How Can Christians Be Conservatives?

A friend of mine asked essentially this question of me in a recent e-mail. He couldn't understand how such a "warm-hearted" person as myself could embrace conservative values. After much thought, I realize that biblical Christianity and conservatism have many aspects in common.

Self-reliance is the hallmark of conservatism as well as Christianity, at least in the physical realm. The Apostle Paul wrote that if a person won't work, he shouldn't eat. Some members of the early churches assumed that they needed to be free of manual labour so they could study the apostles' teachings and the scriptures. In reality, they became freeloaders, taking food and other goods needed by impoverished believers.

Conservatives and Christ's followers believe that charity is an individual's responsibility, not that of governments. The duty of rulers, as Paul pointed out, is to punish evil and reward good. Instead, non-Christian people want the government to decide who needs help and who is merely freeloading. In practice, private charities are more fair and more efficient than government programs.

Conservatives are concerned with law and order. So are Christ's followers concerned with living peaceful lives. Conservatives and Christians want the guilty to be punished and to make restitution to their victims. Leftists, on the other hand, blame external forces for internal mistakes in thinking. History proves that conservative and Christian ideas work much more effectively because they deal with the root of the problem: sin.

Though my How I Was Razed memoir was theological in nature, I did write about how I obeyed the law while others didn't. Contact me about purchasing this wondrous testimony of God's providence.

REFUTATION BY DENIGRATION

In October, the local library liquidated their collection of cassette books and gave them all to me. As I sifted through the stack, I found a book called Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays by Stephen Hawking. Being interested in science, I listened to the whole book. As I played one tape, I heard how Hawking had suffered what he called "refutation by denigration" as a result of his theory that black holes emitted particles and eventually vanished. Instead of basing their criticism on flaws they discovered in the theory, Hawkings' detractors used insults to discredit his work.

This happens far too often in the political world, particularly from socialists. Conservative leaders, for example  have been labeled as racists for wishing to get rid of affirmative action programs. Many of President Obama's opponents have also been accused of racism simply for finding fault with his policies.

Canada isn't immune to refutation by denigration  either. The Wildrose Alliance Party formed in 2008 to oppose the wasteful spending and high living of the Progressive Conservatives. The party was immediately  tarred with the epithet "upstart" and was often labeled as "right wing extremist" by many political commentators. Instead of examining Wildrose's fiscal and social policies at their face value, the media editors prejudged the intent of the policies and impugned the reputations of the Wildrose leadership.

Sadly, this happens to evangelical Christians as well. A small group of vocal atheists have written hateful books which make irrational claims about God and his followers.

Likewise, any professor doubting global warming, now called climate change, have been censured and discredited.

Additionally, those believers who oppose abortion are automatically tarred with the epithet "deniers of women's rights" simply for proposing that life begins at conception. No matter what scientific studies have found regarding fetal pain and the development of the baby in the womb, these vocal opponents continue to call Christians derogatory names. Detractors seem unwilling and unable to examine anti-abortion arguments dispassionately.

People who oppose homosexual and lesbian behaviour as being abnormal also come under fire by a small band of activists. Though Scripture makes it clear that the activities of these people is perversion, adherents of Christianity are charged by Jesus Christ to love sinners. Opponents often point to the Old Testament injunctions of the death penalty for breakers of God's commands without realizing those were for the time when Israel was a theocracy. The Lord gave the commandments because of the weakness of the Israelites toward copying the wicked deeds of other nations. Now that Christ has shown God's compassionate wish to save all who would believe in him, his followers are compelled to love sinners but oppose their sinful and self-destructive ways.

While it might be a human trait to call people names and attach negative attributes to others, it still is inexcusable. For many years, elders in a house church accused me of lacking faith to be healed of poor eyesight, harboring sin, lusting for sight, and having ancestral sins that blocked my healing. I found out later that my detractors were wrong. What a relief that was, and still is, to me. You can read the glorious journey God led me on in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Check it out at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's Books.

THE CURSE OF CENTRALIZATION

Back when I was young and naive, I believed the Marxist notion that capitalism was evil and that the government was fair. It seemed to make sense that some profit-oriented rich person would only care about making money while oppressing the workers. I was taught by three socialist teachers in high school that Keynesian economics was a much fairer system as it would supply people's needs and tax the greedy.

It's obvious to me now that those men misled me with their enticing philosophy. Looking dispassionately at the results of socialism and free market capitalism, I plainly see that the former stultifies economic growth while the latter amplifies it. Furthermore, top-down government control is inefficient. Bureaucrats thousands of miles away have no understanding or empathy for local situations.

One recent example of governmental mismanagement was the amalgamation of Alberta's nine regional health boards into one "superboard." This resulted in millions of dollars wasted and massive confusion. Furthermore, bureaucrats in Edmonton thought they could plan for local conditions better than the people who lived hundreds of miles away from the capital.

A dramatic example of this was the meal-planning SNAFU in hospice facilities across the province. Before the boards were collectivized, local people cooked appetizing and nutritious meals for their residents. The word came down from on high that meals would be pre-packaged and sent out to the various facilities. These were bland and unappetizing. Additionally, senior-unfriendly foods like tacos were included in the packages. You can imagine how difficult eating one would be if your hands were arthritic.

Thanks to public pressure stirred up by the Wildrose Party, local cooks are again providing delicious meals to their charges. The Wildrose Party is also pressuring the government to give better care to seniors, including common sense ideas like home care and adaptive aids.

Local charities are likewise better equipped to care for their needy neighbours. A bureaucrat in an air-conditioned office can't relate to an elderly pensioner living in an over-heated apartment in summer. Likewise, distant government employees aren't face to face with those people who need help as local charity workers are. These entities are also dependent on the good will of their donors, causing them to be cautious about mismanagement of funds. Governments, on the other hand, mismanage money all the time and people have grown used to that sort of criminality.

In my own case, I've been helped by local charities and friends while having been harassed in 2003 by my pension case worker. I wrote about how it happened in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Please check it out at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

WHY WE NEED RICH PEOPLE

Wouldn't it be nice if the rich weren't so rich and the poor weren't so poor? In actuality, things would be worse if there were no rich people. Here's why we're better off with wealthy people.

First of all, rich folks invest their money. Unlike a dragon lying on a mountain of gold and jewels, wealthy business people create jobs through their industries. Money is useless unless it passes from one person to another. Business owners hire people to make products and perform services. Those workers then buy the products and services from others.

Wealth is greatly multiplied through capitalism, whereas hoarding wealth retards the growth of a country's economy. Socialist schemes also diminish a country's growth in that civil servants don't produce products and they often give poor service. When governments try to run businesses, the results are woefully pathetic. Furthermore, crown corporations such as Air Canada and Canada Post run deficits because they lack the competition present in situations where monopolies are non-existent.

Wealthy citizens buy luxury products and hire people to work for them. If everybody was equally poor, there would be no incentive to build homes and high-end cars. Nobody would be building and buying yachts and private jets either.

Neither would there be any incentive to achieve great things. When people are denied the opportunity to fulfil their dreams and reap the rewards of their work, they end up like workers in the former Soviet Union. Farmers who would work until the crop was gathered in would leave at quitting time. Craftspeople wouldn't work as hard because they have no reason to. Only when people have vested interest in their labour do they put their full energy into what they do.

Furthermore, entrepreneurs are much more likely to create innovative products than would be the case with government workers. The hope of profiting from their inventions drives talented individuals to accomplish feats of ingenuity, benefiting not only themselves but all of society.

Socialism, on the other hand, robs citizens of incentive. If they get the same pay for just doing their job as for coming up with a brilliant solution to a problem, folks are more likely not to bother doing more than they have to. This decreases tax revenues, giving governments incentive to raise taxes on fewer and fewer productive people. In the end, the economy craters.

Selling my books has taught me much about economics. By allowing failures, marketing has taught me about what sells and what doesn't. My first two paperbacks are available through the Bruce Atchison's books link. How I Was Razed is distributed by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

THE BIG SOCIALIST LIE

Each year on this date, various socialist and communist groups celebrate workers around the world. Though fewer people embrace communism these days, many still think socialism is a good political system. I respectfully disagree with them.

Having watched the news for about four decades, I can tell that socialist governments around the world aren't doing what they claimed. Britain is one excellent example. Back in the seventies, the Labour Party had made a mess of the country. Unions called strike after strike for more money and better conditions. I remember how citizens in the UK had to cut back on power consumption because of the coal strike. Ads were shown on television, advising viewers to "switch off something." To avert a disaster, the government turned against the strikers.

When the Conservative Party came to power under Margaret Thatcher, the economy boomed. I remember how Britain became an economically strong nation by the mid eighties. Then Labour got in and things went downhill.

Here in Canada, The Liberal Party racked up a monstrous debt. Their idea of taxing the rich and giving to the poor didn't work out so well. Prime Minister Trudeau implemented the National Energy Plan which siphoned Alberta's oil windfall, slowing down the economy.

As America benefited from Ronald Reagan's conservative policies, Canada stagnated. Our debt climbed, even when a supposedly conservative government, led by Brian Mulroney, ran the country from 1984 to 1993. Canadians voted the Liberal party back in but the debt kept rising. Only after the turn of the century did the government see the disaster Canada was heading for and implemented fiscal restraint.

A true conservative named Stephen Harper came to power in 2006 and Canada's economy slowly improved. When the housing bubble, caused initially by Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, caused a massive downturn in the economy, Stephen Harper's sound financial practices kept Canada afloat.

I've noticed that socialists and communists use euphemistic names to hide the true intent of their policies. These "people's republics" end up oppressing the citizens while benefiting the ruling class. Policies with promising names often fail to deliver. The Obama administration's Affordable Care Act is a good case in point. What was supposed to save people money and give all citizens access to medical help has done the opposite. People can't always keep their doctor and their insurance plans if they like them unless they want to be fined.

Much the same thing happens in the spiritual realm. The "health and wealth"  gospel delivers neither thing except to the preachers who proclaim it. I fell for this bogus doctrine back in the eighties to the point where I needed professional help. I wrote about how I came out of those dark days in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Visit Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Virtual Bookworm Publishers to learn more about this wonderful story of the Heavenly Father's providential work in my life.

MY FIRST FINANCIAL REALITY CHECK.

As far as I'm aware, debt is the biggest crisis this world faces today. Governments, increasingly influenced by Marxist notions of redistribution, recklessly tax and borrow to finance activities once performed by hard-working charities. The bigger the bureaucracies of the nations have grown, the more dependent citizens have become on government largesse.

The concept of prudently spending finite funds is opaque to socialist rulers but I had no choice but to learn it. From Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), here is how I found out that there really is no free lunch or treats for that matter.

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During that autumn, I learned the hard way that life did not owe me a living. The weekend supervisor, a loud-voiced, heavy set, middle-aged, authoritarian whom I shall call Mr. Moiarty, took us to the beach one November afternoon. We walked along a road, which ran parallel to the ocean, for a few hours. We finally stopped at a kiosk selling candy and chips.

"Could you buy me one of these?" I asked our supervisor and pointed at the chocolate bars.

"Use your own money; I'm not your dad. This isn't the little kids dorm. You're supposed to buy your own candy. You can't expect people to always buy everything for you, you know," he chided. Mr. Moiarty's rebuke stung. I foolishly hoped some measure of grace would be extended to us and we could have a few more treats than usual but I realized then that I must make do with my allowance and could not expect help from others.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Click here to read more about this book and to order it. You may also e-mail me directly for more information.