When you consider the extreme commercialism of Black Friday, remember it fondly. It may not survive the future of America. As America’s youth are more accepting of socialism, all that may well change. Survey’s of Americans ages 23-38 indicate that about 36% approve of communism and 70% of millennials support socialism. Some 60% of Democrats favor socialism. Hispanics, Asian Americans and African Americans place socialism higher than capitalism. Even a quarter of the Republican demographic favor socialism. A government paying for health care, tuition, and housing could tax people so excessively that Black Friday could go dark as there may be no money for gifts.
We need look no further than Argentina to see how in a short time government took control over the financial and physical lives of every individual in the nation. We also can see just how fast the economy spiraled downward, where people are now starving. Socialism would also restrict the guarantees of free speech and freedom of religion. In true socialism and communism government takes the place of God. It is the government that enjoys the fruits and labors of the people who are enslaved to it. This is in great opposition to many parts of the Bible. Solomon, for example, writes in Ecclesiastes 3:13, “…that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift of God.” He didn’t say it was the gift of government as socialism and communism require.
From a Christian worldview, it is Christ’s people, not a centralized government, that must minister to the poor, and provide healing, restoration, comfort and vigilance over Liberty. The earliest account of American history provided by Mayflower leader William Bradford indicates that the ability to worship freely was the central theme of the Pilgrims. And in that, he writes, “We are knit together as a body in a most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other’s good.” And they proved this when they were dying sometimes two or three per day in their care for one another’s health.
When the Pilgrims were starving while trying to grow food communally, Bradford gave them their own land to till, which turned the colony around. He says, “The failure of this experiment of communal service, which was tried for several years, and by good and honest men proves the emptiness of the theory of Plato and other ancients, applauded by some of later times–that the taking away of private property, and the possession of it in community, by a commonwealth, would make a state happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God….community property was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment which would have been to the general benefit and comfort.” Are we to repeat this disastrous example?
