Income Redistribution

Income Redistribution

The antagonism against capitalism is stronger today than we have
seen it in a long time. There was a strong current against capitalism in the
early 20th century during the height of the progressive movement. Many
people are upset at the gulf between the wealthy and the poor.

Some five decades after President Lyndon Johnson declared his
famous war on poverty, according to the Heritage Foundation
(www.heritage.org), the U. S. has spent $19.8 trillion dollars on poverty
programs. But we have more people on government assistance and receiving
food stamps than ever before. Jesus said, "You always have the poor with
you, but you will not always have me." (Matthew 26:11).

There will always be an income gap between the wealthy and the
poor. That is due to chance and luck as well as initiative, hard work,
skill, education, and industriousness.

But income equality will be here one day. It will not be by
government mandate. It will be by divine mandate. It will not be here on
this earth. It will be at the grave. The sons of Korah sing: "Be not afraid
when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. For when he
dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him"
(Psalm 49:16-17). The grave is the great income-equalizer. The poor and the
wealthy both die and then stand before God as penniless as they were when
they came into the world.

Let us not get distraught at the wealthy. Certainly, let us not
get envious or jealous of the wealthy. Rather, let us use what wealth we
have to serve God supremely and our fellow-man sacrificially. That is what
matters.

--Paul Holland