How much do you trust God?

It's just that I think our families share some other things in common - things we aren't used to sharing with other people, LOL - that I was curious about why we came down differently on the free market. I look forward to being given something interesting to think about.

Christians disagree about a variety of things. One reason for this is that none of us perfectly understands the will of God, yet. No matter how long we keep studying and living the Christian life, we will always be learning. Hopefully we will always be willing to accept correction from the word of God, and willing to repent when we discover that we've been in error.

With that said, I want to reiterate that the free market is taught by and required by the word of God. When God said "Thou shalt not steal" -- that's a free market. That completely prohibits taxation as something Christians can engage in. (Note: I'm talking about requiring taxes of our neighbor, not talking about paying taxes.) As Walter Williams says, "He didn't say thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in Congress.."

"Thou shalt not steal" means we practice charity, not socialism.

God said about property that while a man owns it, it remains his own, and if sold, the money remains under his control (Acts 5:4). Nowhere did He authorize us to make decisions for everybody's property, as a whole, rather than as individuals. Not even within the church, as evidenced by this passage.

Nor did God authorize us to govern other people. We may hold people accountable within the church, but if they choose to reject that accountability, the maximum judgment we are allowed against them is to put them out of the church, to "abandon them to Satan," and for those outside of the church, we can do nothing other than repeat the call of God (I Corinthians 5). And as I've said previously, the most effective power against sin is that call, not things we could do by taking away freedom.

Faith means "trust." The very word, pisteuo in Greek, is Greek for "trust." May I please encourage you to trust in God, to step out in faith and believe in His commands, even if you don't yet fully see how it could work? It worked for Abraham, who believed he would receive a multitude of descendants, even as he offered his only son on the altar (Hebrews 11:17-19).

Am I passionate about anarcho-capitalism?

Am I passionate about anarcho-capitalism? Have you noticed there's a bit of emotion behind my writing in this blog? Yes! I'm deeply committed to this concept. There's two main reasons.

First of all, anarcho-capitalism works. It's been demonstrated time and time again that the free market outperforms all the actions of the state. The state's actions are merely interventions in what would otherwise be the natural order of things, and those interventions disrupt efficiency, cause waste, and even wreak havoc. A large part of my aim in writing here is to demonstrate this, repeatedly, for issue after issue, that we would be better off if we quit supporting the state and its actions. (Of course, as Christians, this is not to say that we should rebel against the state. Just that we should not be authorizing it to act in our behalf. We should not be governing, and we should work to show people what a mess it makes when people perform these kinds of interventions.) Since the free market works, I'm very frustrated that we have to live with the second-rate system we have now. I'd love for it to change some day, but I'm disappointed that it probably won't happen in my lifetime. Everybody wants freedom, but those of us who know what true freedom is aren't allowed the freedom to enjoy it. Democracy and socialism are forced on us.

Second of all, the reason it works is because it's God's way. As I'm showing here, God commanded us to respect property and the free market, God commanded us not to govern, God commanded us not to steal. Should I not be passionate about God's way? Of course I am. God has written His law into the fabric of the universe in such a way that societies that do not obey these laws suffer. A society that respects the free market will prosper, a society that does not will have perpetual famine and scarcity. But Christians shouldn't need this kind of proof that God's way works. By definition, we have faith in God. Faith means a believing trust. It's based on the evidence of God's past dealings with man: we know that we can trust Him because we know His history and character. When God commands, those with faith obey, even if they don't fully see why His way is best.