Gary North

The Bible doesn't propose any blueprint for an economic system, but rather insists that all human economic arrangements be subject to the demands of God's justice, that great gaps be avoided or rectified, and the poor are not left behind. -- Jim Wallis, "Seattle: Changing the Rules," Sojourners Magazine (March-April 2000).

I wonder, Mr. Wallis, why you bother to quote the Bible, however selectively, when you are promoting one or another welfare state project. I mean, if the Bible doesn't propose a blueprint for economics, then why not quote the Communist Manifesto? Like you, Marx and Engels promoted the graduated income tax. They did so as one of ten reforms in the establishment of a Communist society. You, of course, don't make that claim. You have a different agenda.

Does your agenda have a blueprint? I have yet to see you spell it out. It appears to be a hidden agenda.

If the Bible does not offer an economic blueprint, then what does it offer? Is it little more than a convenient grab-bag for reformers, radicals, revolutionaries, fundamentalists, reactionaries, and all groups in between to use to promote their own agendas? If it doesn't tell us what is morally and judicially mandatory, then where is its authority in matters economic?

You have said repeatedly that Christians must speak prophetically. Why, even in your anti-blueprint article, you say this.

As I listened to the prophetic scripture being read, I marveled at how it was being used that night -- as a relevant contribution to a public discussion on the rules of global trade!

I have noticed an odd thing in your many calls to be prophetic. In every instance, you do not tell us that the prophets invariably appealed back to the laws of Moses as the basis of their own witness. You never refer back to the detailed structure of economic laws in the Mosaic law. In fact, you deny that such a structure exists.

How can we trust a prophetic witness that denies the very basis of all prophetic witness? You never deal with this crucial issue -- the issue of biblical authority.

In contrast to you, I find that the Bible does provide an economic blueprint. I have written over 8,000 pages of verse-by- verse Bible commentaries on this, plus many thousands of pages of books and newsletters. Yet you say that it offers no blueprint.

There is an old saying: "A universal negative is refuted by a single positive." I have provided a whole lot of positive. But you continue to ignore it.

"Gary North? Who's he?" I wonder how much longer this tactic can go on. It reminds me of Ron Sider's identical tactic. "David Chilton? Who's he?"

By the way, it didn't work for Sider, either.