Op-Ed Columns

Some time ago, I wrote about the need for Alabama residents to have a chance to change our outdated Constitution. Among other things, our faulty governing document fails to provide an adequate funding mechanism for public education and other needed state services. In the course of my appeal, I quoted these words of Jesus: "To whom much is given, much is required."

In response, one reader accused me of being a Marxist. He believed that the suggestion that the possessions of one are somehow connected to the needs of others amounted to a form of socialism. And in our culture, socialism is a four-letter word.

Unfortunately, anyone who would link the words of Jesus to Marxism doesn't know much about Marx or Jesus.

Marx believed that all economic resources belonged to the people. It was wrong, therefore, for money and property to be concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few. He believed that in the course of history the working class eventually would rise up in revolution, seize the means of production from the hands of the wealthy class and redistribute it equally to everyone in the social order.

It goes without saying that there is hardly a social theory in the history of the world more discredited than Marx's vision.

Jesus, of course, also had a vision of what a just social order should look like. In his vision, economic resources do not belong to everybody — they belong to God. Jesus believed that "the earth is the Lord's and fullness thereof." So when he said, "to whom much is given," he was thinking about God as the one who "gives."

The image Jesus used over and over to illustrate his belief was the ancient idea of "stewardship." A steward was someone who managed property belonging to another. A steward was expected to care for the possessions of the owner in a manner consistent with the owner's values and beliefs. A failure to manage the owner's possessions properly was a disgrace. Poor stewards lived in fear of angry owners.

God is glad for us to share in the bounty of the earth, which is more than sufficient to sustain human life. God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" expresses the exuberant confidence that there is enough for everyone to have what they need.

Unfortunately, there are those in our world who are not satisfied having only what God has given them. They want their part and your part, too. This way of thinking is not limited just to individuals. It can also become institutionalized in economic systems. When that happens it wreaks havoc on the poor and the vulnerable.

That's where the prophets come in. They criticized political and economic systems of their day for neglecting "the widow and the orphan." This was not a demand for a Marxist-styled redistribution of the wealth. On the contrary, they were calling on political leaders to act on proper principles of stewardship. The earth is the Lord's, remember?

No one today worries too much about the Marxist view of history stirring the working class to revolt. However, we might want to be wary of an angry God.

The biblical prophets believed that economic systems that exploit the poor do not survive for long. God acts on behalf of those who cannot act for themselves. And for the rest of us — to whom much is given, much is required.