“Islam and the Gospel”
[UPDATE below.]
This was a lecture series that my church hosted. The guest speaker was Al Fadi, author of The Qur’an Dilemma, a former Muslim born and raised in Saudi Arabia. I wasn’t able to attend the actual lectures, but Fadi was sort of interviewed by one of our pastors on stage today at church.
First of all, the guy seemed really nice, humble, and intellectually honest. He explained that growing up, he wanted to go fight and die in Afghanistan to try and expel the Soviets (thinking that this was the way to paradise). It was only because his parents didn’t want him doing that, that he went to school instead.
Eventually he came to the U.S., and worked with some families who happened to be Christian in order to get integrated into society, learn idioms, etc. He told us that he noticed the family was different from the typical American household, in that they were very respectful, there wasn’t cursing, etc.
He started going to a Christian church, with the aim (he told us) of bringing Christians to Islam. But eventually, as you can guess, he ended up going the other way. Now his career involves educating Muslims and Christians on what he believes are the mistakes in the Qur’an and problems with Islam, and how Christ offers the true path to salvation.
What I found ironic, and somewhat uncomfortable, was that after his autobiographical remarks, Fadi (led by questions from our pastor) started rattling off things that people needed to know about Islam. I’m just going from memory here, but it was things like:
==> It was founded on violence. Modern Muslims will say that those were just historical battles, not having anything to do with the faith, but they are misinformed. When you study the Qur’an, you see that religious conquest is really part of it.
==> Sharia law is a merging of politics and religion.
==> Women are subordinate to the men. Women can’t even get a divorce very easily.
I think there was at least one other whopper like the above. It was amazing to me that just about every criticism he brought up, was something that leftists currently say about American evangelicals. (In fairness, I do think that even other people in the crowd were a little nonplussed when Fadi was saying how hard it was for a lady to divorce her husband in Saudi Arabia, as if that was a self-evidently bad thing.)
Now of course, I think a “correct” modern Christian approach to life, evades all of this objections that the typical critic would lob at us. But that’s exactly what the “moderate” Muslims say too, and Fadi wasn’t giving them that kind of out. So like I said, it was just a weird situation to me, especially since no one ever acknowledged stuff like, “Uh, Numbers 31 isn’t exactly very peaceful or feminist either.”
Now having said all of that, here was the thing that really inspired me. When he was explaining what made him start considering Christianity, Fadi said it was the moral teachings of Jesus. In particular, His commands in the Sermon on the Mount to love your enemy and bless those who curse you–Fadi said (I have no idea if this is true) that there was nothing like that in the Qur’an. This is what he meant:
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Now right after talking about how he was moved by these intriguing commands–which at first seem crazy but just might be brilliant–Fadi said something like (paraphrasing): “I knew then that I wanted to study this Jesus more. Even if what I had been taught in Saudi Arabia was true [that there was no crucifixion and that Jesus never claimed to be God, etc.], I wanted to learn more about this Jesus that the Christians followed.”
The reason this struck me so much, is that I had a similar experience. The only reason it would even occur to me to investigate the claims of modern Christians, is that their icon reputedly said the wisest things I have ever heard. Moreover, it’s not like someone giving a proof to a math problem, that is obviously correct once you see it. Rather, Jesus’ words sound flat-out nuts when you first hear them, and you put Him in a box and assume “He didn’t mean that literally.” But then as I get older, the more I think, “No, He meant that literally. But you would have to be God to have seen that on your own.”
This is part of what I mean when I say Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior. It literally was through Him that I came back to my faith in God.
Last thing: I want to clarify that of course I am not merely saying, “Wow, I read some neat sayings in a book, so therefore I believe every claim made in that book.” I have tried on several occasions to explain why I believe faith in the Christian God is actually the most reasonable conclusion to draw from the available evidence. Maybe you like my reasons, maybe you don’t, but please don’t accuse me of firing off a two-sentence syllogism.
I feel the need to bring this up because I recently got into a Facebook tussle over a photo showing a picture of the Bible with the caption, “Proof that God exists,” next to a picture of a comic book saying, “Proof that Spiderman exists.” What was interesting was that it actually took a few rounds of debate before everyone even realized why I thought that wasn’t a good argument. (!) The guy who posted the thing actually said to me, upfront, something like (I’m paraphrasing), “But Bob, the thing is, if Christians really believed that the Bible established the existence of God, then they wouldn’t rely on other arguments. Yet the best theologians do in fact offer other arguments, such as the ontological argument.”
I almost fell out of my chair. He was explaining to me why the joke he passed along was dumb, but thought he was thereby justifying why it was a fair criticism of Christians.
UPDATE: Judging from the comments, it seems people are misunderstanding what I’m doing in this post. I am IN NO WAY criticizing Muslims, except insofar as they are failing to see that Christ is the way. Indeed, my point here is that the specific things that Fadi raised against Islam, could plausibly be said of Christianity too. Hence, it would be odd for me to throw Muslims under the bus for these reasons.
Specifically, when I said “whoppers” above, I meant: things it was hilarious for Fadi to say against Islam, when plenty of atheists right now say it against Christians. For example, suppose Fadi had said, “Get this guys, Muslims actually believe that Mohammed talked to a burning bush. Crazy, right?” Then that would have been the biggest whopper of all, the way I was using the term above.
Potpourri
==> Conservative politicians in Germany want the government to pay stay-at-home moms for taking care of their kids. Liberal groups are mad because it reinforces antiquated views of the family and gender roles. This is an issue that could benefit from a libertarian perspective.
==> Tom Woods calls Max Keiser’s bluff.
==> A Phoenix woman was ordered to stop giving out water bottles to people in scorching heat because she didn’t have a vending permit. There is a religious element to the story, which just underscores all the more why government regulations on business are dangerous.
==> On October 3 I’m going to be at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis for a debate on capitalism.
==>
Parsing Yglesias
I was reading Steve Horwitz’s reply to Ezra Klein on the gold standard, which in turn led me to Matt Yglesias commenting on a broader commodity standard. Here’s Yglesias:
The notion of tying the value of the dollar to a basket of commodities sounds at first glance like a sophisticated alternative to the crudeness of a gold standard. But the problem and the merits of the gold standard are one and the same—it’s basically arbitrary. You’re letting the supply of money be determined by fluctuations in the gold mining industry that have nothing to do with anything. That’s annoying, but it’s not catastrophic. Money based on a broader set of actually useful commodities is much more problematic. It means that if a drought devastates the corn crop or a war disrupts Persian Gulf oil supplies, we automatically respond with tight money and a demand-induced recession. Alternatively, if someone discovers a cheap pollution free method of generating unlimited electricity we’d end up with a ton of inflation.
What is Yglesias talking about here? Is he saying a lot of electricity is currently produced by oil? Or is he saying the world would quickly switch over to electric vehicles, if electricity were really cheap to generate?
If the first door, the problem is that in the U.S., in 2010 petroleum accounted for only about 5% of total electrical generation capacity. (Natural gas was 39%, coal was 30%, and nuclear was 9.8%.) I don’t know the numbers for Earth, but my point is that even if we could produce unlimited, pollution-free electricity from Yglesias’ blog posts, the world price of oil probably wouldn’t tumble. The United States imports so much oil right now, in order to make gasoline, not electricity.
If the second door, the problem is that nobody wants to buy electric cars right now, because they don’t go as fast or as far (without hauling along backup batteries) as conventional powered vehicles.
Anyway not a big deal, just that I suspect Yglesias is once again pontificating on matters where his understanding is not as deep as offshore drilling.
I Hear a Train a Comin, It’s Comin Down the Tracks
Sorry everyone but I am working through some major deadlines and won’t be able to blog much, at least through mid-September. (However, if you just can’t stand it, find me on Facebook, as Robert P. Murphy who lives in Nashville. That’s where I go when I have a lot of work to be done and should totally be immersed in work.)
Anyway, I had to take a break from everything and read the absolute train wreck of Sandeep Jaitly taking on Mises the fake Austrian, and Lew Rockwell the fake libertarian. (Seriously, I’m not being inflammatory; read Tom Woods’ smackdown.)
I guess it’s a good sign that popular outlets are getting publicity by hosting people who openly criticize the Austrians and libertarianism; if we’re worth blowing up, we must be gaining in importance. But like the historian Webster Tarpley, this particular critic is just so WRONG that it’s not even fun. It doesn’t mean Austrians are flawless, of course, but it would be like Krugman having to fend off accusations that Keynes was a jerk because he was an anarchist.
To compound things, Max Keiser himself (it’s not a guest post, right?) weighs in on Tom Woods’ “Blunders.” So Alex Jones at least could just say he hosted Tarpley to keep things interesting, without endorsing his position. But here Keiser–again, unless I’m getting mixed up and he’s not the author of “Tom Woods’ Blunders”–is agreeing with Jaitly and in fact is being ruder about it.
What’s really weird in all this is that Jaitly and Keiser seem not to want to throw Austrian economics under the bus. So strategically, you would think they’d be a little more diplomatic, inasmuch as 99% of the world right now who likes Austrian economics, also respects Tom Woods. (OK maybe 85%; I know Tom is too aggressive for some people.) Anyway, here is Tom’s response to Keiser’s critique. (HT2 Robert Wenzel for linking to this.)
In the interest of evenhandedness, let me say that there are two areas where I think Tom may have not quite gotten what Jaitly was saying. This doesn’t excuse the other jaw-droppers, such as Jaitly claiming Mises was less subjectivist than Menger. (!) But here are the two things I have in mind (and I’m quoting from Tom’s original critique of Jaitly):
Jaitly further contends that “Mises didn’t like to admit that interest was a market phenomenon. He sort of wanted to imply that it’s a natural consequence of not having a present good.”
This claim is so at odds with Mises’ words that one is left breathless at its sheer daring. Mises never denied that interest is a market phenomenon. The whole point of his business-cycle theory is that deviation from market rates of interest by means of artificial credit expansion leads to malinvestments that culminate in a bust.
Mises does not say interest is “a natural consequence of not having a present good.” Merely not having something yields no natural consequence. Mises says people prefer a good in the present to the same good in the future, such that they would opt for the future good only at a premium. This premium reflects their time preference, or their discount of the future. Interest rates that arise on the market reflect these time preferences of individuals in society.
To say that Mises did not believe interest was a market phenomenon because its origins lay in individuals’ time preferences is like saying he didn’t believe prices were a market phenomenon because their origins lay in individuals’ subjective valuations. In each case, the market takes a subjective factor (individuals’ value scales in the case of prices, and individuals’ time preferences in the case of interest) and gives it objective expression – market prices in the former case, and the interest rate in the latter case.
OK, everything Tom says is perfectly true, but I think I get what Jaitly means. There are several places where Mises goes out of his way to beat down the conventional understanding of interest rates. I’m paraphrasing, but in Human Action Mises says that the interest rate doesn’t equilibrate the supply and demand of loanable funds, that it’s not the price of borrowing money, etc. etc. Instead, Mises says interest is due to time preference, which flows apodictically from the fact that humans act. Indeed, when I argue that interest really is the price of borrowing money, I get pushback from self-described Misesians saying, “No Bob, interest would exist even in a barter economy,” and I think even some of them would say it exists for Robinson Crusoe. (One guy literally said the former to me just last week, but perhaps nobody has actually claimed the latter; I don’t remember.) Anyway, if you want to see my heretical views on Misesian interest rate theory, see the second chapter in my dissertation.
There is one other point on which I think Tom simply misunderstood Jaitly. Here’s Tom:
Finally, Jaitly claims that Mises confuses “the thing that occupies an object with the object itself,” and gives as an example: “Mises thinks that a promise to gold is the same as the object of a promise to gold.”
Finding this point rather opaque, I ran it by a friend, who came back to me with, “As near as I can make out, Jaitly thinks that Mises believed that gold is valued intrinsically instead of as a means to an end. This appears to be what he has in mind by saying that a ‘promise to gold,’ i.e., a commitment to provide gold, is the same as the object, or end, for which this commitment is made.”
I find no evidence that Mises ever said or believed such a thing, and Keiser, doubtless as confused as his audience over this claim, doesn’t follow up on it either of the times Jaitly tries to raise it.
OK here, I think Jaitly is referring to Mises’ distinction between money in the narrower vs. broader sense. In particular, Mises’ circulation credit theory of the trade cycle (i.e. “Austrian business cycle theory”) relies on the ability of banks to increase the “quantity of money” during the boom phase by issuing claims to gold, even though the actual amount of gold hasn’t increased.
Now notice, Jaitly’s point here (assuming my interpretation is correct) is exactly backwards, just like his claim about Mises and subjectivism. Far from not recognizing the difference between a claim to gold vs. gold itself, Mises’ whole theory rests upon the distinction. Yes, Mises says that in some respects a “money substitute” functions just as money itself, but since they’re not really the same, this leads to trouble. If anyone wants to carefully spell out the senses in which claims to gold and gold itself are similar and yet different, I think the list of bullet points would end up looking exactly like Mises’ treatment. For more, see his Theory of Money and Credit and my Study Guide, since it can be tough reading at times.
So in summary, I think Jaitly and Keiser missed badly in their critique of Mises, libertarianism, and Lew Rockwell, while Woods was 6.5/8 in his reply, and any 3 of Woods’ hits were fatal.
How Draconian Is the Ryan Plan?
Today at The American Conservative I examine this question. The money excerpt:
Hardly. The first jaw-dropping fact—in light of the commentary above—is that Ryan’s plandoesn’t even call for a balanced budget until the year 2040. Don’t believe me? Read it for yourself on page 84 of the actual proposal [.pdf]. There, the analysis proudly declares: “The CBO estimates that this budget [i.e. the Ryan proposal] will produce annual surpluses by 2040 and begin paying down the national debt after that.”
Indeed, if you look at Table S-1 (p. 88), you will see that the Ryan budget estimates that over its first ten years, it will add $3.1 trillion to the federal debt held by the public. Over that decade, the lowest the deficit gets (in absolute dollar terms) is $166 billion in Fiscal Year 2018, and at the end of the decade—i.e., in FY 2022—the Ryan Plan projects the federal budget deficit will have risen back up to $287 billion. Remember everyone, this estimate of a $287 billion federal budget deficit occurs in the tenth year after the Ryan Plan kicks in.
Reader Mail: Reconciling Anarcho-Capitalism With Christianity
Bill Peacock (a fellow Christian) sent me some concerns about my Mises Academy online class on anarcho-capitalism. With permission, I reproduce portions of his email below and offer my reactions. Note that I am offering this post partly as a way just of airing “alternative views” that are well-reasoned; I am not trying to answer every last concern Bill raises below.
Bob,
I’ve noticed that you are teaching the class on anarcho-capitalism for Mises Academy. I am very interested in what you have to say about this issue as a Christian.
One thing that a lot of Austrian analysis lacks is a Christian/Biblical perspective. Of course, there is much about how the world works that can be clearly understood without a Biblical perspective, as demonstrated by Mises and Rothbard. However, the knowledge of God’s creation of and dominion over the world can lead to even a fuller understanding of the truth about how this world and its people work. As I’ll explain below, I don’t think the anarcho-capitalist perspective fares well when viewed through a Biblical lens.
God gave us government. As Abraham Kuyper stated, “We have gratefully to receive from the hand of God the institution of the state with its magistrates as a means of preservation.” There is something necessary about this provision of government. And not just in our fallen nature as a means of preservation. Man, in both our original and fallen nature, needs to be under authority.
OK, the main thing I am going to say in response to Bill, is that he is here mixing together three terms that should be distinct: government, State, and authority. Bill seems to be using them interchangeably, but I don’t think we should do so.
I definitely agree that a Christian must be “under authority”–obviously the Christian pledges obedience to Christ (though the Christian will admit he fails in that pledge, probably daily). Regular readers may remember that this is why I stopped volunteering the word “anarchist” to describe myself, since I serve King Jesus.
Even atheist libertarians should realize, however, that people need to be “under authority” and to live under a “government” in a certain sense of those terms. By this I mean simply that everybody is biased and cannot be trusted with arbitrary power. Everybody should be subject to the law; that’s a necessary precondition for there to be a “rule of law.”
Yet to say these truths about “human nature” is not to imply the need for a State. In my view, not just Austrian economics and libertarian political philosophy, but just a plain study of Biblical and secular history, show that the State as an institution does a terrible job of implementing the rule of law. Right now there are a few dozen people (mostly in Washington DC) who are using flying robots to blow up people who are thwarting their plans for subjugation of large parts of the globe with a standing army. Say what you will about the anarcho-capitalist society I describe in this lecture, but I don’t think it would have such an outcome. Contrary to the objections of critics, a private legal system would not let the rich and powerful buy their way out of guilty verdicts, just as referees tend to be pretty fair in professional sports, and don’t systematically throw the game to the team with the most money.
Of course, we have the church, under whose authority all Christians stand. But the Biblical model goes farther than the church, and provides government as the institution under whose authority all men stand. It is not clear to me that the “populist” nature of anarcho-capitalism fills this need.
Here I would need Bill to be a little clearer on what he means by “government.” As Bill himself will go on to say below, it seems the Bible pretty clearly opposes what looks like modern forms of government, and recommends something that is a heck of a lot closer to private judges than to the modern nation-State.
So I’d say government is necessary. But I’d also say that government is good, not some necessary evil. God only gives good gifts to His people. So government, as a gift from God, can’t be inherently evil—necessarily or otherwise.
Now, I acknowledge that not all forms of government, or practices by the people in government, qualify for this necessary and good Biblical imprimatur. So what does a good and necessary God-given government look like?
It may not be the form of government we see in 1 Samuel 8 when the people go to Samuel and demand a king. We know that when Samuel went to God with this, God told him that the people already had a King in Him, and that by making this demand, there people had “rejected me from being king over them.” God then told the people, through Samuel, that “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. … He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.”
This hardly sounds like the good and necessary gift from God for which we are seeking. And one might well compare this form of government to executive-style government we have today, be it one headed by a military dictator, king, president, or prime minister. Therefore, it might be that we need to restructure the type of government we have today to reach the Biblical model. But what does it look like?
Well, the people of Israel did have a good, God-given government before Saul was made king. It was a government led by judges, of which Moses was the first and Samuel (or his sons) was the last. Sometimes the judges were elected (Jephthah – Judges 11:6). They were always a deliverer, pointing to back to Moses but also forward to Christ. They were a military leader (Othniel – Judges 3:10). And a civil/criminal magistrate (Deborah – Judges 4:4-5). And I think one could also argue that there was a legislative/lawgiving role of the judges, even though God was truly the chief lawgiver.
So at a bare minimum a good, necessary government is one with a legitimate civil and criminal justice function—I’d include the policing/military role here. And probably also a government with a legitimate legislative function. Though it might not have an executive function such as led to the corruption of the kings.
This is not to say the government without an executive was perfect:
“When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.”
But of course the government was imperfect because the people were imperfect. The marketplace suffers from the same problem, and would continue to do so if relied upon as the organizing principle of society in the form of anarcho-capitalism.
The biblical model of government did have the power of life or death over its citizens, as would the structure arranged under anarcho-capitalism.
That leaves us with the question about whether this government had the power to tax. I have heard some Mises anarcho-capitalists say that the power to tax is one of the two functions that defines government. I am not sure I agree with that. It seems perhaps a convenient definition by which to classify anarcho-capitalist institutions with the power of life and death over people as non-governmental institutions.
It’s really difficult for modern libertarians to talk about the situation facing the ancient Israelites. After all, they all fled Egypt and were literally wandering around the desert, following this guy Moses who apparently was in direct communication with an omnipotent Being who was daily providing them nourishment and would send plagues throughout their ranks if they angered Him too much. So it’s quite difficult to talk about property rights and consent in this framework.
To give an example of what I mean: Nowadays, if someone says, “Hey I am going to work on Sunday because I am an atheist and want to earn some money,” and then I kill him, clearly I have violated property rights. But when the children of Israel killed a guy for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, it’s not as clear cut. For one thing, he knew what the rules were, and I have heard Christians argue that by continuing to follow the group around, everybody had implicitly endorsed them. (Also, it appears at times that the whole community does endorse the covenants with God; it’s just that they are weak and backslide.) And in any event, God literally ordered that outcome, according to the story. Since–if we are taking the Bible as the frame of reference–God created everything, then He owns everything and can do what He wants. As I’ve argued a few times on this blog, no matter how you die, there is a sense in which “God kills you.” So it’s not murder if God has people throw rocks at you, but “natural causes” if you die because your liver breaks down at age 90.
Anyway, it is not clear to me whether this God-given form of government had the power to tax, or whether the judges and the people in war and the administration of justice covered the costs out of their own pockets. So perhaps this God-given government could tax, perhaps it could not. But in any case, I would call it a government with a leader in authority. And would in fact call it good and necessary since God gave it to us. At least until time comes to an end and we live with God as our King and Light in the new heavens and earth.
We see this need for authority in all aspects of society. The family, the church, work, even civic organizations. In large part, as we saw with the judges, the authority role is there to point us to the true authority in our lives, Jesus Christ. Of course, non-Christians wouldn’t see this need. But that doesn’t mean it is not real and isn’t needed. And it certainly is what is called for from a Biblical perspective. So if it is there in all other aspects of our lives, then it should also exist in the most fundamental way in which we organize our society.
I don’t see anarcho-capitalism filling this necessary and good role of authority/leadership. Perhaps it might, and it is really just a different way for people to “elect” their leaders, and a way for people who don’t like “government” to provide a form of government that they can call something else. But it seems to me from what I know of it that anarcho-capitalism is missing this necessary role of leadership and authority that a biblical model of government would encompass.
I don’t know if you’ll address any of this in your class. But this is my interest, and so I wonder what your take on this will be.
Take care,
Bill
In conclusion, let me reiterate that some of this is just a terminological dispute. Clearly there are many self-described anarcho-capitalists who are big proponents of the church, the family, civic associations, etc. If I oppose a monopoly on the issuance of judicial rulings and provision of military defense, it’s not because I think these things are useless. Just like, if I want the State to get out of education, it’s not because I am opposed to literacy.
Now in fairness to Bill, there is something of a selection bias going on here. I think in practice a lot of people are attracted to atheism and anarcho-capitalism because by their very personalities they oppose authority in general. They are the type of people who don’t like anybody telling them what to do, whether it’s Obama, the pope, or some invisible guy in the sky. So it’s definitely true that in practice, the “anarcho-capitalist movement” may not recognize that humans need authority in the properly defined sense. I just disagree with Bill that the State is a necessary institution for providing it–or maybe actually we are in agreement, and are just using different definitions.
“Messengers for Liberty” Documentary Trailer
Sorry if I already posted this; I get mixed up with FB and the blog, sometimes. Anyway just in case I haven’t posted it here:
The Market for Security (Mises 2012)
This is one of the talks I gave in Auburn in late July. I run through an economic case for complete privatization of judicial, police, and military services.
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