Socialism and The Grand Inquisitor

I enjoyed reading the Grand Inquisitor again—it reminded me of how much I loved The Brothers Karamozov. When I read it the first time there were sections of it that held so much truth about God and the world that I felt my reading of it counted as my devotional time.

The way I understand it, in this chapter the Grand Inquisitor explains to Jesus that although He came to set men free, men exchanged their freedom for happiness. He claims that the vast majority of people don’t really want freedom, they just want someone else to take care of their needs. The Inquisitor says that the common man is terrified of freedom and is willing to give it up to be ruled by a small group of people who “suffer” freedom on his behalf, in order to make sure he is happy. The Church has done this, the old man claims, and that is why the people, although they recognized Jesus for who He was, did not interfere when the Grand Inquisitor ordered Jesus to be arrested. Jesus, he claims, was wrong to offer true freedom to all—instead, he should have offered them bread.

I agree that having a State or a Church that says, “We’ll take care of everything, you don’t have to worry about a thing,” is not good. A system in which the people must depend on the State or the Church for their survival or their salvation is dangerous. Many government welfare programs have led to this kind of dependence, and so have many charitable, church-run programs.

It seems that often when someone seen as a liberal mentions “caring for the poor,” especially when government may be involved, conservatives immediately think they are talking about socialism. Julie Clawson, author of Everyday Justice, describes an example of this here on her blog. When I talk about government involvement in caring for the poor, I do not mean that the State should exist in order to provide for all the needs of the people and make sure they are happy. In an earlier post you said, “The State exists for just a few reasons, one being to maintain a standing army for national defense, a domestic police force for preserving the peace internally, and not much more.” OK, so what does it mean to “preserve the peace internally”? Is it only a matter of protecting us from burglars, drug dealers or violent individuals?

Mark told me that you and he had a conversation a while back about mountain top removal mining. Mountain top removal is an example of corporate greed that destroys the peace of our land and our communities. Coal companies basically blow up a mountain top in order to expose the coal, and push the debris down into the valleys, clogging up rivers and streams and destroying forests and wildlife. Coal companies do this because it is a cheap and easy way of getting their product, and this increases their profits. These companies are allowed to do this by law, because the law also states they are responsible for reclaiming the land they have destroyed. Even if the companies did the reclaiming, which often they don’t (and no one enforces the laws about this), the land is still never the same. Not only is this bad for the environment, but communities have been destroyed because of this practice. If it is a responsibility of the State to preserve peace internally, then the State ought to be involved in protecting our land and communities from this type of corporate greed.

I believe that our health care system is another place in which corporate greed has contributed to destroying the peace of our communities. Corporate greed is not the only issue, it’s all very complicated, but certainly the desire of drug companies, hospitals and insurance companies to maximize their profit has led to practices that harm. Again, since the State is supposed to preserve the peace, the State should be involved in regulating corporations to protect people from their greed. Please know that I am not saying that profit is bad or that all corporations or businesses are greedy. But some certainly are, and I believe the government should be involved in regulating that.

Of course, the government isn’t the only answer. It would be better if people who run corporations would have some sense of social responsibility and make better choices. This is one place where the Church should have some role. Christians should have an influence and should be working to bring shalom to every area of our world. Jesus came to bring shalom, a word whose meaning goes way deeper than the English word “peace.” American Christians (and maybe Christians throughout the world) have made the gospel about forgiveness of individuals’ sins so that those individuals can make it to heaven when they die. The gospel is so much more than that, though. It is the good news that our God reigns! And in a world where God reigns there shouldn’t be people dying of starvation, or girls sold into slavery, or people living extravagantly lavish lifestyles with wealth they “earned” through harmful business practices, while a few miles away people are struggling to find a job or a place to live. As John Wimber said, we live in the already but not yet. But we shouldn’t let the “not yet” be an excuse to not work towards seeing the Kingdom come alive now. Jesus Himself taught us to pray “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I don’t think He meant for us to just pray that and then go about our day.

I don’t believe forced socialism is the answer. But I see too many Christians deriding socialism, and then just leaving it there. I don’t hear solutions to the problem of poverty from conservatives beyond “Keep the government out of it.” Or, perhaps the solution of conservatives is just to protect and build up our free market system, and let everyone fend for themselves to make it in that system. For non-believers that may be enough. But for Christians, I don’t think Scripture lets us off the hook that easily. Now I’m getting into the realm of The Hole in our Gospel, although I haven’t had the chance to read it yet (I've requested it from the library, but it hasn’t come in yet). I don’t want to jump ahead to that book if there is more to say about the Grand Inquisitor. There is more in my head right now that I want to say, but I’m not sure how directly related it is to the Grand Inquisitor, and this is already a long post. As usual, I’ll hope the opportunity to share these other thoughts will come up again as we continue the conversation.

I’ll let you know when I’ve gotten the book.

Mindy