All man-made systems of governance, economies and organizational structures are all flawed and marred by sin. I hear someone saying, umm … yeah? This is something that is, on its face, so basic to the presuppositions of Christianity, yet in the process of taking your eyes off Christ, it is easy to get caught up in defending a system as if it were not flawed. I have fallen into this thinking, once again, and it can be very distracting from things that matter infinitely more.
Socialism is flawed in that it makes an assumption about the nature of humanity, that man’s deepest motivation is to always do the right thing and help his fellow man; that he will be, by nature, other-oriented. This flies in the face of Romans 3. Capitalism is also flawed in that it assumes the greedy won’t gain unwarranted, unbalanced power over the majority via corporate structures, which can result in fascism and dictatorial reign.
As I was watching CNN this morning before work, they came on with the story about the Illinois Governor and possible ties with people inside Obama’s transition team and those inside his newly minted cabinet. The CNN headline read, “True Change? Or Politics as Usual?”