What’s the point of economic policy?

January 9, 2012 – 11:24 am

This is the latest in our series of posts critiquing Wayne Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible. Today we’re looking at the question of what the main aim of economic policy should be. Grudem doesn’t directly address this question, although it is clearly one of the most important questions to ask when deciding policy. There have been a variety of answers to this question over the years, but Grudem only addresses a few of them. Today we’ll look at two of these issues.

Economic Growth

Grudem believes that government should promote economic growth because is is something that promotes the general welfare of the nation, one of the aims of government. He rejects the idea that this approach constitutes materialism, because economic growth is something that is morally good. He cites Genesis 1:28, where God tells humanity to “subdue” the earth and “have dominion over” the life on it. He says that the hebrew word that translates as subdue means “to subdue, dominate, bring into servitude or bondage”, and that it implies that God wants us to “investigate, understand, use, and enjoy the resources of the earth”. He cites passages such as Deuteronomy 8:7-10, which promise material blessing (in terms of excess food) for those who follow God. Grudem also believes that passages like Galatians 2:10 and 1 John 3:17 – which remind us to help the poor imply that poverty is bad, and cites this as a reason for supporting economic growth.

Now, there is a caveat here – as Grudem notes, we cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24), but cautions that we shouldn’t think that material goods are evil in themselves. He says that the Bible never encourages people to seek to be poor, or to make others poor, but instead to seek to help and care for those who are poor. Grudem also says that there are also practical benefits to economic growth – a rich nation is better able to fulfil many of God’s other commands – mentioning raising children, caring for those in need, and building the church.

Now, Grudem is right that money and the things it can buy is not inherently evil, and that working to produce things is morally good. There are, however, some problems with his view. Firstly, this emphasis veers dangerously close to prosperity theology (God wants you to be rich and healthy) – which is almost certainly the most dangerous false teaching floating around Christianity (and particularly Western Christianity) today. Secondly, there is good reason to doubt that economic growth – in and of itself – will relieve poverty (an issue we’ll be covering that in the next two posts). Thirdly, there are cases in the Bible where God tells people to become poor. Jesus said precisely that to the rich young ruler in Luke 18:18-30 , following it up with a comment about camels going through the eye of a needle. No, it’s not a universal command – it was for a particular person – but it does show that poverty is not necessarily something for Christians to avoid. Fourthly, in a rich nation some of these other commands can be more difficult. Christianity in the Western world is, for the most part, dull and lethargic compared to Christianity in places like Latin America, Africa, China, or South Korea – nations which are nowhere near as rich as the West. In many senses, building the church is more difficult in a rich nation – overcoming the love of money that pervades a rich society is a big challenge.

Inflation

Grudem begins talking about inflation by using practical arguments that, whilst “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10) money itself is a good thing. He says that money is a superior system to bartering, and that it is necessary because very few people are able to provide for themselves everything that they need in order to live. He says that the best way of providing a currency is for the government to do it – as this ensures that it is known, accepted, and has a standard value across a nation. He also says that, in order for the system to work, the value of a currency must remain stable over time. He cites examples of hyperinflation (when prices rise at a ridiculous rate – e.g. doubling every day) to show some of the problems increasing prices may cause – pointing out that, when this happens, the currency collapses as nobody uses it. He says that even at lower levels of inflation, it means that people are being robbed of their money. He then says that the cause of excessive inflation (note: this is the only time he suggests that inflation is sometimes acceptable) is always the printing of too much money, before spending a whole page lambasting the US government for bailing out the banking system in early 2009 because it would lead to increased inflation,

This view of inflation is, of course, somewhat simplistic. Other factors like supply and demand (especially for commodities like oil – the price of which affects almost every part of the economy) play a large part. And the actual effect of inflation can be very different across different social groups. In the UK, the current inflation rate on food, heating, and rent is higher than the official inflation rate, whilst the price of consumer goods has been dropping. This means that the poor suffer from a much higher inflation rate than the rich.

Also, in covering these two issues, Grudem neglects to mention that it is difficult for government to promote both low inflation and high economic growth. If the economy grows, then there is actually more money in the economy, and it becomes worth less – causing inflation. On the other hand, stepping in to prevent rising prices will inevitably deprive some sections of the economy from making more money.

Furthermore, Grudem’s criticisms of Obama’s attempts to deal with the recession, and save the banking sector from collapse, through increasing the theoretical money supply ignores the wider context. Yes, it may increase inflation (which, incidentally, will reduce the real-terms national debt – or at least the portion of it owed in the national currency) but saving the banks prevented the US economy from collapsing – remember, the vast majority of money exists in the form of numbers in a bank’s computer system, rather than in the form of coins and notes).

Finally, Grudem’s analysis ignores the fact that the vast majority of money created in the modern world is created by private banks, rather than by governments. The simplest way of explaining this is by looking at what happens when you put £1000 into a bank account. The banks are legally required to keep a small proportion of money in actual currency. For the purposes of this example, we’ll pretend that they have to keep 10% (the real figure varies from country to country, but is usually lower). Of your £1000, the bank has to keep £100, and can lend the rest out. When your neighbour borrows that £900, he puts it in a bank account (or spends it – and the shop puts it in their account). Either way, the new bank has £900, and has to keep £90. They lend the other £810 out, and the cycle continues until the banks have created several times more money than originally existed.

A note on government spending

In passing, Grudem describes US Government spending as “out of control”, despite the fact that the US has lower taxes and lower spending (relative to both the population and the size of the economy) than the vast majority of comparable countries. He cites one economist who appears to be blaming it on the Democrats, despite the fact that the current US debt and deficit was built up during the Bush administration.

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Merry Christmas

December 25, 2011 – 10:00 am

As it’s Christmas Day, I just thought I’d post a couple of reminders about what we’re celebrating today. Firstly, here’s a short video which is a pretty powerful reminder of why Jesus came to Earth:

And here’s something the Bible says about the whole event:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. e was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:1-17)

Merry Christmas

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Christmas vs Mammonmas

December 23, 2011 – 11:18 am

For Christians, Christmas is a celebration of Christ’s birth. It’s about God forgoing the pleasures of heaven, and becoming a man in order to live amongst us, demonstrate His character, and – ultimately – die and be raised to life in order to reconcile us to Himself. It’s a celebration of God giving Himself to us. One of my favourite carols puts it like this:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel

All of which makes the secular version of Christmas feel, well, utterly wrong. For many people today, Christmas is a celebration of crass commercialism. This was brought home to me last week when I saw the story of Mekeeda Austin, a 13-year-old who has written a death threat to Santa if she doesn’t get the presents she wants. Her list of demands includes a Blackberry Smartphone and “the real-life Justin Bieber”, and she justifies her letter by saying “I want all of these things and I don’t see why I shouldn’t get them.”

Leaving aside the obvious responses I could make to that comment, this is entirely the opposite of a Christian attitude. The real St Nicholas would likely have had a violent reaction to the idea that we should celebrate Christ’s birth by insisting that we have a right to consumer goods. And Jesus’ attitude to the first Christmas couldn’t be a greater contrast with that of Miss Austin. The carol I quoted above goes on to put it like this:

Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth

On that first Christmas, Jesus went from ruling in heaven to lying an animal feeding trough in a borrowed room, becoming utterly dependant on flawed human beings. And He did it for our sake. The Bible puts it like this:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

This Christmas, let’s follow Christ’s example and put others before ourselves, rather than get lost in the dead-end of living our lives for the worthless tat that our consumerist society tells us we want and need. Let’s scrap Mammon-mas and instead genuinely celebrate Christ-mas.

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Engaging people in politics

December 5, 2011 – 11:23 am

Last week, I came across a forum discussion on things that are important, but which we simply aren’t interested in. A poster by the name of SilverNemesis mentioned politics, and I asked him what politicians could do to help get people interested. Here’s the response:

Stop talking ¤¤¤¤. Stop taking the piss with privilege. Stop taking politics as merely a game about being elected over your rivals. Stop believing PR is the most important part of being a politician. Stop destabilizing debate with mindless cross party bitching. Stop ignoring facts and experts when drawing up policy. Stop reactionary policy. Start taking the younger generation seriously. Grow some balls and stand up for progress not the status quo

Now, the chances are that most, or all, of these opinions are widespread amongst the 35% of people who didn’t vote in the last general election. So let’s talk about ways that politicians can address some of them.

Learning to act like responsible adults

The expenses scandal isn’t the first time politicians could have been accused of “taking the piss with privilege”. There have always been some politicians who milked the system for personal advantage, and I doubt it’s possible to stop it completely. But what we can do is put safeguards in place. Building in accountability to expenses systems, cutting down on privileges that have traditionally come with some political offices, making sure that politicians are not privileged above the people whose lives we affect, for example. Taking a current issue – if Parliament is demanding that civil servants pay more into their pensions, get less out, and get it later why are they not doing the exact same thing to MPs pensions?

Finally, as politicians, we need to take personal responsibility when it comes to public office. Elected politicians should, if possible, make sure they have some kind of accountability structure in place when it comes to salaries and expenses. Don’t wait until it becomes a news story or election issue to have somebody check up on these things. And get it in place even if you’re just a local councillor with limited opportunities to go wrong.

When it comes to mindless cross party bitching, I agree with that sentiment. Whenever I watch Prime Minister’s Questions, the impression I always come away with is that it is utterly childish. Now, I understand that those of us involved in the day to day of politics will have gripes about the other parties, but we need to keep them in perspective. Yes, some parties may play dirty. Others may have sold out their principles. Others may be hopelessly naïve, or utterly clueless. But let’s remember that, for the most part, they are trying to make the world a better place. Keep the bitching to internal meetings, and only when it’s appropriate (e.g. working out clean ways to counter dirty tactics on the campaign trail).

Unless a particular politician has clearly proven themselves corrupt or incompetent, let’s focus on the reasons our principles and policies are better than theirs, rather than attacking the people. This is particularly important for bloggers, and those who post on twitter. Because the nature of the medium, it’s too easy to get caught up in day-to-day politicking, and make instant judgements, which clear-thinking hindsight should regret. By all means, lambast parties like the BNP, who have no redeeming features – but do so by highlighting their fascist policies, and the way that their councillors and MEPs have proven themselves unfit to hold public office.

In terms of not demonising the other side, one thing that I find particularly helpful is having good friends of very different political persuasions, with whom I occasionally talk politics. For example, a couple of months ago I spent a good hour talking politics with a good friend who is a natural Tory voter. Value getting to understand where the other side is coming from. Be prepared to listen to them. Work out if there are ways to incorporate their concerns into your policies,

Focus on the substance

Whilst public relations are clearly an important part of politics, let’s not be bound too tightly by them. Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend about this very issue, and he said that the Prime Ministerial debates in 2010 got him more interested in politics because the leaders of the big three parties had to talk policy. – something that is missed in the vast majority of day-to-day media coverage of politics. Let’s aim to appeal to people like that by being more about substance than spin. Yes, it’s harder to sell in these days of soundbite-dominated news. Yes, it doesn’t always fit with the media narrative. Yes, it may sometimes lose you seats or even elections. But if enough politicians focus on the substance, then the media would have no choice but to cover it.

If you want to see a textbook example of us getting it wrong, look at the referendum on AV. Instead of being a debate about the relative merits of the voting system, both sides ignored the substance. The Yes campaign went for guff about it “making MPs work harder”, rather than pointing to the advantages – like tactical voting being made effectively irrelevant. The No campaign went for scare stories about it being too complicated for our tiny little brains, and how it would keep Nick Clegg in power for ever. They also made up a massive figure for how much it would cost, rather than defending First Past the Post. Let’s not stoop to those levels of inanity or dishonesty in our politics.

Finally, it’s bad for politics if politicians to always be chasing after the same bit of centre ground. If there are only small and minor differences between the parties, then it’s far easier for the media to focus on the Westminster gossip angle of politics, or to reduce it to a popularity contest between party leaders. Yes, our current electoral system doesn’t help, but lets not blame First Past the Post for the way the big parties have gradually reduced their ideological differences over the last few decades. Let’s ensure that voters are given as real a choice as possible at election time.

Oh, and let’s make sure that politicians are free to voice dissent. If a party has a substantial body of policy, then it’s inevitable that party members (including those holding elected office) will disagree with some of it. As long as they make it clear that’s what they’re doing, let’s not complain about it, or let the media get away with attacking their party. The Green Party’s policy of not having a party whip is a step in the right direction, let’s find more ways to make political debate within parties open and transparent.

Make good policy

Too often policy is made purely on the grounds of how it plays in the media, rather than on the grounds of the actual evidence. I recently came across a guardian article about a book that showed instances of the media playing exactly such a role. Lets not let our drugs or immigration policy be dictated by headlines in the Daily Mail. But, on the other hand, let’s not crack down on the bankers just because the Mirror or the Guardian say so. Now, I’m fairly confident that my party’s policy-making process takes into account the views of experts, and our policy is usually easy to change when there are new facts that come to light (or old mistakes that are highlighted). But there are undoubtedly some areas where we fall short. Let’s keep an eye out for bad policies, and make sure that we do genuinely consult the experts before making policy.

Engaging the young

Now, it’s quite easy to see why policy is often biased towards older people – there are more of them, and they’re more likely to vote. But if we want to draw people in to the political process, then we absolutely have to show young people why it is important, and how it directly affects their lives. The wrong way to do this is to try to be cool. Don’t, for example, rave about the latest band unless you genuinely like them, and it is relevant to whatever you’re talking about. Young people can spot insincerity miles away and you’ll just look stupid. Instead, we need to address their issues, and then stick to what we said.

I’ll take two examples of this. Back in 1997, I was a student and – like most of the country at the time – was very happy to see the back of the Tories. However, within a couple of months, New Labour went from their election slogan of “Education, Education, Education” to abolishing student grants and simultaneously introducing tuition fees. I felt betrayed, particularly as the expert report that came out shortly after the election recommended only doing one or the other and not both. Whilst Labour hadn’t directly talked about an issue that would affect the students in the year below me, they clearly showed that they weren’t interested in my demographic.

Fast-forward to 2010, and the Liberal Democrats had learned part of that lesson. They did talk about tuition fees, and every Lib Dem who was elected signed a personal pledge to vote against a rise in tuition fees. They subsequently voted for the rise, and students – who were rightly angry – took to the streets in their thousands.

If we are to get young people interested in politics again, then we need to avoid mistakes like these. We need to be talking about their issues, and sticking to our guns. I don’t want to be responsible for somebody’s first experience of politics to be a feeling of betrayal. I want their first experience to be of politicians working hard on their behalf to make the world a better place. I want their first experience to be of people who work to make society better for the worst off – whose hearts are in the right place, and who have the skills to make a real difference (or at least to push as hard as possible for that difference).

In short, those of us involved in politics should make every effort to be the kind of politicians who are deserving of the trust people place in us at the ballot box. We should live up to the best hopes of the general public, even though those hopes have so often been crushed in the past. No, we’re not going to be perfect, we’re not going to get everything right. But let’s at least give it our best shot.

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Property: Theft or Right?

December 2, 2011 – 11:21 am

This is the latest in our series critiquing Wayne Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible. Today we’re looking at the start of one of the most controversial chapters, chapter 9 – which covers the economy. Grudem starts this chapter by looking at the question of private property.

Before examining what Grudem says, I want to lay out the various different notions of property that exist (there may be more, but these are the ones I can think of):

  1. Everything belongs to God. For a Christian, this should be the foundation of our views on property. Human beings do not own anything in our own right, everything is essentially on loan from God (see, for example, Leviticus 25:23)
  2. Things can belong to individual people, this is “private property”. The keyboard I am using to type this belongs to me and not to anybody else. This category also covers some cases of mutual ownership: my parents’ house belongs to both of them.
  3. Things can belong to an organisation. My employer (a big corporation) owns the desk I sit at when I am at work.
  4. Things can belong to a family or a tribe. This is less common in countries like the UK, where there are extensive and formal property laws, but in many “traditional” societies, a farm belongs to the family rather than to any one member (or generation) of the family.
  5. Things can be “common property”, belonging to the community, the town, the nation, or the human race. Common land has been a feature of the vast majority of societies throughout history, though it has often been abolished during the process of industrialisation. The creative commons and free/open source software movements have created new areas of common property when it comes to artistic and intellectual endeavours. One church in my area runs community houses – whose residents share most of their possessions with each other.
  6. Things can belong to the government or state. For example, most of the roads in the UK are owned and (sometimes) maintained by the state.

What forms of property does the Bible endorse?

Grudem begins by pointing out that the Bible endorses the principle of private property, pointing out that it is implied by the commands “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15) and “You shall not covet” (Exodus 20:17). He claims that communism (by which he means the state socialism of the USSR, rather than the communist ideal) is the most dehumanising economic system ever invented, because it means that the state controls everything, and hence becomes one big prison. He does, however, acknowledge that property belongs ultimately to God.

He also cites 1 Samuel 8:10-18 – which warns about the downsides Israel would face in having a king, pointing out that the king would take various things from the people. He cites 1 Kings 21:1-29 as another example of this. However neither passage says that it is wrong for government to own property beyond the minimum which it needs in order to function, which is the implication Grudem is apparently trying to draw.

Grudem then says that private property is one aspect of human beings being made in the image of God – he believes that God’s sovereignty over the universe is something that is reflected in our ability to be sovereign over our own possessions.

Grudem doesn’t really address other types of property (types 3-5 in my list above). None of the ones I’ve listed are incompatible with private property, and none of them are explicitly ruled out in the Bible. And there are passages in the Bible that seem to support some of them. For example, the people of Israel were not allowed to permanently sell their land outside of their family – Leviticus 25:23-28 (see also Joshua 13:8-21:43) establishes that the land in Israel was to be treated as belonging to the family or tribe (type 4), rather than to whoever “owned” it in the current generation. The church in Jerusalem in Acts 2:44 and Acts 4:32 had some form of common property (type 5) – although Acts 5:1-11 establishes that this co-existed with private ownership of land. The one kind of property I can’t find any real Biblical evidence for is ownership by an organisation (type 3). Although equally, that kind of ownership isn’t forbidden.

What are the advantages of private property?

Grudem claims that private ownership is essential for economic development. He says that people being able to own property and a business means that they can build a business, and hence grow the economy. He believes that the lack of formalised property rights in most poor countries are a key factor in them staying poor. Which would be solid reasoning if it weren’t for the fact that a far higher proportion of people in almost all poor countries run their own business than in any rich country. Yes, many of these businesses are not legal entities, but they are still businesses.

His claim also runs into the problem that the term “economic development” is one that has an incredibly wide range of meanings. Grudem appears to reduce the term to economic growth (which effectively means “there is more money going round the economy”), rather than using the more rounded concepts which take into account the human condition (the standard measure of development these days is the Human Development Index – which also takes into account access to education and healthcare).

Grudem also worries that the American state is threatening private property ownership. He criticises the US Government’s actions in 2009 to prevent the collapse of some of the nations big corporations (Citigroup, Bank of America, Chrysler, General Motors) on the grounds that it gave government effective control of these businesses (he doesn’t mention that these businesses would almost certainly have gone under without that intervention).

He also criticises the 2010 healthcare reforms for putting control of the healthcare system in the hands of the federal government (a claim which is – at best – an exaggeration. The US remains the only rich world country where the national government does not provide some form of universal health insurance). He criticises environmental regulations for preventing people from having control over their own property, and laws that allow the government to designate some land as federal property as an assault on the principle of private property.

Finally, he claims that government ownership of companies and property results in a loss of human freedom. He doesn’t consider that in some cases it might result in increased freedom – for example, public use of land may allow more people to make good use of that land than if it remained in private hands. He worries that state involvement in healthcare will make healthcare professionals servants of the government – as if that is somehow worse for them than being servants of insurance companies, as they are under the current US system.

Grudem also doesn’t recognise that there are practical advantages to other forms of property ownership. In 2009, Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel prize in Economics for her work looking at how communal systems of ownership can actually be very effectively managed. Environmental campaigners have long recognised that communal ownership often means that natural resources are managed for their long-term value across generations. By contrast, under capitalism, there are countless cases of fisheries being depleted, vast areas of land being left deforested, or whole areas being left damaged by industrial pollutants.

In Conclusion

Grudem has a much more narrow view of property than is found in the Bible. He restricts the concept to ownership by private individuals (and, though he never says so, private organisations), and regards ownership by government as an assault on freedom. He doesn’t consider other models of property ownership to be morally valid or good for society, even though several of them are found within the Bible.

Also, it’s noteworthy that Grudem does not mention the concept of intellectual property. Given that there are an increasing number of voices questioning the legitimacy of patents in particular, and broader notions of intellectual property (copyright and, to a lesser extent, trademarks), this is a notable omission. Granted, the US Pirate Party probably hasn’t made headlines like its European cousins, but failure to even make a brief nod towards this debate is a significant omission.

As Grudem’s model of economic policy depends on his overly narrow concept of property rights, we will give him the benefit of the doubt over the next couple of weeks as we work our way through the rest of the chapter. Although we will try to point out places where a different concept of property ownership would directly undermine his arguments.

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Should we ban corporal punishment?

November 30, 2011 – 11:20 am

Today we’re continuing our series critiquing Wayne Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible. Today we’re looking at Chapter 8: The Family, and its section on corporal punishment. For clarity’s sake, Grudem repeatedly uses the word “spanking” which has a rather different meaning this side of the Atlantic (if you don’t know what that meaning is, let’s just say it’s not appropriate to use it when talking about children). So to avoid people getting the wrong idea, I’m going to use the UK term “smacking”, which carries the same meaning as Americans have when they use the word “spanking”.

The principle of discipline

Grudem starts by looking at the Biblical principle of discipline. There are many Biblical passages that tell parents to discipline their children (e.g. Ephesians 6:4, Hebrews 12:9-11), and I doubt there are many parents who would disagree with that principle. Grudem, however, asserts that the Bible teaches that discipline should include corporal punishment. He cites Proverbs 13:24, 22:15, 23:13-14, 29:15 as examples. All of these proverbs refer to corporal punishment (“the rod”) as a way of ensuring that children get the discipline they need.

Grudem’s weakness here is that he does not deal with the argument that these passages do not require Christian parents to use corporate punishment. The argument, as usually put, is that all of these verses come from Proverbs. And the usual interpretation of this book is that we take the principle that is being applied, but not necessarily the specific application. For example, Proverbs 25:24 says

It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.

Most of us would interpret that as “try to resolve arguments and live in peace with your husband/wife”, rather than “if you get into too many arguments with your husband/wife go and live on the roof”. Applying this to the verses Grudem quotes, it is not necessary to take “the rod” as requiring that Christians include corporal punishment as part of their discipline. Although, equally, it makes it pretty much impossible for Christians to argue that corporal punishment is necessarily bad for children.

What effect does corporal punishment have?

Grudem points out that laws banning corporal punishment do not necessarily prevent genuine child abuse, saying that assaults by adults against children between the ages of 1 and 6 quadrupled between 1984 and 1994 in Sweden despite a law banning smacking.

He also says that studies claiming that smacking is harmful to children are based on very poor methodology. In particular, he cites a 1993 study that showed that, of 132 studies that supposedly documented negative effects of smacking, only 24 had any empirical data. And 23 of those had ambiguous wording and broad definitions that encompassed both clear-cut child abuse (such as pouring boiling water over a child) and the responsible discipline that those on the pro-smacking side argue for (a light smack with a hand or blunt instrument).

Grudem also cites a claim by Gene Edward Veith (Culture editor of World Magazine) that not smacking a child could be considered child abuse. Veith’s argument is, essentially, that because children are learning that adults will not use force against them in any circumstances, they can then ignore those in authority, and hence learn how to misbehave, rather than to behave.

Finally, he takes the assumptions underlying the view that smacking is bad to task, pointing out that many on that side of the argument start with the assumption that children (and human beings in general) start out as basically good, rather than human beings having the tendency towards evil that the Bible establishes. He also believes that some on that side oppose the idea of parental authority – either a dislike of authority in general, or a belief that right and wrong are entirely down to the individual.

So is he right?

I’m not convinced that Grudem is right to say that smacking is a necessary part of disciplining children, but (unless there’s evidence both he and I are unaware of) he’s certainly right that the evidence for it being harmful is inconclusive at best, and that the view you take on this issue tends to reflect aspects of your worldview, rather than anything else. He is certainly right that the people who want to ban smacking in order to prevent real child abuse are aiming at the wrong target. Those prosecuted under such laws would most likely be either a handful of parents who continue to use smacking as the punishment of last resort, or those who at some point lose patience with their kids (which is an experience common to the vast majority of parents) and smack them in a momentary loss of self-control. Genuine child abusers would continue to cover their tracks in the same way they do under existing laws in both the UK and the US.

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Education, Education, Education

November 28, 2011 – 11:25 am

Today, I’m resuming the series critiquing Wayne Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible. Today, we’re starting out on chapter 8: The Family, and covering the issue of education. We’ll also be bringing in some arguments Grudem makes in chapter 15: Special Groups, where he takes American teachers’ union the NEA to task because it takes a different view to him on education policy. Note: for the purpose of this article, I’m using the terminology of “state school” and “private school”, because the term “public school” means completely different things between the UK and the US.

Who should be responsible for education?

Grudem begins his argument by claiming that the Bible places the responsibility for educating the next generation on parents, and not on society as a whole. He cites Deuteronomy 6:4-7, which seems to me to be an instruction to the nation of Israel as a whole, and not just to those who happened to be parents. He cites various verses in Proverbs that talk about parents training their children, and some New Testament passages (Ephesians 6:1-4; Colossians 3:20-21) teaching children to obey their parents. He concludes that, because the government is not mentioned in any of these passages, that the responsibility for education falls solely on the shoulders of parents. Assuming that his conclusion is correct, he cites some cases where courts (in Germany and New Hampshire) have intervened in to compel homeschooled children to attend state schools – and considers this a worrying inversion of the principle he believes in.

Grudem does, however, allow some role for state schools, seeing them as a way of assisting parents in their task of training their children. His case here would probably be stronger if he referred back to the history of schooling in Western countries, and the factors that led state schooling to be created in the first place (basically, that charities and private schools were utterly incapable of providing the universal education that was felt to be necessary in an industrial society – something that would be even more acute in our modern information age). It would also help address one problem that arises from his position: if those of us without children bear no responsibility for their upbringing and education, why should our taxes be used to pay for or subsidise education?

Grudem’s Solution: School Vouchers

Grudem believes that the best solution for education would be a system of school vouchers: every parent would have vouchers that would pay for the cost of their childrens’ education in either the public or the private sector. He believes that this will provide several benefits:

  1. that parents would have greater influence
  2. that it would establish “healthy competition”, as the best schools would get more pupils and the worst would go under. He claims that state schooling holds the US education system back compared to other nations (even though all comparable nations I’m aware of have plenty of state schools)
  3. that it allows parents to send their kids to schools that support their parents’ moral values
  4. he claims that this would mean that children are better educated, citing the introduction of vouchers in Milwaukee – where, in the year that a voucher scheme was introduced, schools with a very high proportion of voucher-eligible children improved at a greater rate than other schools. He doesn’t say whether the study controlled for other variables that might have affected the results.

He also rejects claims that such a scheme could violate the separation of church and state if vouchers are used to send kids to religious schools.

Grudem is also in favour of other ways of increasing parental choice – such as giving tax credits for tution payments. He doesn’t, however, consider other ways of increasing parental influence, such as ensuring that schools and the government bodies that oversee them (School districts in the US, Education Authorities in the UK) are made as democratically accountable as possible.

How much say should teachers have?

Grudem claims that the reason that American teachers’ union the NEA opposes school vouchers is that

“it knows that privately run schools will do a much better job of educating children if only they can compete on an equal basis for the tax dollars that support the public schools.” (emphasis his)

So, basically, he’s saying that “teachers oppose me because they know I’m right, and that my policy will give kids a better education”. Which – unless teachers in the US have an entirely different approach to the job to those I know in the UK – goes way beyond presenting a strawman argument and into the territory of potentially libellous statements. Now, perhaps Grudem believes that the views of the NEA do not reflect those of its members – in which case, he really ought to make the distinction clear. But the vast majority of teachers I have come across want to give children a better education, and the exceptions tend to be those who have been worn down by the job. If they and their union oppose school vouchers, it isn’t because they think they’ll give kids a better education, it’s because they think that they won’t.

He does make some interesting points in his later section on the NEA – about how there are parts of the US where there is effectively a closed shop (teachers have to pay their union dues, even if they don’t join). I agree that such an arrangement is clearly wrong. However, what most strikes me about this is that it seems very odd for this to be legal in a solidly right-wing country like the US.

Grudem ultimately blames the NEA for the poor standard of education in the US (and, incidentally, he never provides any evidence for the claim that the US does worse than other comparable countries). However, these arguments seem somewhat disingenuous – he claims that the problem is that NEA-staffed state schools have a monopoly on state-funded education. He claims that this monopoly is the reason that kids from inner-city schools have poor academic achievement (surely the fact that they live in poverty is a more important factor – and one that applies across the Western world). He also claims that the reason private schools do better is because they are free of government direction and union regulation, rather than that, for example, because they spend more money per pupil (as is the case with private schools in the UK).

So is Grudem right?

For me, Grudem’s arguments fall at the first hurdle of the principle. Because he interprets the Bible in an individualistic way, he ignores the possibility that education is a responsibility for society as a whole, and that – as a consequence – government has a responsibility to ensure that every child has the chance at a good education (the purpose of government including restraining evil and promoting the good of society). Instead, he fails to justify the principle of government having any involvement in education, making his policy proposals seem to be at odds with his principles on the issue. In particular, he doesn’t explain why those of us who aren’t parents should be contributing at all to the education system.

Furthermore, his specific proposals do seem to have some holes in them. Firstly, they aren’t the only way to make schools accountable to parents – in fact, a democratic model would mean that decision-makers are directly responsible to the parents (and the rest of the local community), rather than being responsible to businessmen, who are only responsible to parents to the extent that a parent can move their child to another school (as is the case in a private school).

Also, there are some fundamental problems with the whole idea of introducing markets into the education system. Basically, it’s very difficult to get good, reliable information about schools’ performance in education. Yes, parents can make good judgements on a school’s value system, but how can they tell if the school gets good results by teaching to the exams, or by offering a rounded education? And if exam results are published, then schools can easily manipulate the league tables. Here in the UK, there are criticisms that school league tables mean that less able children simply aren’t put in for exams (hence making the school’s results look better) and that the schools deliberately choose the easiest syllabus/exam from the various examining bodies.

Also, there’s no guarantee that a school’s past performance will continue for the whole of a child’s time there. A new headteacher (or principal in the US), a change of teaching staff, a change in intake, or (for private schools) a change of ownership could all change the quality of education, and by the time it becomes apparent, several years’ worth of intake will have been affected. Such problems are inherent in a system that is dominated by the concept of parental choice.

All of which is to say that Grudem’s preferred policy of school vouchers may well work in practice in some contexts. But it’s a very long way from being the only education policy that is consistent with the Bible, and it’s very far from proven that it would deliver the best educational outcomes. Which makes it somewhat disappointing that Grudem portrays it as both.

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Should Porn be banned?

October 3, 2011 – 11:26 am

This is the next in our series critiquing Wayne Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible. Today we’re looking at the section on pornography that’s at the end of Chapter 7 (which is on marriage).

Is pornography sinful?

Grudem starts off by pointing out that the Bible portrays sex outside of marriage as sin. He cites over a dozen passages which talk about adultery and fornication as sinful. Grudem then goes on to point out that God is concerned with our attitudes as well as our actions, citing Exodus 20:17 (don’t covet) – which explicitly forbids a man from wanting somebody else’s wife sexually. He then points out that in Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus said that lusting after somebody is to commit adultery with them in your heart. He then goes on to cite Ezekiel 23:14-17 as an example of how sexual sin progresses. Because pornography is material designed to make us lust after somebody, Grudem rightly concludes that Christians should consider using porn to be morally wrong.

What is the practical effect of pornography?

Grudem says that a married man who uses pornography robs his wife of emotional affection, and turns his heart away from her. He says that it hinders that marriage’s sexual relationship, and will have long-lasting effects on the marriage. He also says that the man’s wife will often have a sense of this, even if she never discovers that he is using porn.

Grudem also says that there a number of sociological studies that detail the harmful effects of pornography on people who use it, and points to a report produced by the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, which summarises the impact. He cites passages from the report that say that porn causes deception within marriages, that it can lead to divorce, that it promotes adultery, prostitution, and unreal expectations. It also expresses concern at the general sexualisation of the media – saying that children now receive the majority of their sex education from the media.

He says that the report identifies several false messages about sex sent by our culture, namely.

  • Sex with anyone, under any circumstances, any way it is desired, is beneficial and does not have negative consequences
  • Women have one value – to meet the sexual demands of men
  • Marriage and children are obstacles to sexual fulfillment
  • Everyone is involved in promiscuous sexual activity, infidelity,and premarital sex

It also deals with pornography as an addiction, and estimates that around 6-8% of Americans are sex addicts. Grudem then points out that sex clubs and strip parlours tend to attract criminal activity – the most notable statistic cited is that the number of sex offences in areas of Phoenix with adult businesses is 506% higher than in other areas.

How should this affect politics?

Grudem believes that looking at pornography should not be a criminal offence, reasoning that there are no laws against the worse sin of fornication, and that where there have been they have not been enforced. He does, however, think that creating and distributing pornographic material should be illegal, as it hurts society as a whole. He then goes into a US-specific issue of how this squares with the first amendment to the US constitution (which guarantees freedom of speech), pointing out that obscene material has always been an exception alongside things like incitement to riot. Finally, he claims that past successes in restricting pornographic materia mean that such laws can be easily enforced.

The elephant in the room

Many discussions about regulating pornographic material fail to mention the 21st Century elephant in the room – the internet. Grudem makes passing reference to it in the final paragraph of this section. He cites an ABA Journal article which says “… the real reason Internet obscenity has not been tackled stems from the fact that law enforcement seems not to have the time, resources, or inclination to pursue it”.

This sentiment seems to me to be somewhat naive. The internet is a vast international network. If one nation passes laws against pornography, then porn websites will simply move to a country that allows their material. If one site gets shut down and its owners are prosecuted, then several more will quickly take its place. That’s exactly what has happened with attempts to bring down filesharing websites, and there’s no reason to believe that porn websites would follow a different path.

The only way to effectively regulate anything but the most extreme (and universally objectionable) internet content is to enact filtering software to block the material at some point between the website and the end user, rather than to hunt down those running the site. And even that is anything but foolproof – such software will always let some objectionable content through, censor some non-objectionable content, or most likely both.

In conclusion, Grudem is right that pornography is something that Christians should find morally objectionable, and that it does have many negative consequences. But I think he’s wrong to say that it’s something that can be effectively regulated by national governments in the internet age.

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Weekend links and a video

October 1, 2011 – 11:18 am

This is my new plan for a semi-regular feature, sharing some stuff you may not have seen before.

It looks like the UK is moving towards criminalising peaceful protest. If you want to do protest, contact your MP.

But at least we’re not as bad as Iran, who are about to execute a Christian pastor for the crime of abandoning Islam, a religion which he has never followed. If you want to protest, contact the Iranian embassy.

Then there’s this video, which explains the scale of the problem of tax avoidance and tax evasion. The most shocking things are that the government is choosing not to collect tax, and that the majority of UK businesses don’t even complete a tax return. (H/T Medway Green Party)

Finally, I wish the UK had something like Germany’s public bookshelves.

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God, politics, and marriage

September 30, 2011 – 11:23 am

This is the next in our series critiquing Wayne Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible. Today we’re looking at chapter 7, on the issue of marriage. Before we start on what Grudem actually does say, it’s worth pointing out that the chapter doesn’t mention promiscuity and cohabitation, which are, in reality, the biggest threats to the institution of marriage. Perhaps he doesn’t think that there’s anything that can be done about these problems in the political realm, or that his suggested policies to protect marriage will automatically reduce the rate of both promiscuity and cohabitation.

What is marriage?

Grudem starts off with the early chapters of Genesis, pointing to Adam and Eve as the first married couple (Genesis 2:25), that their marriage established a pattern for humanity (Genesis 2:23-24), and that having children was a significant part of the purpose of marriage (Genesis 1:27-28). He then points out that this was Jesus’ understanding of marriage (Matthew 19:3-6),and that marriage was originally intended as a lifelong relationship (Matthew 19:8). He also notes that faithfulness to your spouse is an important part of marriage, citing the command to not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14, Matthew 19:18, Romans 2:22; 13:9, James 2:11), although he does allow that there are some circumstances where divorce is acceptable..

He goes on to say that this definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman was intended to be universal, rather than part of a law meant for the Jewish people. He notes that it dates back to the beginning of humanity, that God holds people from all nations to account for not holding to it (Jude 7, Genesis 12:17-20, Leviticus 18:27, Mark 6:17-18, Revelation 18:3,9). Grudem therefore says that Christians should argue for government to adopt that definition of marriage.

He also says that marriage is the most fundamental institution in any society. He bases this on the fact that marriage is instituted right at the beginning of the Bible, before any other human institution. He argues that the institution is universal – all societies have had some form of marriage, and have recognised and protected it. He cites the work of anthropologist J D Unwin, who looked at the decline of eighty six cultures, and said that “strict marital monogamy” was central to social energy and growth, and that no society flourished for more than three generations without it. Unwin said that there was “no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and post-nuptial continence” (i.e. abstaining from sex outside of marriage).

Grudem also notes in passing that the Bible forbids incest (Leviticus 18:1-18; 20:11-20, Deuteronomy 22:30, 1 Corinthians 5:1-2).

Furthermore, Grudem thinks that it is the role of government to define and regulate marriage, as it fits three of the purposes of government – restraining evil, bringing good in society, and bringing order to society, and lists several reasons why he thinks it does each of these jobs. He points out that government is the only institution that can define marriage for an entire society.

He also says that government should encourage marriage because of the unique benefits it brings to a society. In particular, he says that the first benefit is that marriage provides the best environment for having babies, in terms of security, the child having both a mother and a father who care and provide for it, a greater chance of both parents sticking with it and supporting both each other and the child. He has a long list of ways in which he believes married couples raise and nurture children more effectively than any other relationship. Grudem believes that extending benefits for married couples to other forms of relationships means that society is encouraging harm for the nation by reducing the incentives to marriage.

What about Gay Marriage or Polygamy?

Grudem deals with the most controversial political issue surrounding marriage by pointing to five Bible verses prohibiting gay sex. These are Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. Grudem rejects the claim that these passages refer to only particular types of gay sex on the basis that the passages do not make such distinctions. He doesn’t deal with claims I’ve seen before that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (and it may well be the same word in 1 Timothy 1:9-10) has been mistranslated, and that it doesn’t refer to gay sex at all. He cites several a number of writings from near the era of the New Testament which use similar language to these passages to refer to gay sex.

He cites Jeffrey Satinover,a psychiatrist who has lectured at both Yale and Harvard, as an authority who argues that gay sexual practices (particularly anal sex) causes medical harm, and that gay men are far more promiscuous.

On polygamy, Grudem says that Biblical examples of polygamy are cases where God allowed it, even though it wasn’t His original plan for marriage. He points out that there are numerous examples in the Bible where polygamy leads to problems within a marriage or a family, that it doesn’t treat women as equal in value to their husbands (as passages like Genesis 1:27 or 1 Peter 3:7 say should be the case), and that polygamy is explicitly forbidden for church leaders (1 Timothy 3:2).

What about Divorce?

Grudem points out that the law of Moses assumes divorce will happen in some form (Deuteronomy 24:1-4, Leviticus 21:7, 14, Numbers 30:9). And cites Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:9 as evidence that divorce on the grounds of sexual immorality (i.e. adultery) is not sinful, whilst divorce for other reasons probably is. He also cites 1 Corinthians 7:15, where Paul suggests that divorce is acceptable where an unbelieving spouse deserts their Christian husband or wife.

On the basis of this, he argues that the law should seek to protect married couples from abandonment by their spouse and from harm. He advocates mandatory counselling and significant mandatory waiting periods before a divorce could take place. He also advocates abandoning no-fault divorce – returning to a situation where divorce required evidence of adultery, abuse, or abandonment. He also advocates serious penalties (including jail time) for physically abusive spouses, and a strict reinforcement of the obligation for financial support, though I’m not sure exactly what he means by that.

The Legal Case

Grudem also makes some legal arguments relating solely to the US. He points out that appeals courts in the US have repeatedly held that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting marriage between one man and one woman, that no right to either polygamy or gay marriage is found in the US Constitution, argues that restricting marriage to one man and one woman does not violate anybody’s fundamental rights (he compares gay people demanding the right to marry another man/woman to a man demanding the right to marry his sister or his mother), and he wants to see an amendment to the US Constitution to protect the traditional definition of marriage.

Is this imposing morality?

Grudem argues that his viewpoint is not trying to impose a Christian moral standard on society, but is attempting to persuade others that these moral standards are beneficial.

So what does Grudem think marriage policy should look like?

Grudem wants to see the law define marriage as between one man and one woman, and that the law should also keep historical and traditional standards such as having a minimum age for getting married, insisting on consent, preventing bigamy, and preventing incest. He believes that known homosexuals should continue to be prohibited from military service, citing several sources who say that it would have detrimental effects on military morale and effectiveness. He believes that the principle of freedom of association means that private organisations should be allowed to exclude gays from certain positions (he cites the Boy Scouts’ refusal to allow gay scoutmasters).

He thinks that gay and lesbian relationships should not be granted the status of marriage. He is doubtful about the possibility of civil partnerships, but believes that if they are adopted they should be available to a wider variety of long-term relationships (e.g. two siblings living together in a non-sexual relationship). He is happy with gay couples getting rights like hospital visitation and access to medical records, but not to financial benefits. He says that such benefits are intended to encourage the bearing of children, and that granting them would imply that society actively approves of (rather than merely accepts) such relationships.

He also argues that homosexuals should not be considered a “protected class”, which would mean that they have special rights to protect them against discrimination. The basis of his stance here is that those whose morality says that gay sex is wrong would be unable by law to act in a way that it is consistent with those beliefs.

He doesn’t, however, think that there should be laws banning gay sex, because laws prohibiting private consensual acts between unrelated adults are seldom or never enforced, and hence pointless. He also points out that any attempt to enforce such laws would inevitably mean excessive government intrusion into peoples’ private lives.

How close is Grudem to the Bible on this issue?

I think, reading this, that Grudem has missed one element of the Bible’s teaching on the issue from his analysis. As Christians, we should not expect the society in which we live to come anywhere close to living out our sexual morality. In 1 Corinthians 5:1, Paul is shocked that one member of the Corinthian church not only fails to live up to Christian moral standards, but even manages to do something that would scandalise the pagan culture of Corinth. The clear implication is that Paul expects those outside the church to have lower standards than those inside it. This doesn’t mean that Christians can’t try to raise a society’s level of morality, but it does mean that we should not expect to be successful in doing so.

As I said in the intro, the main problem with this section is that Grudem focuses almost exclusively on the issue of homosexuality, with a brief diversion into the issue of polygamy. A fully Biblical approach to the politics of marriage in the 21st Century surely has to say something about generic sexual promiscuity and cohabitation – which are, by far, the biggest threats to the institution. Grudem however, mentions these issues only in passing. Yes, Gay marriage is a live political issue in a way that promiscuity and cohabitation aren’t, but that’s not a good reason to exclude them from the debate.

On divorce, I agree that many of the measures he cites would bring down the divorce rate – particularly compulsory counselling for couples seeking a divorce (though clearly there has to be an exception in cases where there is evidence of abuse on either side). Even those who want to see divorce made relatively easy have to admit that a large number of marriages that end in divorce could be saved if the couple were willing to put a bit of effort into reconciliation. The modern cliché of “we just don’t love each other any more” is a problem that can usually be overcome if both parties make an effort. Love is at least as much something we do as something we feel.

When it comes to the issue of gay marriage, I don’t have space to properly look at the arguments for and against the Bible teaching that gay sex is sinful (that would take a whole series of posts). But I will argue that believing it to be sinful doesn’t necessarily mean you take Grudem’s hardline anti-gay-rights approach (just as accepting that it is morally acceptable doesn’t necessarily commit you to supporting gay marriage). To me, Grudem’s policy suggestions on the issue feel very “ivory tower”, rather than interacting with what can actually be achieved. This may, in part, be a difference between the US and UK political situation as here in the UK revoking civil partnerships (which are, legally speaking, identical to marriage) could only happen following a seismic cultural shift in attitudes towards homosexuality. In any case, his approach lacks the sophistication of somebody like Peter Ould, who regularly interacts with the gay community.

Grudem’s arguments for preserving the traditional definition of marriage are definitely something that can be applied in the political sphere. However, given that we live in a society where same-sex relationships are both commonplace and socially acceptable, it does seems somewhat bizarre to argue that a democratic government should limit its recognition of those relationships. If Christians, or anybody else, wants to change government policy in this regard, then changing society’s attitudes is a necessary first step. Unless and until that happens, the gay rights movement will hold the ground it has won over the last few decades.

If Christians want to protect the institution of marriage, then our first priority in doing so has to be to model good marriages to the society around us. If we genuinely believe marriage to be the bedrock of a society then we need to act in ways that help change the current trends ofpromiscuity and cohabitation – demonstrating the benefits of both Biblical singlehood and Biblical marriage over the kinds of sexual relationships that currently dominate our society. Without doing that, any attempt to make political changes will prove as farcical as the infamous “Back to Basics” campaign the Conservative government ran back in the early 90s.

In short, there are more effective ways of defending marriage than focusing on the issue of homosexuality. Proposing changes in the law is somewhat futile unless and until society starts viewing sex in terms of morality rather than in terms of fun, freedom and self-expression. At most, a law-based approach will hold the fort against the sexual morality that has dominated Western society since the 1960s. And whilst Grudem may be thinking in terms of what his ideal set of laws would be, rather than about how Christians can take effective political action on the issue, this is an area of policy where the cultural context absolutely determines the political possibilities. And for a book about politics, missing that makes it fairly clear that Grudem is writing a theoretical book rather than one that can realistically be put into practice.

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