Category Archives: political-economy

A glimpse of the dysgenictopia

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Here is the current modern liberal progressive official website of the Nobel Prize and its biography of one of its winners. I know it is long, but I’m reproducing the entire thing.

Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet was born at Traralgon, Victoria, Australia, on September 3rd, 1899. He is the son of the Manager of the branch of the Colonial Bank in that town. He was educated at the Victoria State Schools and at Geelong College, completing his medical course at the University of Melbourne, where he graduated M.B., B.S., in 1922, and M.D., in 1923.

In 1923, Burnet went to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of the University of Melbourne to do research work on the agglutinin reactions in typhoid fever. He was from 1923-1924 Resident Pathologist at the Melbourne Hospital.

In 1926 he was awarded a Beit Fellowship for Medical Research and worked for a year at the Lister Institute, London.

In 1932 he spent a year at the National Institute for Medical Research, Hampstead, London. Otherwise, apart from many visits to various countries to give lectures or for other purposes, he has worked continuously at the Hall Institute in Melbourne.

In 1944 he became Director of this Institute and Professor of Experimental Medicine in the University of Melbourne.

It is impossible to give, in a brief space, an adequate idea of the range and fundamental importance of Burnet’s work. His work on the agglutinins of typhoid fever mentioned above was followed by the work on viruses for which he is nowadays justly famous. In 1935 he isolated a strain of influenza A virus in Australia, and subsequently did much work on serological variations of the influenza virus and on Australian strains of the swine influenza. He also published papers on variations in the virulence of influenza virus and on the mutation rates in it, which he calculated.

In 1946, in collaboration with W. I. B. Beveridge, Burnet devised a technique for cultivating viruses on the chorioallantoic membrane of chicken embryos and a method for determining the relative concentration of the material inoculated into these membranes by counting and statistically analysing the number of lesions that then appear on the membranes.

In 1947 he discovered, in collaboration with Stone, the receptor-destroying enzyme present in Vibrio cholerae, a discovery which led to the synthesis of neuraminic acid and to the demonstration, by Gottschalk and Cornforth, that purified influenza virus will quantitatively split the acetylgalactosamine neuraminic acid compound. Later it was shown that this enzyme derived from Vibrio cholerae can prevent infection by the influenza to a significant degree.

Burnet did much other important work on certain aspects of the prevention of virus infections and on important biological aspects of virus growth inside the cells in which they can live. He found that the filamentous forms of some viruses (e.g. those of myxoviruses such as those which cause influenza, mumps, fowl plague, and Newcastle disease) can be ruptured by suspending them in water, and suggested that their infectivity is limited to their tips, so that these filamentous forms can, as later work showed, be regarded as having an infective «warhead» composed of nucleic acid and a long tail composed of non-infective viral haemagglutinin.

Other aspects of Burnet’s work are his work on the surface properties of these filamentous forms, which are, he found, similar to those of cell surfaces, and his work with the haemagglutinin found in extracts of tissue infected with vaccinia, which can, he found, be precipitated by a saturated solution of ammonium sulphate and by cobra venom. He has also added much to our knowledge of the haemagglutination of red blood cells by various animal viruses, and has made contributions of fundamental importance to our knowledge of the genetic complexity of virus particles, and to the genetic interactions between related viruses which simultaneously infect the same cell and their relations to the transfer of neuropathogenicity. In addition, he has increased our knowledge of the inhibition of viruses by various substances, and of the complex details of immunological methods of studying viruses and of the immunology of viral infections.

Burnet has embodied his experience and experimental results, not only in numerous scientific papers, but in several books which show that he is a master, not only of a clear and attractive literary style, but also of lucid exposition of complex ideas and scientific facts.

Burnet received many honours and distinctions, among which the Fellowship of the Royal Society of London (1942), where he was awarded the Royal Medal in 1947 and the Copley Medal in 1959, and where he delivered the Croonian Lecture in 1950. He holds an honorary doctorate of the University of Cambridge, and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1953. He was knighted in 1951, and in 1958 he received the Order of Merit.

Burnet married Edith Linda Druce in 1928. They have one son, Ian, and two daughters, Elizabeth (Mrs. Paul M. Dexter) and Deborah (Mrs. John Giddy).

Burnet was a co-winner of the prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1960. He died on August 31, 1985.

He was survived by millions of Asians that he tried to kill.

Missing from the description of this winner of the Order of Merit, was his attempt to get the Australian government to finance and implement biological pre-emptive warfare to cause genocide among all the brown people he felt would threaten Australia’s white citizens. Here are his own words, as reported in The Age:

Specifically to the Australian situation, the most effective counter-offensive to threatened invasion by overpopulated Asiatic countries would be directed towards the destruction by biological or chemical means of tropical food crops and the dissemination of infectious disease capable of spreading in tropical but not under Australian conditions

While, Burnet was invited to write a report in response to the perceived threat of other countries developing biological weapons, the report in the age, “Burnet’s solution: The plan to poison S-E Asia,” makes it clear that he considered the weapons development to be necessary because of the menace of Asiatic population growth.

I’m getting the idea of preemption from the phrase “threatened invasion.” However, in 1998 he wrote something slightly different, according to the Age.

If anything, it is even more chilling that Burnet discouraged the idea that a biological attack would be a means of actually winning in a conflict. Rather, he encouraged the development of such a weapon in order to exterminate the defeated enemy and take all his land and resources:

The main strategic use of biological warfare may well be to administer the coup de grace to a virtually defeated enemy and compel surrender in the same way that the atomic bomb served in 1945. Its use has the tremendous advantage of not destroying the enemy’s industrial potential which can then be taken over intact. Overt biological warfare might be used to enforce surrender by psychological rather than direct destructive measures.

Perhaps someone can try to exonerate Burnet for claiming that introducing fatal diseases into Southeast Asia and destroying their food crops is merely a “psychological” form of warfare. But I don’t see it. You defeat them in battle, then you unloose fatal diseases (or food-destroying ones) and then take over the unmanned industry. I guess that would be a psychological problem for the survivors, but this proposal can hardly be reduced to psychological warfare.

Does this sound merely like psychological devastation to you?

After visiting the UK in 1950 and examining the British chemical and biological warfare research effort, Sir Macfarlane told the committee that the initiation of epidemics among enemy populations had usually been discarded as a means of waging war because it was likely to rebound on the user.

In a country of low sanitation the introduction of an exotic intestinal pathogen, e.g. by water contamination, might initiate widespread dissemination… Introduction of yellow fever into a country with appropriate mosquito vectors might build up into a disabling epidemic before control measures were established.

So what is my point?

The start date for these secret reports is 1947. We have just won a war against the Nazis and have treated them as some sort of unique eugenicist evil. Was it? Burnet grew up with the century and saw a tide of eugenicist literature. Did that all suddenly vanish into smoke with the embarrassment of Hitler?

Or did it morph?

One excerpt among many of this study performed under the direction of Henry Kissinger:

Bilateral population assistance is the largest and most invisible “instrument” for carrying out U.S. policy in this area. Other instruments include: support for and coordination with population programs of multilateral organizations and voluntary agencies; encouragement of multilateral country consortia and consultative groups to emphasize family planning in reviews of overall recipient progress and aid requests; and formal and informal presentation of views at international gatherings, such as food and population conferences. Specific country strategies must be worked out for each of the highest priority countries, and for the lower priority ones. These strategies will take account of such factors as: national attitudes and sensitivities on family planning; which “instruments” will be most acceptable, opportunities for effective use of assistance; and need of external capital or operating assistance.

For example, in Mexico our strategy would focus on working primarily through private agencies and multilateral organizations to encourage more government attention to the need for control of population growth; in Bangladesh we might provide large-scale technical and financial assistance, depending on the soundness of specific program requests; in Indonesia we would respond to assistance requests but would seek to have Indonesia meet as much of program costs from its own resources (i.e. surplus oil earnings) as possible. In general we would not provide large-scale bilateral assistance in the more developed LDCs, such as Brazil or Mexico. Although these countries are in the top priority list our approach must take account of the fact that their problems relate often to government policies and decisions and not to larger scale need for concessional assistance.

Within the overall array of U.S. foreign assistance programs, preferential treatment in allocation of funds and manpower should be given to cost-effective programs to reduce population growth; including both family planning activities and supportive activities in other sectors.

While some have argued for use of explicit “leverage” to “force” better population programs on LDC governments, there are several practical constraints on our efforts to achieve program improvements. Attempts to use “leverage” for far less sensitive issues have generally caused political frictions and often backfired. Successful family planning requires strong local dedication and commitment that cannot over the long run be enforced from the outside. There is also the danger that some LDC leaders will see developed country pressures for family planning as a form of economic or racial imperialism; this could well create a serious backlash.

Short of “leverage”, there are many opportunities, bilaterally and multilaterally, for U.S. representations to discuss and urge the need for stronger family planning programs. There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relationships, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence that the thirteen countries targeted in the report aren’t as white as the US or Australia’s majorities. But I doubt it. (Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria; India, Pakistan, Bangladesh; ndonesia, Thailand, the Philippines; Turkey; Mexico, Brazil and Colombia).

So lets jump ahead a bit. Consider this report from the Globe and Mail:

A few weeks after giving birth to a baby boy by Caesarian section, Hilma Nendongo went back to hospital to have the stitches removed. A nurse glanced at her medical record and casually asked her a horrifying question.

“Oh,” the nurse said, “did they tell you that you had been sterilized.

Ms. Nendongo, a 30-year-old villager from northern Namibia who barely spoke English, tore through her personal health card, looking for a clue to what had been done to her in the state hospital.

She couldn’t read any of the doctor’s scrawled handwriting, except for the word “stop” and the word “closed.” She later discovered the sickening truth: this was a common code for a tubal ligation, the most frequent form of sterilization in Namibia.

She suddenly remembered that the hospital staff had told her to sign some papers as she entered the operating room for her C-section. Nobody had explained the papers.

Oh, did they tell you that they sterilized you? We are such heroes to ourselves, aren’t we? We go help the half-humans so it is only right that we determine their fertility without bothering to even inform them, let alone ask.

[Note to the the outraged, ignorant: the above reference to “half-humans” was sarcasm. That is how we are treating them when we do this.]

By the way, what happens when the UN and other “multilaterals” promote “voluntary” birth control in countries without Western-style freedoms? Nothing good:

“The police said to my husband ‘if she doesn’t get sterilised, the police will arrest you right now and you will be sterilised instead… they threw me on the trolley and tied me up” Rudesinda Quillawamang.

When Fujimori launched a massive family planning campaign in the mid-nineties it was widely hailed and supported by the United Nations and international aid agencies alike. His aim, he said, was to liberate men and women from the burden of poverty and large families. Now, he’s facing genocide charges. During the Fujimori regime, the current government says, over 300,000 men and women were sterilised against their will.

Insight News Television investigates forced sterilisations in Peru. We talk to victims, health workers and others involved, and uncover a dark military plan of social engineering called ‘Plan Verde.’

In the Andes we meet Rudesinda, a young Quetchua Indian woman. She says she was dragged to the operating theatre and forcibly sterilised. And it wasn’t just the countryside where poor people were targeted.

Mary Elena says she was 17 when she went into a Lima hospital for a caesarean. After the birth of her son she found out that doctors had sterilised her. When her husband discovered that she was now infertile, he left her. ‘In this hospital they ruined my life, she says. ‘I think the government wanted to get rid of poor people like me.’

We obtain a full, unpublished, government report about the scandal. The report exposes a sinister military plan, called Plan Verde, to exterminate entire social groups such as the poor and criminals. The military and intelligence sources in the report are all anonymous, but we track down one source. This former military officer details how the military was indeed deployed to sterilise people.

Finally, we question one of the doctors responsible for the sterilisations. Dr Washington is now running for mayor in Anta. Despite the evidence against him, he’s in comfortable denial. ‘Many women are very happy for what was done to them. They have less children, definitely, but they are happy.“

Yes, if they aren’t threatening us with their breeding then they must be happy. We were being totally altruistic by sterilizing them against their will. Here is another article on the same subject.

Supposedly, in any internet debate, the first person to to call the other a Nazi is a loser. But I’ve just sampled a few things out of many. We live in a Nazi world, in denial for the moment.

Of course, unlike the crude racism of the Nazis, I think the class warfare of US eugenics is not so blunt. I’m sure there is a top one percent of almost every population that might be found worthy of US intellectuals. Maybe more. But it is still anti-human, anti-Christian, and a “hidden” evil that is all too obvious.

For further reading.

How would science work “by representation”?

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No truly scientific result has ever been reached through group decisions and majority rule. The whole history of modern science in the West evidences the fact that no majorities, no tyrants, no constraint can prevail in the long run against individuals whenever the latter are able to prove in some definite way that their own scientific theories work better than others and that their own view of things solves problems and difficulties better than others, regardless of the number, the authority, or the power of the latter. Indeed, the history of modern science, if considered from this point of view, constitutes the most convincing evidence of the failure of decision groups and group decisions based on some coercive procedure and more generally of the failure of constraint exercised over individuals as a pretended means of promoting scientific progress and of achieving scientific results. The trial of Galileo, at the dawn of our scientific era, is in this sense a symbol of its whole history, for many trials have since actually taken place in various countries up to the present day in which attempts have been made to constrain individual scientists to abandon some thesis. But no scientific thesis has ever been established or disproved in the end as a result of any contraint whatever exercised upon individual scientists by bigoted tyrants and ignorant majorities.

On the contrary, scientific research is the most obvious example of a spontaneous process involving the free collaboration of innumerable individuals, each of whom has a share in it according to his willingness and abilities. The total result of this collaboration has never been anticipated or planned by particular individuals or groups. Nobody could even make a statement about what the outcome of such a collaboration would be without ascertaining it carefully every year, nay, every month and every day throughout the whole history of science.

What would have happened in the countries of the West if scientific progress had been confined to group decisions and majority rule based on such principles as that of the “representation” of the scientists conceived of as members of an electorate, not to speak of a “representation” of the people at large?

via Online Library of Liberty – 7: Freedom and the Common Will – Freedom and the Law (LF ed.).

FREEDOM AND THE LAW by Bruno Leoni

Societies can adopt, preserve, and change laws without legislatures, just like they do with languages.

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Another consequence of this revolutionary concept of the law in our times was that the law-making process was no longer regarded as chiefly connected with a theoretical activity on the part of the experts, like judges or lawyers, but rather with the mere will of winning majorities within the legislative bodies. The principle of “representation” appeared to secure in its turn a purported connection between those winning majorities and each individual conceived of as a member of the electorate. Thus, the participation of individuals in the law-making process has ceased to be effective and has become more and more a sort of empty ceremony taking place periodically in the general election of a country.

The spontaneous law-making process before the enactment of the codes and constitutions of the nineteenth century was by no means unique if considered in relation to other spontaneous processes like that of the ordinary language or of day-to-day economic transactions or of changing fashion. A characteristic feature of all these processes is that they are performed through the voluntary collaboration of an enormous number of individuals each of whom has a share in the process itself according to his willingness and his ability to maintain or even to modify the present condition of economic affairs, of language, of fashion, etc. There are no group decisions in this process that constrain anybody to adopt a new word instead of an old one or to wear a new type of suit instead of an old-fashioned one or to prefer a moving picture instead of a play.

via Online Library of Liberty – 7: Freedom and the Common Will – Freedom and the Law (LF ed.).

FREEDOM AND THE LAW by Bruno Leoni

Legislation as anti-social

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…one could apply to a conspicuous part of contemporary legislation the definition that the German theorist Clausewitz applied to war, namely, that it is a means of attaining those ends that it is no longer possible to attain by way of customary bargaining. It is this prevailing concept of the law as an instrument for sectional purposes that suggested, a century ago, to Bastiat his famous definition of the state: “L’État, la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s’efforce de vivre au dépens de tout le monde” (“that great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else”). We must admit that this definition holds good also in our own time.

An aggressive concept of legislation to serve sectional interest has subverted the ideal of political society as a homogeneous entity, nay, as a society at all. Minorities constrained to accept the results of legislation they would never agree to under other conditions feel unjustly treated and accept their situation only in order to avoid worse or consider it as an excuse for obtaining on their behalf other laws that in turn injure still other people.

via Online Library of Liberty – 7: Freedom and the Common Will – Freedom and the Law (LF ed.).

FREEDOM AND THE LAW by Bruno Leoni

Some more quotations from Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism”

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More important than socializing industry was nationalizing the people for the war effort. “Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way, ” Wilson threatened in June 1917. Harking back to his belief that “leaders of men” must manipulate the passions of the masses, he approved and supervised one of the first truly Orwellian propaganda efforts in Western history (109).

One of [George Creel, the head of the Committee on Public Information]’s greatest ideas […] was the creation of an army of nearly a hundred thousand “Four Minute Men.” Each was equipped and trained by the CPI to deliver a four-minute speech at town meetings, in restaurants, in theaters — anyplace they could get an audience — to spread the word that the “very future of democracy” was at stake (110).

[Clarence Darrow said], “Any man who refuses to back the President in this crisis is worse than a traitor.” Darrow’s expert legal opinion, it may surprise modern liberals to know, was that once Congress had decided on war, the right to question that decision evaporated entirely […]. Once the bullets fly, citizens lose the right to even discuss the issue, publicly or privately; “acquiescence on the part of the citizen becomes a duty” (111).

But nothing that happened under the mad reign of Joe McCarthy remotely compares with what Wilson and his fellow progressives foisted on America. Under the Espionage Act of June 1917 and the Sedition Act of May 1918, any criticism of the government, even in your own home, could earn you a prison sentence […]. In Wisconsin a state official got two and a half years for criticizing a Red Cross fund-raising drive. A Hollywood producer received a ten year stint in jail for making a film that depicted British troops committing atrocities during the American Revolution. One man was brought to trial for explaining in his own home why he didn’t want to buy Liberty Bonds (114).

Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but it has been estimated that some 175,000 Americans were arrested for failing to demonstrate their patriotism in one way or another. All were punished, many went to jail (117).

In 1919, at a Victory Loan pageant, a man refused to stand for the national anthem. When “The Star-Spangled Banner” ended, a furious sailor shot the “disloyal” man three times in the back. When the man fell, the Washington Post reported, “the crowd burst into cheering and handclapping.” Another man who refused to rise for the national anthem at a baseball game was beaten by the fans in the bleachers. In February 1919 a jury in Hammond, Indiana, took two minutes to acquit a man who had murdered an immigrant for yelling, “To Hell with the United States” (116).

The rationing and price-fixing of the “economic dictatorship” required Americans to make great sacrifices, including the various “meatless” and “wheatless” days common to all of the industrialized war economies in the first half of the twentieth century. […] Americans were deluged with patriotic volunteers knocking on their doors to sign this pledge or that oath not only to be patriotic but to abstain from this or that “luxury.” […] “Supper, ” [Herbert Hoover] complained, “is one of the worst pieces of extravagance that we have in this country.”

via trying to grok: THE WAR EFFORT.

Like I said, we were demon possessed and have forgotten about it.

In my opinion, Goldberg sometimes forgets what he has remembered, but that is a post for another day. Totally awesome book.

We were demon possessed, and have forgotten about it.

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From Wikipedia:

The Blue Eagle, a blue-colored representation of the American thunderbird, with outspread wings, was a symbol used in the United States by companies to show compliance with the National Industrial Recovery Act. It was proclaimed the symbol of industrial recovery on July 20, 1933 by Hugh Samuel Johnson, the head of the National Recovery Administration.[1][2][3]

The design was sketched by Johnson, and based on an idea utilized by the War Industries Board during World War I.[1][3] The eagle holds a wheel, symbolizing industry, in its right talon, and bolts of lightning in its left talon, symbolizing power.[4]

All companies that accepted President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s Re-employment Agreement or a special Code of Fair Competition were permitted to display a poster showing the Blue Eagle together with the announcement, “NRA Member. We Do Our Part.”[1][2][3] Consumers were exhorted to buy products and services only from companies displaying the Blue Eagle banner.[1][3] According to Johnson,

“When every American housewife understands that the Blue Eagle on everything that she permits into her home is a symbol of its restoration to security, may God have mercy on the man or group of men who attempt to trifle with this bird.” [5]

On September 5, 1935, following the invalidation of the compulsory code system, the emblem was abolished and its future use as a symbol was prohibited.

According to Jonah Goldberg:

Not surprisingly, victims of the Blue Eagle received little sympathy in the press and even less quarter from the government. Perhaps the most famous case was Jacob Maged, the forty-nine-year-old immigrant dry cleaner who spent three months in jail in 1934 for charging thirty-five cents to press a suit, when the NRA had insisted that all loyal Americans must charge at least forty cents. Because one of the central goals of the early New Deal was to create artificial scarcity in order to drive prices up, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration ordered that six million pigs be slaughtered. Bountiful crops were left to rot. Many white farmers were paid not to work their land (which meant that many black tenant farmers went hungry). All of these policies were enforced by a militarized government.

Read more and a lot worse here.

Is there such a thing as Christian economics? 2

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Mark Horne » Blog Archive » Is there such a thing as Christian economics? 1.

Where next?

This is a blog, so I’m not going to be embarrassed to be a bit stream of consciousness about this. So the fact that I just got to experience a lovely Jamie Soles Concert has got me thinking…

There must be such a thing as Christian economics because the Bible is a book about managing this world.

Duh.

The Bible’s first book is about how God made the world, how the world was put under the management of the human race, and how they botched that management. The rest of that book and all the other books of the Bible, is about how the management is restored.

But the rule of the world is the point. Under God. For his glory. But still this world.

In the Bible we read about Elijah being taken up in a chariot of fire (“a horse named blaze” as Jamie would say). That seems as “otherworldly” as you could get doesn’t it?

So what does Elisha say as he witnesses this ascension?

“Wow. We’re being visited from the other world”?

No.

And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” (2 Kings 2.12).

Israel was a nation. It had kings who were visible and known to the other nations. It had an army. It had national resources and wealth that others could covet. And it had fiery horses and chariots.

Elisha knew what he saw because he had read about it before.

Jacob saw them first.

When Jacob went out from the Promised Land he prayed for “earthly” blessings:

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.”

Give us this day our daily bread.

But God did better than bread and clothing. When Jacob re-entered the Promised Land he prayed again:

And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

Two camps? Jacob has just divided his family, servants, and property into two camps to protect them. But that was a contrivance. The meaning of “two camps” is a few verses earlier:

Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God’s camp!” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.

I wish the translators had not reverted to Hebrew when they have the name. “Mahanaim” means two camps. Jacob named the place two camps because the camp with his wives, children, servants, and livestock, and camp of God’s servants were both his camps. He had become two camps by God’s blessing.

This is one reason the term “the spirituality of the Church” is so offensive. Not because the Church isn’t spiritual, but because spirituality is not Spiritual. The slogan presupposes Biblical nonsense as the definition of “spirituality.”

God wants this world managed, claimed, ruled by him through human beings. He wants the humans who have joined with His human son to manage the world together (or the parts over which they have been given management) in such a way that everyone else can see and recognize as the work of the Spirit (John 17).

Oh but this world is not our home. Excrement passing itself off as piety. This world is the only one that is and it will be our perfect home as it and we are transformed.

But that doesn’t happen until the resurrection. True but only if you acknowledge that your resurrection is an commendation of your management of this world in this life. You are a steward and your stewardship right now is going to be reflected in the glory you are graciously given. (And if you think that last sentence contains a contradiction, please feel free to stop reading this blog post and pick up a Bible some time and read it; come back when you’re done.) God promises to praise you for your management and for your learning to manage. According to Paul, trusting God to praise you is the essence of inward spirituality and true faith (Romans 2.29).

The Spirit hovered over the empty, dark, shapeless, creation and filled it, enlightened it, and shaped it. We as Spiritual people should take that as our model. We are two camps in this life.

Not only do we live in a religious culture (we Reformed and even we broadly Evangelical) that suppresses the Bible, but we do it by hiding in plain sight.

The Church is called “a colony of heaven.” Ask the native Americans what that analogy should imply (which, included much sin, I am sure, but the point still stands). But this term is used to support amillennial defeatism. So I have to now come up with a new word whose obvious meaning hasn’t been yet subverted.

The Church is Jesus’ beachhead. It is a part of this world meant to be a start, not a waiting room.

Jesus the human ascended into heaven in order to rule this world. And thus he gave us his marching orders:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

(Again, Amillennial books are written about this Great Commission in order to subvert its plain meaning. If we create a culture of misinterpretation we can denude the force of God’s word.)

Of course, many individuals (all, ultimately) are not given the management they want. Many are given none that they expect. Our children die early and many other tragedies befall us.

But what does that change? Jacob’s life was Hell on earth and yet he was instrumental in saving the world and blessed the Emperor.

Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father and stood him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.” And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from the presence of Pharaoh.

The management of this world is a group project directed by a mysterious providence. Dominion comes through the way of the cross. I’m not denying any of that.

Pretending I am doing so is a strategy of suppression at best.

But the Bible is still about the management, stewardship, rule of this world. It is a story about the building of a city, which the LORD Himself is building, for otherwise the laborers would labor in vain (Psalm 127).

But refusing to labor is still treason. And real earthly children are still an asset (Psalm 127)

And the Bible is all about economics. There cannot fail to be Christian economics.

Either there is Christian economics or Christianity is unrelated to the Bible.

Is there such a thing as Christian economics? 1

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Where to start?

Why don’t we start with people?

Are they a good idea or a bad idea? Are they valuable or a drain?

I was looking at the content for the “new” version of Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and I noticed that, despite a great deal of backtracking about claims as to what will happen, he still refuses to let go of the myth of the population explosion. We are supposed to help other people, and that means making sure that no more come into existence to eat “our” pie. I assume Evangelicals for Social Action (or whatever organization fulfills its functions now) is pretty much against immigration laws (and they should be!). But the most draconian immigration control is the one guarding married couples from having (“too many”) children.

From Psalm 127:

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

As with Genesis 1:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

I don’t think the fact that modern technology allows for couples to decide when and how many children is necessarily a bad thing (assuming no abortion is involved or even risked!). But whatever decisions husbands and wives make as those recently granted new powers of stewardship, if your economic theory says that people are a drain on resources and that population growth is a problem, then the problem is you.

In my opinion this is a modest proposal: If you think the growth of the human race is a curse, you are pretty much telling us the Bible is a misleading document.

And, if you write a book that demands that the planet’s population be curtailed, then the economic theory behind your proposal is properly labeled unbiblical and non-Christian.

Yes, you may be a Christian espousing this error, just like John Lennon was not a Christian but showed more Christian generosity to generations to come. But it is still an error and a serious one.

And it demonstrates the impossibility of “neutral” economics. Viewing resources as “just there” is the hallmark of static, oppressive, pagan societies. Christianity says the future is open and people (not things) are the source of good. These are competing value claims that result in differing economic theories.