The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 74 - Jesus Is Not A Socialist

00:00:00.000 So the the debate that everyone's having now, the thing everyone's discussing is it's it's and it's a great debate.

00:00:06.460 It's a very intellectually stimulating debate. It's over the issue of whether or not Jesus is a socialist.

00:00:16.060 The person who runs the Democratic Socialists of America made this claim recently in an interview.

00:00:23.000 And and then former comedian Stephen Colbert said the same thing on his show a couple of days ago.

00:00:27.940 He said that God is a socialist and he cited as proof the fact that Jesus didn't charge a copay before healing blind people.

00:00:37.740 So that obviously indicates that he was a socialist.

00:00:43.120 So, all right. Let's let's tackle this question.

00:00:49.100 Was Jesus a socialist? And here here's my argument.

00:00:52.740 No, you nitwits. No, he was not a socialist. 0.98

00:00:58.300 End of that's it. That's the end of the show. We'll just leave it there because I don't.

00:01:02.520 It's hardly it's hardly a statement that that warrants a response because it's so absurd.

00:01:07.940 But I realize that this is a popular idea even among some Christians.

00:01:13.280 So I guess maybe I should elaborate a little bit more than that.

00:01:16.520 So if I had to elaborate, then this is this is what I would say. 0.91

00:01:20.940 In fact, I'll give you three reasons why Jesus is not a socialist and why this whole idea is completely ridiculous.

00:01:29.800 And I'm going to move pretty quickly through the first two reasons.

00:01:32.660 I think they're sort of self-evident and I want to focus more on the third.

00:01:35.600 So, first of all, Jesus did not endorse any economic or political system at all.

00:01:44.300 So that's the first way we know he wasn't a socialist because he never said anything about about any kind of government system or economic system,

00:01:53.240 which means that he wasn't a socialist, but he wasn't a capitalist either. 0.93

00:01:57.420 To say that Jesus was a capitalist would also be ridiculous. 0.89

00:02:00.500 And you do on occasion hear that. 0.82

00:02:02.440 You don't hear that claim nearly as often as you hear that Jesus was a socialist.

00:02:05.600 But I have heard in response to the Jesus was a socialist argument, I have sometimes heard people say,

00:02:12.860 well, no, he was really a capitalist.

00:02:14.760 Well, he wasn't that either.

00:02:15.780 Jesus, it's very glaringly obvious when you read scriptures that, or at least the way that it appears is,

00:02:23.360 Jesus doesn't really care that much what's economic system you're living under.

00:02:30.220 That's not really his point.

00:02:32.180 And we'll get to his point here in a minute.

00:02:35.600 But he wasn't concerned with that.

00:02:37.480 He wasn't concerned with making these reforms to political systems.

00:02:42.440 That's not what he was worried about.

00:02:45.180 He could have.

00:02:46.200 And in fact, I think that most people in his time expected him to do that.

00:02:51.700 They expected him to come in and be a political revolutionary.

00:02:56.660 And he wasn't that.

00:02:58.780 And now we have 2,000 years of Christianity and we have the scripture that we can go back and reference.

00:03:05.600 To see very clearly that he was not a political revolutionary.

00:03:08.680 Yet still somehow, even people today are as surprised and I guess disappointed as people were back in Jesus' time that he is not a political revolutionary.

00:03:20.420 That's not what he was about.

00:03:21.740 He was, is a revolutionary of a very different, more transcendent sort.

00:03:27.100 Second point, socialism and communism are objective evils.

00:03:32.300 And we know that because we can look, by your fruits you shall know them.

00:03:36.460 So let's look at the fruits of this particular fig tree.

00:03:40.360 And we'll find that we've got over 100 million people since the beginning of the 20th century who have been killed.

00:03:48.280 Well over 100 million people who have been killed by communism and socialism.

00:03:53.260 And then many, many millions more that have been left starving, destitute, imprisoned, enslaved, even still today.

00:04:01.400 If you look over in places like Venezuela.

00:04:04.320 So that's the effect that communism and socialism have.

00:04:08.500 They are a blight on the earth.

00:04:10.640 And it's really impossible to ignore that fact when you just look at very recent world history.

00:04:18.860 Third point, this is what I really want to focus on.

00:04:21.080 You could almost put the other two aside, even though, even though those two points alone should be enough to dispel this whole notion.

00:04:27.980 You can even put them aside.

00:04:29.440 Let's focus on this third thing.

00:04:31.800 Most important, the whole idea behind socialism really is to find a way to solve poverty.

00:04:39.580 The fact that socialism is a solution for poverty, which only leads to more poverty, should really tell you something.

00:04:48.140 And it tells us not only that socialism is a horrible system in and of itself.

00:04:53.360 It tells us that poverty is not a social disease that the government can cure.

00:05:00.660 And so anytime the government sets out to cure it, to get rid of it, and to instate some kind of utopian society where poverty doesn't exist,

00:05:09.720 anytime the government tries to do that, it has disastrous results because it cannot happen.

00:05:14.020 And that's not the way that Jesus wanted us to look at it.

00:05:18.160 Jesus does not want us to address poverty through bureaucracy.

00:05:22.220 That's not the primary way that he wants us to address it, which isn't to say that government should have no role whatsoever in helping the poor.

00:05:30.860 That's not the point.

00:05:32.060 It's simply to say that the responsibility of helping the less fortunate falls primarily on the individual, not primarily on the state.

00:05:41.320 But I think that it's clear that that's the, that's the, um, practically speaking, that's the best way of going about it.

00:05:49.140 But also from a spiritual perspective, from a religious, from a Christian perspective, that is obviously what Jesus believed as well.

00:05:55.800 So I've, we've kind of been through these verses before and other, discussing other topics, but let's go through them again, because obviously they're very relevant to this topic too.

00:06:05.620 So here's a few verses I think we should look at.

00:06:08.180 Instances in scripture where Jesus is talking about the poor and what we're supposed to do about the poor.

00:06:15.960 This is obviously, it's obviously a topic he talked quite a bit, he talked about quite a bit.

00:06:20.020 So if he really wanted us to instate some particular economic system in order to help poor people, he had plenty of opportunity to mention it and he never did.

00:06:31.900 But this is what he said instead.

00:06:33.640 Matthew 25, 40, and the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these brothers, you did it to me.

00:06:42.020 Matthew 5, 42, give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

00:06:47.600 Luke 12, 33, sell your possessions and give it to the needy.

00:06:51.580 Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.

00:06:59.600 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

00:07:03.360 Luke 21, 1, Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.

00:07:13.300 And he said, truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them, for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.

00:07:22.600 Luke 14, 12, he said also to the man who had invited him, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.

00:07:34.280 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

00:07:44.380 Luke 3, 11, and he answered them, whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.

00:07:53.560 So just a few examples, five or six examples there.

00:07:55.760 Notice that the words government, state, law, policy, tax, least of all socialism, do not appear in any of these verses.

00:08:14.740 Here is Jesus over and over and over again talking about here's what we should do about poor people.

00:08:21.200 He never says anything about passing a law, never even mentions it.

00:08:25.760 It's pretty incredible, right?

00:08:27.540 But there is a word that appears over 20 times in just those five or six verses.

00:08:32.700 That is the word you.

00:08:35.260 Over and over again, he's saying you, you.

00:08:38.280 This is what you need to do.

00:08:40.760 You personally.

00:08:41.880 This is what you personally as an individual should be doing.

00:08:46.320 Jesus is not interested in establishing systems by which the poverty problem can be impersonally solved.

00:08:54.600 He's interested in you going by your own free will with your own money and taking all of that and using it to help your neighbor.

00:09:06.620 He wants you to take your money and give it to the needy in your community.

00:09:12.600 That's what he wants.

00:09:13.820 And I don't think, and this is, I'm not putting words in Jesus' mouth.

00:09:16.880 I'm not, I'm not, I'm not even really interpreting those passages.

00:09:20.700 That's what he's saying very directly.

00:09:22.900 This is what you need to do.

00:09:24.980 And I don't think that that obligation is fulfilled.

00:09:28.560 I don't think it even begins to be fulfilled by paying your taxes.

00:09:32.220 Now, he also tells us to pay our taxes, but I don't think he, he does not conflate paying your taxes with helping the poor.

00:09:43.280 Those two things are not related.

00:09:46.360 In fact, he says, give the Caesar what is Caesar's.

00:09:50.100 Those would be the taxes.

00:09:51.220 But in terms of your, you know, your possessions, your tunic, your, your food, your, you know, your individual possessions, give those to the poor.

00:10:02.680 So those two obligations are not the same.

00:10:06.220 And I would also mention that our obligation to help the poor is especially not fulfilled by sitting on the side and lobbying the government to take more money from your neighbor to give to the poor, which is, it's, it's very interesting that so often the people who are pushing for these systems, that's what they want.

00:10:29.000 They're not even saying, take more from me.

00:10:31.360 They're saying, no, take more from all of those people.

00:10:35.100 All of these socialist college students, for instance, who have no job, no assets, nothing to tax, yet they want more.

00:10:42.320 They want, they want things for themselves too, right?

00:10:44.900 They want, they want their student loans paid for.

00:10:47.120 They want all that stuff.

00:10:48.280 But then they also are socialists, right?

00:10:50.080 They're socialists.

00:10:50.640 So they're saying, they're saying, give some stuff to me.

00:10:53.500 Oh yeah.

00:10:54.060 And also give to the poor, but don't take from me.

00:10:56.800 Take from those guys over.

00:10:57.660 Take from those guys and then give a little bit to me to pay off my student loan and then also give some to the poor.

00:11:02.400 Aren't I so generous?

00:11:03.680 I'm so generous that I am lobbying for the government to take more from those guys and give it to those guys.

00:11:10.600 That wasn't what Jesus had in mind.

00:11:13.360 There's also a really interesting thing in scripture that you notice.

00:11:16.420 And I think we often kind of gloss over.

00:11:19.880 And that is that Jesus tells us constantly to give to the poor.

00:11:25.780 Yet, he also says that, he also says, blessed are the poor.

00:11:30.500 He warns us against wealth, tells us to give up everything, tells us to give up our attachment to worldly possessions,

00:11:38.460 tells us to give our wealth to the poor, who he says are blessed because they don't have that wealth,

00:11:46.120 and who it seems could possibly be harmed by wealth.

00:11:50.700 Because he obviously says that wealth is a dangerous thing because it can lead you to an attachment to the world and away from eternal life.

00:12:01.580 So, all those things are kind of confusing, isn't it?

00:12:05.500 And notice something else, too.

00:12:06.800 I mentioned that there was the story of the widow in the temple who gives her only two coins to the temple.

00:12:14.380 And Jesus points to her as an example and commends her.

00:12:20.200 But if the point here is just to kind of get rid of poverty, like it's some kind of disease, to treat it, to cure it like a disease,

00:12:28.200 then wouldn't he have told the widow, no, no, no, you're poor already.

00:12:32.500 Don't put your last two coins in the—no, don't do that.

00:12:36.140 Don't put those in the treasury.

00:12:37.480 Take those.

00:12:37.960 Wouldn't he have told her to take her coins out and then told one of the rich folks to put in two more coins to compensate?

00:12:43.660 But he doesn't do that.

00:12:44.480 But why?

00:12:45.900 I think these are questions we have to tackle.

00:12:47.700 And when we do, it becomes kind of obvious that the real point here, Jesus' real point, is love.

00:12:56.660 What Jesus wants us to do, what he wants from us, is love.

00:13:02.220 And that's the real point of giving to the poor, is love, is loving them.

00:13:07.480 Obviously, providing for their physical needs is important, and it's part of the point, but it's not the primary point.

00:13:13.540 The primary point is to love them, to lift them up, to elevate them through this act of personal, self-sacrificing love.

00:13:24.900 And so when you, by your own free will and volition, make the choice to go and help somebody, help someone who's less fortunate,

00:13:33.320 then you, obviously, what you're doing, whatever practical thing you're doing for them,

00:13:38.180 if you're giving them food, if you're giving them money, then there are some very real practical benefits there,

00:13:44.980 because those are things that they need physically.

00:13:47.060 So that's great.

00:13:47.820 But even more important than that, they are lifted up by this humanizing love that you're showing for them,

00:13:56.860 and then you are also lifted up by it.

00:13:58.520 You also benefit from this act of love.

00:14:03.100 Now, the problem is, and as I said, I'm not suggesting that the government has absolutely no role whatsoever ever in providing some form of assistance for some people.

00:14:20.360 I'm not saying that.

00:14:21.140 But what we have to deal with is the fact that there is no love in the welfare state.

00:14:27.820 There is no love in taxation.

00:14:31.700 It's bureaucratic.

00:14:33.400 It's impersonal.

00:14:34.380 It's disinterested.

00:14:35.540 It's dehumanizing.

00:14:38.420 Someone, a poor person, does not experience and is not elevated by the fruits of love when he cashes a check that was sent to him by some government office.

00:14:51.140 Has anyone ever felt this, the power of love when they're given an EBT card?

00:15:00.020 Is that, are people lifted up by this feeling of love from the bureaucratic entity that handed them this card?

00:15:08.620 No, I think what happens is that it's sort of the opposite, that poor people are treated like numbers and statistics.

00:15:16.860 They are treated like a problem that must be solved.

00:15:22.160 They are not treated like human beings who must be loved.

00:15:26.140 So we're doing the opposite of what Christ tells us to do when we neglect the poor in our own communities and trust that the government will just take care of it.

00:15:38.540 Even if the government's taking care of it with our own money.

00:15:41.220 And so we feel like, well, that's, that's kind of the same.

00:15:43.620 They're using my money.

00:15:44.440 And so it's sort of generous.

00:15:45.780 No, that's not.

00:15:46.900 No, no.

00:15:47.560 Paying your taxes as you are compelled to do, in which you have no choice but to do, is not love.

00:15:57.180 Cheering on the entitlement system, funded mostly with other people's money, not your own, that is not love.

00:16:03.860 I think to love is to go on your own personally and to give, to give what you have, to give of yourself.

00:16:11.320 That's what we're supposed to do.

00:16:13.720 And even though Jesus does not endorse or support or advocate for any particular economic or political system,

00:16:22.440 it seems clear to me that an economic or political system that better enables us to use our own money and help those in our community,

00:16:32.360 that that is clearly going to be the superior system, not just from economic and political standards, but from Christian standards.

00:16:40.300 Because it better enables us to do what Jesus is telling us to do.

00:16:45.920 I mean, this is something that has especially been on my heart the last year or so.

00:16:53.320 Because you think about even, you know, when you're walking downtown in the city and you pass by all these homeless people,

00:17:03.060 and there's always that, when you pass by a homeless person, there's always that feeling of discomfort,

00:17:09.580 and you feel a little wary, like you want to give them money,

00:17:12.220 but then you also realize that a great majority of homeless people have drug and alcohol problems.

00:17:19.940 It's why they're homeless, many of them.

00:17:23.260 And so if you give them money, it seems like there's probably a very good statistical chance that they're going to use it on drugs or alcohol.

00:17:29.000 And so there's always that, should I give them money, should I not get,

00:17:32.740 to just pass by a homeless person to give them nothing, feels cruel,

00:17:35.780 but to give them something that might then be used on drugs or alcohol,

00:17:41.280 maybe that doesn't seem like the right thing either.

00:17:42.700 And so I think like most people, that's something that's always been, I'm always going back and forth on that.

00:17:49.840 And I do think that, and I try to, whenever possible, I think the best thing when you see a homeless person,

00:17:56.100 if you can, buy them a meal, you know, give them food.

00:18:00.300 I try to keep like little care packages in my car, just bags of, you know, just toiletries and snacks

00:18:07.040 and maybe gift cards to some fast food place or something so that if I do see a homeless person,

00:18:12.660 I can give them that, which I think is, of course, better than money.

00:18:19.600 But recently I've realized, let's say I don't have a care package to give them.

00:18:23.480 Let's say I can't, I don't have time to go get them a meal.

00:18:25.400 And, you know, recently I, what I, the last year or so, what I've come to realize personally

00:18:31.460 is that you pass by a homeless person, just even if, you know, even if you have a couple of dollars,

00:18:36.560 just give them something.

00:18:38.040 And yeah, you don't know what they're going to do with the money.

00:18:40.080 They could go use it on drugs or alcohol and that would be unfortunate,

00:18:42.960 but just give them some money anyway, even if it's just a dollar,

00:18:46.380 because the point really isn't the money itself.

00:18:50.620 And the point isn't even really what they spend it on,

00:18:53.160 although you hope they spend it on something that they actually need

00:18:56.460 and not something that's going to further destroy them physically.

00:19:00.100 But the point is just to say to this person who is forgotten and neglected by society

00:19:05.600 and who's living on the street and who has been just living in this inhuman situation,

00:19:11.800 the point is just to say to them, I notice you and you're a human being.

00:19:16.200 And so, yeah, I got some money in my pocket.

00:19:18.740 I'm going to give it to you.

00:19:20.080 Like I was going to go use this money on a coffee.

00:19:22.260 I'll give it to you because you're a person.

00:19:24.500 You're a human like I am.

00:19:26.400 And so I am noticing you.

00:19:29.580 And I've come to realize that that's more the point.

00:19:32.260 So just as a personal thing, I've tried to resolve that I'll never pass by a homeless person

00:19:41.220 without giving them something, just so they're being noticed as a person,

00:19:47.620 because I think that is humanizing and that lifts them up.

00:19:52.620 And I think that's the point.

00:19:53.620 That's what we should do.

00:19:54.820 And the more of our own money that we have at our disposal,

00:19:58.920 then the more able we are to go and help others.

00:20:03.180 And then it's kind of the best of both worlds.

00:20:05.560 All right.

00:20:05.940 Thanks for watching, everybody.

00:20:06.960 Thanks for listening.

00:20:08.160 Godspeed.

00:20:08.480 Godspeed.

00:20:09.360 Godspeed.

00:20:12.540 Godspeed.

00:20:14.260 Godspeed.

00:20:16.360 Godspeed.

00:20:17.480 Godspeed.

00:20:19.120 Godspeed.

00:20:19.600 Godspeed.

00:20:24.080 Godspeed.

00:20:24.640 Godspeed.

00:20:26.140 Godspeed.

00:20:27.720 Godspeed.

00:20:28.760 Godspeed.

00:20:29.620 Godspeed.

00:20:30.360 Godspeed.

00:20:31.820 Godspeed.

00:20:32.680 Godspeed.

00:20:33.080 Godspeed.

00:20:33.700 Godspeed.

00:20:33.900 Godspeed.

00:20:34.280 Godspeed.

00:20:35.100 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - August 01, 2018

Ep. 74 - Jesus Is Not A Socialist

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