Reconciling Christianity and Capitalism

There is an undeniable tension--at least on the surface--between Christianity and capitalism. It is entirely understandable how socialists could view, say, the Acts of the Apostles as vindication of their worldview.

I would go even further, and say that many libertarian defenses of capitalism vis-a-vis Christianity miss the mark. I don't have any particular writer in mind, but I know that I've heard people attack the popular notion (that Jesus is against private property) using fairly incidental arguments. Stuff like, "Jesus talks about accumulation of wealth in the parables," and so forth.

I think the better response is to (a) acknowledge that God doesn't want you to define yourself in terms of material wealth (for various reasons--one of which is that it betrays a lack of faith in His providence) and also (b) point out that God always wants us to FREELY CHOOSE the right course of action.

So yes, contra many libertarians (perhaps), I DO think that God is unhappy with the distribution of wealth on the earth. It IS ridiculous that some people are starving while others have 10 cars, and this difference isn't solely due to bad institutions.

Having conceded that, it doesn't follow that the government should do anything about it. I think the true lesson from the Bible, is that God works by inspiring people to do the right thing from within. So it is better to have private property than communism, and it's even better still (from a Christian viewpoint) if people didn't concern themselves so much with their privately owned property.