Monday, November 29, 2021

SHAME, GUILT, PRIVILEGE, AND TRUTH

 


 

What if your parents worked hard to save money to send you to good schools enabling you to get a good job and to raise your own family? Consequently, you have been advantaged, at least financially, compared to the underprivileged. Should this be a cause of guilt and shame? Should you be made to feel ashamed of your advantage?
 
How are we to begin to answer these questions, especially now that many are moral relativists. Consequently, they believe that morality is just something we make up as we go along. Therefore, it is always evolving according to evolving social norms. Consequently, it lacks any solid foundation from which to answer these questions.
 
If this is true and there are no absolute moral laws to inform us if we are truly guilty for making use of our “advantage,” then there are no objective answers to our questions, and we must fend for ourselves in a meaningless, valueless, and uncaring universe. Without objective moral reasoning, manipulation and coercion reign.
 
If there are answers, they can only come from moral laws that are higher than we are, laws to which we must conform - laws which depend upon God.
 
Therefore, I will try to answer these questions from the perspective of God’s Words. Are we guilty for enjoying the benefits of the labors of our parents? Evidently not! Instead, this is part of God’s plan:
 
·       Disaster pursues sinners, but the righteous are rewarded with good. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.” (Proverbs 13:21-22)
 
Caring of the family is righteous. According to the Lord, there is nothing wrong about reaping from our labors:
 
·       The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor...Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth. (Proverbs 12:24, 26)
 
It is fitting that the diligent should benefit. Therefore, we must not allow anyone to shame us because of the benefits we have received through the righteous labors of our families. Besides, the family, not an institution, has been commissioned to be responsible for the well-being of their families:
 
·       If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows. (1 Timothy 5:16)
 
Providing for our own family is an honorable undertaking in the eyes of our Lord. It is even the best way to bless our neighbors.
 
Love must work its way out from the center of the family to others. Instead, if the husband were to equally bless his neighbors with his money and attentions, this would sow discord within his own family and eventually create problems for his neighborhood. Instead, a happy and righteous family is a blessing to its neighborhood.
 
Whenever the government assumes the role of the family, tragedy follows. It is inevitable that financial entitlements and income redistribution will undermine the foundation of the society – the family.
 
The Bible repeatedly claims that it is fitting that those who work should benefit from their labors, while those who refuse to work should bear the consequences:
 
·       For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. (2 Thessalonians 3:10)
 
There are no Biblical mandates for income redistribution. Instead, such programs are antithetical to the Bible. To reward laziness creates more laziness and undermines initiative:
 
·       Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. (2 Thessalonians 3:6)
 
We should not reward laziness but praise righteous motivation. Instead of making outcomes equal, Jesus was ready to increase the disparity:
 
·       “For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (Matthew 25:29)
 
Jesus found no problem that some would be left with nothing, while others would have everything:
 
·       “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear." (Matthew 13:41-43)
 
Jesus' teachings were based on those of the OT, where we find that God had often blessed His servants with riches, as He had done with Abraham and Job. Evidently, there is nothing immoral about having wealth, but rather the selfish love of wealth.
 
Nor is wealth to be envied. I was raised in a family were we never wanted for anything. Yet, I was seriously depressed and dysfunctional for decades. (I later learned that the “oppressors,” now regarded as the whites, have a suicide rate almost three times that of blacks, the “oppressed.”).
 
However, as Christians we know that everything we possess is a gift from God (James 1:17), even our labors. This is why we give thanks for our food. Therefore, we have a duty to share the gifts of God:
 
·       “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.” (Deuteronomy 15:7–8)
 
However, such giving – a loan – would not dis-empower. It is given with discernment to someone who had become poor because of his circumstances. Nor would it be regarded as an entitlement. Instead, he would regard it as an act of love and would try to prove himself grateful through his labors. It would build community rather than to destroy it by the entitlements of an undiscerning, impersonal, condescending, and overbearing government.
 
Do not allow any to shame you because you and your family have been enabled to enjoy the fruits of your labors. The alternative means the end of all fruit, sharing, and the destitution of all. In 1776, Adam Smith explained the economic success of Great Britain:
 
·       That security which the laws of Great Britain give to every man that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish.… The natural effort of every individual is to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, … capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity.… In Great Britain industry is perfectly secure; and though it is far from being perfectly free, it is as free or freer than in any other part of Europe.
 
Free enterprise energizes; its elimination brings decay and neediness to all, except the elites, the enforcers at the top. Ironically, the Marxist nations have gone capitalistic to survive, while the West refuses to learn the consistent lessons of history. However, the “Marxists” hypocritically insist that this is only temporary.

 

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