This morning I discussed a Christian view of Economics with Neil Johnson on his 20/20 Vision show….We looked at debt, the budget, socialism, capitalism, Adam Smith, care for the poor, housing, the common good and more….all in 20 minutes…
You can listen to it here…
Or catch it on Vision radio here…
Isalmism, Islam and Christianity – A conversation with Neil Johnson – Vision Radio
Dear David, Many thanks for sharing this. Your point about housing is important and one Christians should endorse. If we are in favour of stable families, then we should be outraged that suitable housing is unavailable for young families. I have written about this in the UK context and I suspect the case in Australia is similar. Past democratic governments used tax incentives to promote home ownership, leaving little incentive to release surplus housing stock back onto the market. A large proportion of the stock is under-occupied by older people who bought at much lower prices than now apply. Why aren’t Christians more ready to say so? Partly widely-shared economic ignorance, partly self-interest but also because our political voice is captive either to theonomy or to a kind of watered-down Christian socialism. You make a valiant effort to break out of this and I salute that. A couple of points though: you suggest that any party that brought forward plans to resolve the housing question would be electorally successful. Sadly, not so in the UK and I guess the same applies in Australia: the beneficiaries of the current mess are a strong majority and no democratic politician dare tell the truth. Your comment on debt reflects an OT perspective which is unhelpful. Debt in the modern economy is not a down-payment on personal bondage. In fact, money is debt (most money is created through bank lending). Of course there are critical and biblical things to say about debt but we need to start by understanding what it actually is. In Christ, yours, Paul Lusk