5 Reasons Christianity supports Economic Freedom

1. 5 Reasons Christianity supports Economic Freedom Anne Rathbone Bradley, PhD Institute for Faith, Work & Economics abradley@tifwe.org

3. Economic Freedom • Individuals have economic freedom when property they acquire without the use of force, fraud, or theft is protected from physical invasions by others and they are free to use, exchange, or give their property as long as their actions do not violate the identical rights of others….James Gwartney and Robert Lawson et al.Economic Freedom of the World: 1996 Annual Report

4. Economic Freedom

5. Why Should Christians Care? • There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’ ---Abraham Kuyper • Video

6. 5 Reasons • Christian view of human anthropology • We are called to serve others, especially the poor • We are called to flourishing • Property rights are critical in scripture • Redistribution through coercion is not biblical rather limited government is the model

7. 1: Human anthropology • Uniqueness

8. So God created mankind in his own image,in the image of God he created them;male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” ---Genesis 1:27-28

9. We are image-bearers of God • We are created to work • We are born with something to contribute, we need freedom to do it.

10. 2. Serving the Poor The righteous care about justice for the poor,but the wicked have no such concern. ---Proverbs 29:7

11. “Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution. In this very minute, a child is being born to an American family and another child, equally valued by God, is being born to a family in India. The resources of all kinds that will be at the disposal of this new American will be on the order of 15 times the resources available to his Indian brother.

12. This seems to us a terrible wrong, justifying direct corrective action, and perhaps some actions of this kind can and should be taken. But of the vast increase in the well-being of hundreds of millions of people that has occurred in the 200-year course of the industrial revolution to date, virtually none of it can be attributed to the direct redistribution of resources from rich to poor. The potential for improving the lives of poor people by finding different ways of distributing current production is nothing compared to the apparently limitless potential of increasing production.” ---Nobel Laureate, Robert Lucas

13. The best most productive and well-tested way of helping the poor is through market trade. • Enabling people to use their gifts and skills to serve others has lifted billions out of poverty over the last hundred years. Billions.

15. 3. Called to flourishing • God calls us into community with each other • He gifts us with talents and skills so we can find personal fulfillment and serve others.

16. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” --Jeremiah 29:4-7

17. 4. Value of Property Rights • Property rights are part of the biblical narrative of stewardship • We are given dominion over the earth • That dominion is reinforced in the 8th commandment • Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal”

18. 5. Limited Government • There is no place in the scripture that calls for massive redistribution through the state • The left claims certain aspects of scripture • Acts 2-5 • Leviticus 25:10 • Old Testament/New Testament distinctions • Israel was a theocracy • OT prophets did warn other nations about violating negative rights • NT state as a protector of negative rights (Romans)

19. Stewardship • Economic Freedom helps us better us our scarce resources which have multiple and competing ends. • Free-market economics correlate with certain biblical truths that can bring us higher levels of flourishing or shalom.