One of the strongest influences she has had on the libertarian movement is her belligerent atheism. For many adherents of the freedom philosophy, an aggressive rejection of God and all things religious might as well be the basic axiom of their world-view. I confess that this too was roughly my own belief on the subject, for many years.

But Walter Block finally saw the light (in the more limited sense of “saw the light”) and realized that Christianity was no friend of the omnipotent state.

What changed my mind? Why am I now just as much of an obdurate atheist as I have ever been, yet, also, a friend and supporter of religion? . . . [Religion and family] are the two great competitors — against the state — for allegiance on the part of the people. The Communists were quite right, from their own evil perspective, to focus on these two institutions. All enemies of the overweening state, then, would do well to embrace religion and the family as their friends, whether they are themselves atheists or not, parents or not.

But Block is not satisfied simply with noting that church and state compete for the allegiance of the human heart. In typical Block fashion, he needs to know on a deeper level the reasons for the unending rivalry between the worshippers of God and the worshippers of Caesar.

The main reason religion sticks in the craw of secular leaders is that this institution defines moral authority independently of their power. Every other organization in society (with the possible exception of the family) sees the state as the source of ultimate ethical sanction. Despite the fact that some religious leaders have indeed bowed the knee to government officials, there is a natural and basic enmity between the two sources of authority.

And this is key. For while, as Block notes, there are passages in the New Testament urging believers to submit to Roman authority, the very heart of those passages is a challenge to the underlying belief structure of the Empire. For as Jesus said to Caesar, Caesar has no authority except what God allows him. Caesar is no god, but rather at best a servant of God for justice and at worst an enemy of God. Speaking of religion, Block tells us that

It is a bulwark against totalitarianism. He who wishes to oppose statist depredations cannot do so without the support of religion. Opposition to religion, even if based on intellectual grounds and not intended as a political statement, nevertheless amounts to de facto support of government.

And so, like his mentor Murray Rothbard, Block finds himself in the awkward position of one who realizes that despite his own personal unbelief, his enemy, statism, can only be defeated by the armies of God. But what of those who point to religion and say that it is a force for totalitarianism and murder? Block points out that any attempt to portray religion, and especially Christianity, as a murderous belief system as compared to the benevolence of secularism is kidding himself and inhabiting a fantasy world where statistics fear to tread.

It will at this point be strenuously objected that numerous innocent people have been murdered in the name of religion. True, alas, all too true. However, a little perspective comes not amiss at this juncture. Just how many people were killed by religious excesses, such as the Inquisition? Although estimates vary widely, the best estimates (see here) are that the number of deaths during this sad epoch, which took place over several centuries, was between 3,000 and 10,000; some experts, here, place the number as low as 2,000. Were it not murdered human beings that we are talking about, but considering solely the relative magnitudes, one might fairly say that this pales into utter insignificance compared to the devastation inflicted upon the human race by governments. According to the best estimates (see here, here, here, here, here and here), the victims of statism in the 20th century alone approached the 200 million mark. That is no misprint! To compare a few thousands of unjustified deaths with several hundreds of millions is unreasonable. Yes, even the murder of one victim is an outrage. But in comparing religion and government one must keep in mind these astronomical differences.

Finally, Block, as any good disciple, closes with a tribute to his atheist mentor Murray Rothbard, whose glowing approval of Christianity leads one to suspect that Murray Rothbard was some sort of closet Christian, if you’ll pardon my using an oxymoron to describe him:

The views expressed above are consistent with the perspective of my long time mentor, Murray Rothbard. This scholar, who was often called “Mr. Libertarian,” was very pro-religion, especially pro-Catholic. He ascribed the concepts of individualism and liberty to Christianity (and almost everything else good in Western civilization), and argued strongly that as long as libertarians made hatred of religion a basic or organizing principle, they would go nowhere, since the vast majority of people in all times and places have always been religious.

Libertarianism, as Murray Rothbard has noted, is one of the inexcapable consequences of the Yahwist project, and without God libertarianism is dead, a dazzling, rational, and humanitarian house built upon a foundation of atheist sand. This libertarian Christian commends him for his honesty.

And what exactly are ’socialist motives’? You mean live feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and having all things common in a community so that everyone is equal?

Now, Joel did not say this directly, but what he is implying in this statement is that socialism or communism is the practice of the early Church as described in the Bible–that the feeding of the hungry, the healing of the sick, and the sharing described in the book of Acts are all socialist practices, opposed to the workings of the free market and private property rights.

Now, you may know if you’ve read much here that I am very much an advocate of free markets.  But I want to, at the outset, make clear the fact that I am pro-feeding the hungry, pro-healing the sick, and pro-sharing of resources.  But all this does not make me a socialist.  Socialism as the word is used today refers to the use of governmental powers to force people to share resources.  And it is this that I object to.

So let’s skip straight to Acts and see if the passage Joel is referring to actually has any relation to socialism.

And all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all men, as every man had need.  And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people.  (Acts 2:44-47.)

At first glance, this description might look like socialism.  But a knowledge of early Church history will reveal at least one crucial difference:  no governmental enforcement.  Indeed, the sharing of resources voluntarily is entirely consistent with free-market economics.  The Church, in the book of Acts, was an institution of those who chose to join it, regulated according to voluntary decisions and completely separate from the actions of the state.

Nor was cooperation with the sharing of the early Church in any way coerced.  The story of Ananias and Sapphira makes this utterly clear.  Rather than retell the whole story, here’s just six verses (Acts 5:1-6):

But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possesion, and kept back part of the price (his wife also was in on this) and brought part of the proceeds and laid it at the apostles’ feet.  But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the proceeds from the land?  While it remained, it was yours, wasn’t it?  And after the sale, was it not still under your control?  Why have you conceived this thing in your heart?  You have lied not to men, but to God.  And as Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last.  And great fear came upon all who heard these things.  And the young men got up, wrapped him in cloth, carried him out, and buried him.

Notice that Peter was upset over the fact that Ananias lied.  You have lied not to men, but to God, says Peter.  And it’s not as though you had to do this to protect your stuff.  It was your land, for Pete’s sake.  And even after you sold it, you were free to do whatever you wanted with it.  So why lie about it?  Why pretend you’re giving more than you are?  You’re lying about your personal choice is unnacceptable.  And for this Ananias died.

And so despite the widespread sharing going on in the Church, even such a leader of distribution as Peter himself implicitly recognized the validity of personal property.  Even though people were being given what they needed, Joel is wrong about the reason.  His comment asserts that this distribution is being done “so that everyone is equal.”  The distribution was being done to relieve genuine need, not to make everyone equal.

Indeed, Paul later spells out in more detail policy on distribution to widows, revealing that he has a strict notion of who should and who should not receive from the common purse.  His policies outline the fact that as Paul saw it, the norm was to produce one’s own sustenance, with only exceptional cases granted monies outside of what they produced (1 Timothy 5):

Don’t let a widow be enrolled if she is under sixty years old, having been the wife of one man, with a good reputation for good words;  if she has brought up children, if she has taken in stranger, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has given relief to the affliction, if she has diligently followed every good work.  But refuse the younger widows . . .

Monetary redistribution for Paul is something exceptional;  not a means to creating a world of forced equality as some would imagine.  And remember how the early Church in Jerusalem was conducting a utopian common-purse system?  To see how that turned we can find a hint in Romans 15:25-26

But now I’m going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints.  For it has pleased those from Mecedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints who are at Jerusalem.

For some reason or another, the total sharing movement of Jerusalem failed to provide any sort of long-term relief for the poor believers.  This is to be expected, however, because any system that relies on the continued selling off of property cannot provide stability.

And so in conclusion, the record of the New Testament is this:  there did exist, for a while, an incredible level of sharing of resources in Jerusalem about 30 A.D.  This project, for reasons we are not given, failed in the end, leaving the Jerusalem church impoverished and in need of outside assistance by sometime between 50 and 60 A.D.  Even amidst the massive sharing experiment of the early Jerusalem Church, Peter still recognized the validity of personal control of property.  And after the collapse of the sharing experiment, Paul’s letters leave for us a set of instructions confirming that his intent was for the mass of believers to be personally responsible for their own expenses, with only a very small minority being the recipients of the Church’s common property.

And so it looks to me like the New Testament record is fully compatible with a free market system, and there exists no demand anywhere in the New Testament for the abolition of the free market or personal property rights.  On the contrary, property is repeatedly upheld in the Bible.