political liberals as being complicit with capitalism. He does, that's right. And so what that suggests is that he wants to dismantle the whole apparatus and start over again. Right now, of course, what the starting over again looks like is a lot trickier than dismantling the current one. But that's basically what he means by leftism. Is that how you read it?

Yeah. So he's not talking about theological leftism, although we see that seep in here at times. It's more political. And so sometimes we tend to think, well, those to the right of us, wherever we are, are fundamentalists. And those a little bit to the left of us, we might call liberals or leftists. He is way to the left politically than probably most, if almost any, at least in the evangelical world. So you functionally – I think that's true.

And I think he would be far to the left of most in the Democratic Party. Yeah, he has a chapter why the Democratic Party doesn't go far enough. We'll get to that. Why classical liberalism doesn't go far enough. Yeah, I mean, classical liberalism, he wants – very little to do with. Okay, so he says here on page 67, leftism would mean either heavy taxes on or on, heavy taxes on or common ownership of the sort of property that produces wealth. So he really means socialism, but in many ways is also very favorable at times towards Marxism. So that's the kind of leftism that he seems to be arguing for. Yeah, he says the leftist view, instead of a market economy, where it's individuals, you know, doing mutually beneficial exchanges, it's more, it's more the, I think the idea that the mean, what he calls it, the means of producing our stuff is commonly owned. Right.

And can't, then, the ownership of those, as Marks described, the means of production can't be owned by. individuals who concentrate their wealth and their ownership by virtue of that. So it's either state-owned, but more owned in common, more owned by the public is what they're after. We're going to offer some of our critique of that, but I'd love to know what you think the author gets right. Whenever I read a book like this, my first instinct is, I'm going to take issue with this book. I look for areas I have common ground, areas that are positive, areas I can learn from. So what do you think the author gets right? I think there are a number of things.

First on my list is the biblical mandate to care for the poor. Okay. The biblical mandate to make sure that our policies and our public policy doesn't disadvantage further the least among us. And I think that's a biblical mandate that I think he gets right. Okay. The other one that I think is really strong that I think he gets right. And this is a critique of capitalism in general is it does lead to overconsumption. I mean, I think we all could benefit from de-accumulating the amount of stuff that we have.

In fact, one of my worst nightmares is that, you know, my wife and are going to pass prematurely and leave our kids to sort all that out, you know, and God forbid. I think he rightly recognizes the importance of politics, and I think he gets the definition of that right. He gets that exactly right. I was curious if you thought that. Yeah, and this is why we said before, Sean, that this is what makes politics fundamentally a moral enterprise. That's right. Because it's how we order our lives together.

And economics is intertwined with that, because economics to go a step further is how we balance the burdens and benefits of how we order our lives together in community. Those all have significant moral overtones, and I think he gets that right. You know, and I love, you know, toward the end, he says, you know, the essence of Christian faith is that we're all sinners in need of grace. And, you know, being a Christian doesn't make you feel like you're on top of things. It actually makes you feel like you're under things and in need of grace. He points out, we live in a moral universe, which he's right. morality, I think he's right, that God has embedded a moral framework into the nature of reality. And our intuitions every day tell us that that's true.

And every time somebody is the victim of injustice, your relativism goes out the window because people say, no, I've been wronged. And for the relativist, you know, the giant says who question looms large. but not for Christmas. You know, ultimately, we live in a moral universe because God said these things are right or wrong. I mean, he offers a critique. He doesn't have a lot of tolerance for woke stuff,

which I appreciate. He points out, you know, scientism. You know, he has, let's just say, he doesn't have his faith in science to be able to take over what would be lacking, if you put religious faith on the back burner is not high. So he's definitely – he's not a secularist. I mean, I think his Christian faith, I think, is real.

And I think as a result of that, he gets a lot of – he gets some things right. You got other things you want to add to that? Yeah, that's a great list. That's pretty much many of the common ones that I had. His definition of politics is he says it's just morality is practiced by more than one person as humans we need each other. Thus, we have to continue to hash out how we'll live together. And so he agrees with us. We differ on his political views, but he's basically saying we need to think biblically about politics, and politics is one way we love our neighbor. We would agree

with that approach, differ on the practice, which we'll get to. And I think we might actually differ on some of the ends of politics. I think that's right. And we would definitely differ on many of the means to accomplish those ends. In the past, I think we've said that generally there's widespread agreement on the ends of what a political economy should look like. I'm not so sure we will always agree on the ends for this. Fair enough. I think that's, I think that's right, and we'll get to some of that. He says, for example, we live in a moral universe. He writes us on page 78. You know, I did think you see coming through this idea, he goes that morality is not optional for Christians. And he says, we live in a moral

universe. This is one of the points that Christians of all stripes ought to agree about. We think that both morality, existence itself emanate from God's nature. But as a good leftist, God's nature seems to be reduced towards love, which is love. And I go, yeah, it's love. It's also justice. And if you go too far to the right, it's just justice. In this case, too far to the left seems to just be love. I think we need to balance that out. But insofar as we live in a moral universe, he says morality, at least for Christians, is not an add-on. It's part of the fabric of the universe. Amen to that. He says, scientists tends to reduce us to selfish survival machines. I'm reading this going, amen. So there's plenty we can be positive about. But in some ways,

he says this is really more of an essay than a book. And I thought it was fascinating because he's kind of given a testimony. Like somebody could stand up, give a testimony, even evangelical church, about how he left kind of the right-leaning Republican Party, remained a Christian in the way he describes it, and now is on the left. So I'm curious what you make of his convergence story and any points that jumped out as significant to you. Well, it seems his conversion, quote, political conversion was because he read the sermon on the Mount. That's right. And it was deeply, deeply impacted by that. And I think saw, you know, saw a whole host of things that had implications for him in terms of politics and economics. Now, I think we can, we'll debate a bit with

some of the takes that he had, takeaways from the sermon on the mouth. But I think that's basically what got him sort of started on this leftward trend. And I wonder, you know, I, I, you know, This is a point I think we've made in the past when we've talked about the intersection of Christian faith and politics and economics is the political economic world in which the Bible was written was so different. Absolutely. That's right. And that's why I think we've got to be very careful in how we do any direct application from the biblical text, namely things like the sermon on the Mount, to political economy today.

So there's just a whole host of really significant differences that have to be taken into account. I mean, the big one is that, you know, if you would have asked, if you would ask the average person in the first century who they were going to vote for, we have a vote? Like, what do we vote? We're voting for Caesar or not.

You don't vote for seizure, you lose your head. And economics was completely different. It was a zero-sum economic world. And so there was this necessary connection between winners and losers, and people were stuck in an economic strata that they were born into. There were no rags to riches stories in the ancient world.

Lots of the opposite, as the prodigal son shows. but you have to take those differences into account. Now, we'll talk more about how he reads the sermon on the map in a bit. So some of the things you jumped out on page one, the title is testifying, and he talks about growing up in a fundamentalist, evangelical, Pentecostal, Calvinist background. Now, I don't want to – It's quite a combination.

It is, and my point is not to pick on any one of those, but I've written a book on deconstruction and just this is, you hear this over and over again when people move to atheism, agnosticism, progressive Christianity, there's very much a reaction against the way somebody was raised. And I think what this sounds to me like is the sub-theme underneath us is religious rigidity. I think that's right. And that's a part of the theme that we hear, understandably so. But in his mind, he's like, instead of chucking the faith, I want to hold on to Jesus. Jesus, but re-envision what that looks like politically and economically is how he approaches this. So we don't need to talk about this, but he walks through how he assumed that the Republican Party was exactly what it meant to be a Christian.

He's concerned about the wedding between the two. His case of how he went left is he feels like President Barack Obama was just completely attacked by Christians in terms of being a secret Muslim. and his character, et cetera. The economic crash of 2008. He talks a lot about that. It talks about Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and some of these stories. Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, that started to merge about 2012, 2013, really shaped him. And he felt like concerns about wokeness and CRT were just a diversion from the issue.

Donald Trump put him over the top. He's like, once people can support Donald Trump and call themselves Christian, I'm out, the Me Too movement, the pandemic. I'm just trying to get people a sense of, and we're not going to go into this narrative, but they have a sense of where. Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture.

Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word. Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. Where he came from and how it frames where he's at now. You can sort of see sort of one domino falling after another. And he gets to the end of the dominoes.

And, you know, there's not, there's not much left that he was, that he was wanting to embrace. except for, I think he still embraced the scriptures. He still embraced his relationship to Jesus. Now, I think we read the scriptures, we read the scriptures quite differently as a result of that. And I think we can, I mean, we all have our lenses through which we read the scriptures. And I think some, let's just say, I think some political, economic lenses are stronger than others for some people. Sure. And I think the, I think with, you know, it's less clear, Sean, you know, which came first, you know, the political reorientation or his reading scripture.

And I think for him, the sermon on the mount probably came first. And that was the first, that was what kicked off the dominoes falling. But it's not as, it's not as clear that he continued to read the scriptures, I think through, you know, without those pretty strong left-cleaning lenses. You're right. And some of what he talks about here in the sermon of the mount was it suggested a life that was available to me and to them. I felt the possibility of universal solidarity as opposed to this kind of Darwinian winners and losers' approach on the right. You had this universal solidarity we should lean into, which is a theme we always hear on the left. So he's drawn in by that.

Now one thing he talks about... Yeah, which is, I think, just another way of saying that what you had mentioned earlier is that the left tends to emphasize love, the right tends to emphasize justice. And, you know, that's, I think, that's another way of saying some of those same things. Right. Okay, fair enough. So we're going to come back to some of the issues that we've just peppered on here. But early in the book, I mean, page 25, he raises some of the questions of what this means for the LGBTQ conversation.

And part of his leftism, which seems to always occur in my book, maybe someone could find exceptions to this, involves a rejection of the historic Christian view of sex and marriage and embracing LGBTQ relationships and identities. Now, he three times says in the book on different pages 25, 58, and 86, that we know something by its fruit. And it says sometimes theological arguments you can only settle by observations. So he's talking about certain biblical arguments about sex and marriage. And he says kind of, you know, once I was in several churches where some people who, what does he describe it as, lesbians were not able to serve.

He goes, for me, that's the end of the debate, that people say we want to obey Jesus, but some people couldn't serve. and then he says, you know, that some people would stand in the way of a gay person's right to marry, I'm out. Now, I have a lot of thoughts on this. I don't want to get too sidetracked, but do you want to weigh in on this? Well, again, like you, I'm not particularly surprised that this is where he went. It's not, it's not a central part of what he's dealing with. In my view, this is just another domino that fell. and it's not a surprise at all that it's one that did and the you know the I think part of the

the left-leaning culture is you know and it's emphasis on inclusion and what he talked to emphasis on sort of universal solidarity is I think another way of saying that it's trying to be as inclusive as possible and I think it I'm not surprised. And I'd want to be careful that we don't get the theological cart before the horse

on this, because our theology, our ideas determine how we act. They should. They should. No. And it doesn't, we're not leaving room for places where the church has failed. And I think the church has failed in some respects to be to show the love of Christ to the LGBTQ community. Now, I think we can do that without abandoning our convictions either. And it's true that there's some in the LGBTQ community who see our convictions as the same thing as not being loving toward them. Sure. And I think that's, my guess is that's probably what he, some of what he means by.

their fruits. I agree, but he's adopting a certain view, a cultural understanding of love being affirmation, which I think is decidedly not biblical. And three times, he says, by your fruits, you shall know them. Well, what is the scriptures talking about? What is the point being made here? It's the fruit of repentance. It's the fruit of obedience. Look in the sermon of the mountain. Again, five through seven, ironically in Matthew chapter seven, it's very clear that we judge a fruit by, we judge a tree by its fruit. In that context, it's the fruit of obedience. It's the fruit of lawfulness, and it's the fruit of repentance. And so three times he mistakes this argument.

If people have been doing this, I've responded to this for probably a decade and a half now, and people continue to advance this. And so to me, maybe this is uncharitable, Scott, but when somebody says we believe in biblical, authority and keeps advancing such a bad argument, it makes me question the commitment to biblical authority, and at least say on this issue, something is overriding biblical authority from the culture. That's the case that I would make. Fair enough. All right. So he says he goes after the Democratic Party as not going far enough, which I just thought

was interesting. You often hear it from the right, but to hear it from the left, their critique is going to be different from the right? Why did he say the Democratic Party doesn't go far enough? Because it's in collusion with capitalism. Exactly. That's the point. And in his view, our capitalist system, and again, remember, he uses the term capitalism. I don't like that term because I'm going to use it because that's what he did. But just to remind our listeners, that Karl Marx coined that term, and it was intended pejoratively. at emerging market systems.

So I would prefer, you know, market-based economies, you know, things, market systems, but that's a little more unwieldy to say. So we'll just go, we'll go with capitalism for now with that caveat. Fair enough. But I think he, you know, in his view, anything that's tainted by capitalism is morally tainted. and what I don't get is I'm not sure how you can live in the world without being in some form of collusion with capitalism.

If you were buying and selling things on the open market, such as a book. You know, market exchanges are sort of the way we, you know, the way we get out of subsistence level where we produce everything that we own. We'll come back to that. Yeah, we will. But that's basically the reason, Sean,

is, I mean, he would like to see the capitalist system dismantled and replaced with something different, something that he calls, what's the term he used, private, what do you say, private, adequate private resources? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that, you know, But the tension, I think, is that if you're going to deconstruct something, you have to reconstruct it, too. And it's pretty heavy on deconstructing market systems and pretty light on what's going to take its place. And so we'll come back to that. You're right, on page 63, he says, even the Democrats are always in practice in some amount of collusion with capitalism. So capitalism is the ultimate bad guy, the cause of suffering in the world. And so he says Biden, as I expected, was horrible. And so by the way, his critique of Biden helps us understand what he means by the left.

He says he offered unqualified support for Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza. So being on the left is completely seemingly abandoning and critiquing Israel. Really strong climate change policies for giving billions of dollars in student. loans. These are the kind of things. He holds up Bernie Sanders, Rashida Taleb, Ilan Omar as kind of brave and constantly fighting the right kinds of battles. So that's the leftism that he's leaning into. Although, you know, Bernie Sanders has a very healthy net worth. Of course. Yeah. Separate issue. Fair enough. And gets really nice based on capitalism. He does. Okay. So how do you, I, there was a statement in here that he made Let me see, it's on page 24.

I'm really curious you're taking this because you've written a lot on capitalism. He says, it is now at least possible for a person to say, write a book for a major Christian publisher that says, why not consider socialism? Now, this is Erdman, so it's a little broader than, say, like, a baker or a Zondervin or, you know, a Harvest House publishers. But it's a Christian publisher. Is this new? And is that surprise you? Well, I would have expected a different publisher on this. Meaning what?

I would have expected something like Orbis or Mary Knoll, which are the Catholic publishers that have been advocates of liberation theology around the world. So that's the part. The imprint was a bit of a surprise to me. Although I'm not surprised that Christian publishers are publishing it. because, as we mentioned several times before, there's this fascination with socialism among millennials in Gen Z today that did not exist among, you know, my baby boomer generation. And part of the reason for that is because, you know, Gen Z, I think, has a very fading

memory, if at all, of what life was like in Eastern Europe under communism, where socialism was where socialism was tried. I mean, socialism was tried in Cuba, North Korea, Soviet Union, China, you know, all sorts of places around the world. And every place that's been tried, it's been accompanied with tyranny for one. And economically, it's proven to be disastrous. and the reason for that is because the state can't read the minds of individuals who make their, who make their preferences known by the exchanges that they make in the marketplace. The state can't figure out what's best for individuals apart from those market realities.

And that's why the markets reflect our values for better or for worse. Now, sometimes it reflects him for worse. And I think he's focused on the way markets reflect our values for worse. But this is, I think, quite consistent with some of the – what we've seen, the Gen Z fascination. It is. It is. And there's a difference between a Gen Z fascination with it and a Christian publisher opening the door to socialism making a case – or to a book, making a case for socialism.

So to me, it's a sign that I'll be looking for more to see if we see a normalization in that direction, which I'm all for arguing ideas, but I have some real issue we're going to get to with some of the arguments here. So what's your take on this? Is it possible for somebody to be a leftist in the way he characterized it in the book and a Christian, or are they mutually contradictory positions? Let me. I'll answer that, and then I want to sharpen the question.

Okay, do it. I'd rather answer a different question. Okay. And the reason is because I think the Bible is clear, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Okay. Nothing about, you know, political, economic, you know, entailments of that. So I don't think anything in here disqualifies him

from naming the name of Jesus and being saved. I would say is being a leftist in the way he describes consistent with faithfulness to Scripture? Okay. Or consistent with a Christian worldview. And that's a different question. Yes. And I think the answer to that is probably not. Not to mention the LGBTQ stuff we've already talked about.

But I think there's just some problematic things in the view that leftism takes, mainly on economics, that I think run counter to the notions of human beings being created with freedom in the image of God, with dignity. And Sean, everywhere this has been tried, those things have been, they've just been wiped out. And there's a funny thing about utopias. There's only one time where utopia is not going to have tearing it. And that's when the Lord returns and consummates his kingdom. And we will have a utopia with a benevolent. Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go?

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and I think private property particularly the way John Locke articulated it and it was very influential to the founding fathers Locke's view was that the view of private property was an entailment of our rights over our own lives and our own bodies because he saw the fruit of our labor as an extension of our right over our own body

Now, of course, we got from a Christian worldview, of course, God is the one who owns our bodies, and he owns it all. So the theological argument is a little bit different for that. But I think Locke was on to something, and I think this is one of the reasons why the Bible affirms private property as being consistent with not only the ability to take care of the poor, but consistent with a view of a human person as being free and created in God's image with intrinsic dignity that allows for the freedom that market systems that empower in ways that no other system is done. Now, it doesn't do it perfectly, but it does a whole lot better than any other system that's been tried. I think that distinction is very fair. and that was a similar distinction I was going to make.

God judges somebody's heart, and we can't. Your point about if you believe in Christ, you know, you shall be saved, that's like a minimal Christian salvation. So denying the right to private property doesn't mean you lose your salvation, a believing radical climate change, or some of the other things that he talks about here are not salvific issues. The question is, do they line up with a Christian understanding of the world? That's where we would take serious issue. The thing that does give me concern is there's just flirting with Marxism at times, and Marxism is directly antithetical to the Christian worldview.

It is a materialist worldview, period. And of course, Christianity is not. has a fundamentally different view of what it means to be human, the nature of what sin is. So he doesn't call himself a Marxist and embrace all of that. But the flirting with that, I would just say, gives me concern on that level. You know, he doesn't lay out exactly what the gospel is, talks about grace, being a sinner. It still feels like a left-leaning kind of solidarity, heaven on earth kind of gospel. but that might just be a lack of clarity on his part that he clarifies somewhere else. And I haven't taken the time to look at that.

But in principle, I think your distinction is fair. So he defines capitalism and I want to read it for us. And I just, again, super curious if you agree with his take on this. He says, let me just read it for us. He says, by capitalism, I mean the social system in which the means of production, the stuff that makes all our stuff, which includes land, equipment, intellectual property, like patents and the like and stock that gives you a control and interest in these things, is allowed to belong to individual people who have a legal right to pass it on to their children and sell to other individual people or whatever else they might take a mind to do with it. That's it. That's all I mean.

Is that a fair description of capitalism? No. No. Okay. To not mince words. Well, there's quite a bit more to it. Now, in part two of this, we're going to offer a moral case for free markets, and we're going to use the term free markets in that. But I think his definition all reflects around a right of private property.

And there's just a lot more to it than that. Now, I think private property is central to that. But the problem with, I think, the view that he's taking is that, yeah, I think there can be limits on how much you pass on to your heirs. That's why we have inheritance taxes to limit some of that. Yeah. Which I don't think is unfair. Okay. And, you know, I've got it, we've got a good family friend that we've done for a long time very, very well to do, who basically said,

I'm not giving anything inheritance to my kids because I don't want them to be in a place where they're not earning their own way on their own. I commend them for that. But Sean, what happens when you don't have private property is really the problem. Because one of the things that our listeners may not be aware of and our students are not being taught in their history courses is when the earliest settlers came to the United States. States in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they tried socialism for the first year and they nearly starved to death.

And it wasn't until they adopted basically a regimen of recognizing private property and allowed people to have an interest in their own interests economically that they began to flourish. And they began to produce enough food to actually feed themselves. And they began to produce other things that they needed by first. virtue of these mutually beneficial exchanges. And I think the other reason that private property matters is because you can't produce everything that you need on your own.

You have to have others producing other things and we trade and exchange based on the things that we're good at. You know, there's a video that was done years ago. called I pencil. Oh, yeah. It's fascinating. It's a story about a person who tries to make a pencil all by himself. That's right.

And it's this Herculian task that if he tried to put it to scale, pencils would probably cost $10 to $20 a piece. And it showed how unrealistic it was to think that we can have the things that we have without a vibrant dynamic market-based system. The follow-up to that, by the way, is called I-smartphone. Oh. I encourage our viewers to take a look at both of those videos. They're very enlightening about what's involved.

But none of that happens if we don't recognize a right to private property. Jay Richards talks about that in his book, God, greed, and money in which he says, You've got to get the right material. You've got to transport the right material. You've got to weed it together. You've got to shape it. You've got to market it. Like there's so much, the whole point is a pencil seems simple.

But it's a lot of cooperation that takes place that one individual can't do by themselves. Now, to be fair, I wouldn't call that community. Okay. Like some want to do that. I think cooperation is the right thing. I mean, think about, you know, John Stossel did this years ago in a video. he entitled that he made entitled to greed. Great piece on ABC News.

And he goes in the grocery store, and he said, this is my steak I'm bringing home for dinner. How did this get here? And he goes back all the different steps and all the different people who had to do their jobs and be involved in order to bring the most basic food to market. And there were about 20 different steps that were involved in all sorts of different companies that were involved.

each seeking their own interest, while at the same time benefiting for the collective good and his enjoyment of the stake, of course. I'm sure he enjoyed it. So we're going to come back, like you said, in part two and make a case for not capitalism, market. What's the term you use again? Market economies. But there's three kind of big objections that he levels, and maybe just kind of give us your quick take on this. And one of them that he writes on page 68 is that he says, you know, capitalism doesn't generate dynamic innovation, in part because people are just one step away from financial ruin. And so if people had more of kind of a social security that was built into them and had more insurance, then they'd be dynamic and innovative.

And capitalism undermines that. And he gives the example, actually, I thought it was interesting. He says, Jonas Salk, when he wanted to get the polio, not to become a billionaire, but he just wanted to give the property rights away as an example of how this can be done for the collective good. What's your take on that? Well, I think what he says is true in the developing world, but not in the West. where, and I would call it crony capitalism that's being tried in a lot of the developing world, mainly in sub-Sahara Africa. And I don't think the average person is one step from financial ruin. Now, I think there are more people living paycheck to paycheck.

That probably is true. And it is true that, you know, people are, people do get bankrupted by cancer treatments, for example, if they're not insured. Now, there's a lot more discussion about that. But capitalism, there's no doubt in the empirical evidence is beyond dispute that capitalism generates dynamic innovations. Now, there's just that, I mean, his statement about capitalism not doing that is just patently false.

Because, I mean, we can go on and on and on about, the innovations, that market-based systems that allow people to benefit from the fruit of their labors and from taking risks. And we forget, entrepreneurs are the ones who provide the vast majority of jobs. And it's companies that are under the size of 50 that produce like 75% of the jobs in the United States. And so without entrepreneurs being willing to take risks, and they risk at all. They do. And lots of entrepreneurs fail for a variety of reasons. And the ones that succeed often do so spectacularly.

But remember, some of the most significant entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos, didn't make a profit for probably 15 years. I didn't realize it was that long. It was a long time until people trusted the Internet that their financial information was going to be safe. So I think Salk, I think, is a wonderful, example of charity and altruism, you know, although my understanding is the people who made the COVID-19 vaccines, they did make a nice profit over that. That was not the same kind of altruism. But that, you know, that's just patently false. Yeah, I think these are the exceptions that kind of prove the rule. Like if you were counting numbers here, the amount of people that

built businesses like you said that hired other people, created products that worked for the collective good, were not motivated by these very things and would not have been motivated by these very things. So you can find an exception here or there isn't going to set up a pattern that this will work as a whole because like you said, it actually never has. One of the arguments he makes at least twice in here, and you see this a lot in kind of the mainstream media, is he talks of how we outlawed non-penal slavery in the U.S., but that especially in developing

countries, slaves grow our chocolate, build our iPhones, work on the stadia that will host the World Cup. He says, whatever you call our economic system, is not fully outgrown the slavery that attended its expansion. So should we blame the U.S.

for enslaving people around the world for our own greed because of capitalism? Way overstated. and the exceptions don't make the rule. What I want to be careful about, Sean, is that we don't equate employment with enslavement. Those are two different things. And I caught glimpses of where, you know, all the examples that he cited were these extremes. You know, he didn't cite the examples that way, way outnumber them about people who, you know,

take jobs voluntarily, they leave them voluntarily. They're mutually beneficial exchanges. I mean, you and I, you know, we get paid for coming to teach our class. We agree to do that. It's a mutually beneficial exchange. Nobody's forcing us to do this. We can both leave these at any time we want to, though I'm hoping that neither of us do. But to equate employment with being enslaved, I think is hugely reductionistic.

and just doesn't, doesn't appreciate just what a labor market actually is. I think he also does not talk about places like in, say, China and the actual slavery of Uighurs over there. And that wouldn't get, if he was right, that wouldn't get capitalist countries off the hook for what they allegedly do. I think your point still stands. But to just single this out as if it's a unique problem of capitalism is completely narrow-minded. And I'm not given three cheers for sweatshops, but I'm given maybe one or two. Because if in the parts of the developing world where those exist, yeah, the conditions are unethical and should be illegal. But to give, I mean, if those people don't have those jobs, those factories aren't there, Sean, what are their alternatives?

alternatives are, you know, begging on the street or, you know, selling their children or, you know, prostitution for women. There just aren't good alternatives. So, yeah, there are things problematic about that. And I'm not an apologist for those. Sure. But I think those do provide meaningful jobs. And in some parts of the world, Sean, families don't have a choice but to send their children to work.

Because they can't feed their families without that. Now, you might ask, well, why are they in that situation? Some of it has to do with the economic system that exists in general that doesn't provide innovation. Need a daily spark of hope and direction? Let the Daily Bible app from Salem Media Be That Spark. This free Android app delivers an uplifting verse each morning plus reading plans,

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So in his part of his solution against capitalism, and you were referencing this earlier, is what he calls private sufficiency plus public luxury. Let me just read the way he describes it. It's on page 66. He says, I'm personally a big fan of the idea of private sufficiency plus public luxury. To quote a mantra beloved of some eco-socialist. A society where nobody has a private swimming pool, but they're well-maintained and beautiful public pools every few blocks.

Few people have cars, but public transit is a sci-fi dream. I can't own thousands of the books I covet, but every last little township library has robust collection and direct line of the fanciest research libraries in the world. Is that doable what we should strive towards and be fans of, or is that an unworkable utopian dream? Well, I think it's a nice idea in theory. And the public libraries, you know, we got back from New York City not long ago, New York City Public Library is astonishing. Yeah.

It's fantastic. But private sufficiency, it will not motivate people to work harder. So true. And this is where, you know, yeah, I mean, we have to take into account the fallen timber of humanity. Although the Bible does not condemn the pursuit of self-interest, right? We'll get to that in part two. But I think private sufficiency is not enough to keep people striving and working and continuing to bring new products to market that benefit that provide wealth and jobs and products and service. that people need, is not going to provide the kind of medical innovation that's going to save

lives. And the public luxury, I think, is subject to what environmentalists call the tragedy of the commons. And generally, when things are held in common, nobody owns them, and nobody takes responsibility for them. And nobody feels responsibility for them. And that's a big part of the reason we have issues with the environment because the pollution that I create, the wind takes that to somebody else's neighborhood. And I don't have to worry about it, right? And rivers that are polluted, you know, they go to other countries. And therefore, I don't have to worry about it. And think about what's happened to public housing today. You know, that's not a good advertisement for the possibility of public luxury. Now, lots of

means have great parks. But lots of parks are not privately owned. They're run down. And there's not, nobody has an incentive to keep them up. My wife's family is a big car family. And one of the advice they gave us is never buy a used car that was a rental. Because it's your people who drive a rental car are going to drive it differently because they just turn the keys over to somebody else versus one.

you own and care for because of human nature. And I think that makes your point that good in theory, but just simply not going to work. I like libraries, but there's some books I like to own, and it means something to me. And I write in it and I go back to it. And I think there's not only not something wrong with that. There's something good about that that I think he's missing. Biblical argument, love you take on this, is that he talks about work and makes the point that he says, Jesus decouples work from subsistence entirely.

So this passage in Matthew 6, verse 28 through 30, I'll read it. And Jesus says, and why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon all his glory was not array like one of these. But if God is so closed grass, the field, which today's lab and tomorrow was thrown into the oven, will he not much more cloth you, oh, you of little faith? what's in between the lines on this is that work is primarily the means by which God close us and feeds us.

And I don't think he's decoupling work from subsistence. What he's saying is that God will ultimately provide for you. He doesn't suggest what the means is to provide that. Interesting point. I mean, how does God answer the prayer give us this day our daily bread? Mainly, it's by our jobs that we have. Right? And I think in part, it's by the economic systems that we have that generate wealth.

To be honest, I can't remember the last time I prayed that prayer, except in church when we repeat the word's prayer. Right. Because God has provided this through my job. Now, he also says later that Jesus also sacramentalized work. He does. He does. And that, you know, in part, the reason is because our work contributes to the common good. But it also is the means by which we take care of ourselves and our dependence. That's a great point. I had not thought about that. The means by which God gives the bread. the means by which God clothes us. I think the larger point he's making here, the end is, oh, you of little faith. It's about their faith. It's about their trust in God. And this is merely an illustration to get there, not trying to decouple work from, you know, subsistence in the way that he argues.

I'd want to ask our author, if he's taking this literally like this, why doesn't he quit his job? Fair question. Why does he get up and go to work? Because he knows that if you don't work, you're probably not going to eat. Which is the danger of taking passages out of a larger biblical context in which Paul has a lot to say in the Proverbs about somebody being worthy of their wages and specifically working. All right, so I got just a few more for you here. At the root of some of this, he argues that Christians should view everyone as their neighbor. So should we view everybody as our neighbor? And should the government not favor citizens over non-citizens?

Well, I think, you know, put it this way. The parable of the Good Samaritan suggests that our neighbor is anyone who has a need. That's the definition of our neighbor. Now, I think we have slightly different. obligations to different types of neighbors based on relationships. For example, I have a different, what compassion looks like for my students is different than what it looks like for my family. Right? Because there are things that I will do for my family that I won't do for my students. Just to clube my students in on that.

Yeah. Just to let you know. And it also, I think, depends on proximity and ability and stewardship. I think what he's suggesting here is something akin to open borders immigration policy that I think fails to take into account that governments have limited resources. and the citizens that pay taxes, I think, have a greater claim on those resources than those who do not. Now, those who have need also have a claim on the common resources. I think that's true.

But I don't think governments are necessarily wrong to restrict those, exercising those claims to those who are citizens. Now, I think that we need to leave some room for people who are non-citizens as a safety net. I think there's, for example, I think they ought to be provided with medical care because that's a public health concern if they're not. But I think the combination of open borders in a welfare state is that prescription for, I think, a stewardship disaster. And I think that's probably not quite what's taken into account. I think that's fair. I don't know. We could have a discussion about this. You might be right, whether the point of the Good Samaritan is that my neighbor is anyone in need versus we should not just assume that my neighbor is those who are like me and I get along with, but it expands my boundaries to include somebody like a Good Samaritan. Wait a minute. They're my enemies. And obviously the Bible's not going to address the age of the internet. We're aware of needs around the world and the impossibility of.

of managing that. I mean, right now, my wife, we have a neighbor who's not doing well, and she was shopping yesterday and went over and delivered food to her and spent an hour just talking with her. There's a responsibility to somebody across the street from us that you don't have equally to somebody on the other side of the world. It doesn't mean we don't care about them, does we don't give to them. But there's still-

It's waited more heavily. I don't think it's, yeah, waited more heavily. It's not possible to treat every single person on the planet. as a government or an individual, nor should we, it seems to me. That's sort of what I meant by proximity. Okay, fair enough. It determines the weighting of it. That makes sense.

So a couple last questions, and we'll wrap this up. I'm curious what, at the very end, he has this suggestion about how to move forward to get people to become leftists. And he says, we need to recruit Christian moms of all genders. So in part, there's the angle of like, do we need to recruit more moms? than more guys. And this is probably such a stereotype, but some would say the left can lean towards more feminine, compassion. The right can lean more masculine with justice.

And these are just kind of stereotypical ways. Sometimes people will characterize that. So for somebody in the left that leans into compassion and solidarity to say we need more moms, it's interesting because in this moment we're seeing more guys, at least in the U.S., become more conservative and more women leaning to the left a little bit. It's an interesting moment to say that. So there's that piece, but then Christian moms of all genders. Yeah, let's, I mean, we should probably, we should just point that out and then otherwise, leave it alone.

I do have, I know you can't help yourself. At point, when you say that, I'm like, I'm sorry, you have left the Christian faithful farm. That is nowhere in scripture, the idea that a biological. male can be a mom is it's an insult. I hate to say, I'm not to an individual person, but to the clear teachings of Scripture, Genesis, all the way forward. Right. Yeah. He says we need to recruit Christian moms because they get things done. That's why. That's probably true. Which, you know, which, you know, that sort of wipes out that masculine, feminine characterization.

that we were going for. But, you know, I get why he wants to recruit people to the cause. But it's a, I think that the hard, the hard, hard left is a really hard sell for most people. And I think, you know, I think this is why, you know, the candidacy of folks like Bernie Sanders never really went anywhere. So it's just it's a tough sell because people, I think people recognize that incentives matter and that you have to account for reality in a fallen world. And markets do really good job of that. We're going to talk about that in our next episode. But I feel in some ways it feels like a tug in between my heart and my mind because a lot of things he writes, my heart goes, yeah, I want solidarity like that.

I want to have this universal connection with people and care for the poor and the environment. Like some of the stories he tells are pulling on the heartstrings. Like I get why people are drawn to the left. I understand it. At the very end, though, why I think I'm not is there's no other way to put it. Then it's just divorced from reality. You writes on page 162. One of the most important things about leftism is that it is a rejection of the existing reality in favor of.

moral values that no society has made concrete yet i go yeah it hasn't made it concrete why because it doesn't line up with human value it doesn't line up with economic laws it doesn't line up with human nature and our self-interest so it's not that we haven't tried it yet it's that we've tried it and it's failed and that's the consistent record so i'm not a leftist because i don't think the bible supports it and even if i wasn't a christian i wouldn't be a leftist because i wouldn't be a leftist because it just doesn't match up with reality. It doesn't work. Now, if you have any final comments on that, great.

But maybe tell us we're going to do a part two on the positive case for market economics. Right. I've written on this on the virtues of, quote, capitalism. That was the publisher's title, not mine. Fair enough. And we laid out a moral case for free markets. and I think there are, there's good biblical and moral justification for organizing our political economy around as free a market system as we can have. That's not to say that it shouldn't have guardrails, and that there's a place for that,

and it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be abuses. But as I think as we've said before, the problem with capitalism is capitalists. seeing that the problem with socialism is socialism. The problems you mentioned, that's intrinsic to the system. That's right. And whenever it's been tried, it has failed. Well, I'm looking forward to that episode. And if you're watching this on either YouTube or listening on the Think Biblical podcast,

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