Is Abp. Rowan Williams really a Christian?

Since moving back to America, I have observed quite a few people wearing all kinds of small items (usually bracelets) with the letters "WWJD" on them. I found out this abbreviation stands for "What would Jesus do?". It is a way of reminding people who claim to be Christian about the importance of their religion in making everyday decisions. You are faced with a problem and you ask yourself - what would Jesus do? Now I'm pretty sure members of the clergy shouldn't need little bracelets to be able to think like this, they are supposed to be thinking about Jesus all the time anyway. So I was very surprised the other day when I heard that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, spoke out in support of the Occupy Movement protesters who argue for higher taxes on the rich and on the finance industry. I don't really know why he would support such a thing, any economist worth his salt knows this kind of motion will cripple the industry, increase intrest rates and prices across the board, and drive jobs overseas. But there is also an important moral question here (which has nothing to do with the Archbishop's apparent ignorance of basic economics).
Namely, the question is: What would Jesus do?
Now I was raised Catholic and I've read the New Testament quite a few times - and nowhere in there did I see any reference to Jesus telling people they should take the property of others in the name of justice. And this is exactly what the new tax would do. In fact, even its proponents acknowledge this. They call the tax the "Robin Hood Tax", and we all know that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor (after taking a certain comfortable provision for himself, of course). Abp. Williams should be able to explain to me how he can defend stealing. Thou shalt not steal was still in the Decalogue the last time I checked. Maybe the Archbishop needs to order a little "WWJD" bracelet for himself.
Jesus was a great man, and his followers, Christians, built a great civilization. Christians are generous and they respect human rights, such as the right of property. Christians do not coerce others and they have a respect for the Law (The Law as Frederick Bastiat defined it). This is why their civilization grew so great, it was peaceful and prosperous when compared to other cultures on this Earth. Jesus told others to give their property to the deserving poor - he did not instruct anyone to steal in order to support themselves or others who had less material wealth. Jesus was the patron of beggars, not of robbers. I hope all Christians who still claim to be faithful to him remember this one day.

To quote the Jesus himself: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." (Matthew 19:21).
Sacrificing oneself for the sake of others is often a great virtue (when not taken to extremes). But sacrificing others for the sake of the poor is akin to human sacrifice, something Jesus would never be able to condone - he was a pacifist.

Communist Man versus Christian Man

As a Social Darwinist and believer in a better future of humanity, I often get accused of being overly idealistic and optimistic. People allege that the Spencerian model of human evolution tends to produce results which end up looking inconspicuously like the famed "new socialist man" who Marx wrote about. Furthermore, people also seem to conflate this "new socialist man" with Christianity's ideal man - Jesus. After all, aren't Spencerian evolved men selfless, as are the communists and the Christians?
All this is brought about by the fact people misunderstand Marxist, Spencerian, and Christian teachings. I once wrote a short post about the difference between statist "do-gooders" and Christians (here) and there I highlighted the differences in modern Christian and Socialist behaviour towards others. When speaking about the future, however, the topic becomes a bit different still. After all, as my critics have said, if the "new socialist man" of tomorrow is a communist voluntarily and no coercion is used, does he not become the perfect Christian? And is Spencer's future man who never does wrong by others and takes pleasure in the pleasure of others (and feels pain at the pain of others) also not similar to this ideal socialist man? The answer is simple - No. There are huge disparities between all three "ideal men".
Marx was an economist and it is easy to see where his man is different from the other two - he is a materialist. The communist man considers most things and people as a function of utility for the commune. I.e. individuals who slack or do not produce as much are considered inferior to others who give their lives to pursue greater gains. For Marx, who subscribed to the faulty labour theory of value, gains are usually material. The final Marxist position was best espoused by the early Fabian socialists in Great Britain who asserted that individuals who do not "pull their own weight" in society and consume more than they produce should be judged by the collective and maybe even eliminated in some kind of final solution. The communist man is therefore cold and calculating despite his outwardly cooperative demeanor. We get here the picture of an uncoerced form of the "Homo Sovieticus".
The Christian perfect man is someone we can actually already know and follow - Jesus. Jesus is certainly not a materialist. If anything, he is the embodiment of separating oneself from the material world through prayer. The Christian ideal lives a humble and quiet life where pleasure is not frowned upon, but is controlled for the sake of helping others. In this way the Christian man is very much an Epicurean - the ideal I aspire to someday reach. The Christian life is also communal, but it is very pacifist and has certain rules which matter above those of utility (in fact utility is not a concern at all for the Christian).
The Spencerian man is someone who is a rational egoist. He is not an altruist like the Christian, but he is not an ant or termite like the communist man seems to be. The Spencerian man has aligned his emotions with reason - he feels compassion for those who deserve it, but he is willing to ostracize and refuse help to those who deserve punishment. In a way he differs from the Christian man in that instead of providing active positive help and assistance to others, he rather minds his own business and never participates in any aggressive acts.

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be." Thus wrote Alfred Lord Tennyson. But what would be more appropriate is that all we know is what could be. We don't know what the man of the future will be like. We don't even know what the man of the present is! Let's worry about what is today and the problems we must face in the present. The discussions about the Übermensch can be left for those times when we all relax in a small smoke room with a glass of whiskey, and fine cigar, and a few philosophically inclined friends.

Legality vs. Morality

Is going against the law wrong? I have heard this question many times. Sometimes when I state some of my theories people say: "But that might include doing something against the law! And that can't be right!". This is, of course, a bunch of nonsense. Legality of something has nothing to do with making it right or wrong. It only determines what acts the goons hired by the governing gang will punish you for. The government seeks to legislate morality upon us just as it has been for the past three thousand years. The problem is that nowadays the government has its nose in practically everything and can therefore exercise a much bigger level of control than it could back in the year 1000. So when is going against the law right? Well, whenever the law is immoral you have the right not to follow it. The only problem is having to deal with the possible unjust punishment (so I would not advise anyone to do anything clearly against the law...). The more important question here seems to be: When is the law ever moral? Back in the 1700's in the USA slavery existed. It was legal, but clearly it was immoral! In Soviet Russia Stalin's purges were legal, but were they moral? Or how about Nazi persecution of Jews? Legal AND moral, or legal BUT NOT moral? As James Madison said, men aren't angels! And legislation is, sadly, written by men. We must therefore find morality which is beyond the mere musings of mankind. Justice must be objective, not made up. Luckily it just happens that natural law does exists. It is out there to be discovered by our reason, not our opinions or experiences. Morality is a dispassionate judge for all things. It is never changing and eternal. It is universal like any law of physics. Arbitrary laws based on opinion are illegitimate whether enforced by one man (a despot) or a lot of them (a democracy).

It just so happens that a few days ago we celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ. Christ himself became a victim of arbitrary illegitimate law; he was one of the two great Western philosophical giants to die by democracy (the other being Socrates). And it was he himself who said "Let them alone: they are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch". The problem appears when the blind, in their self-righteous rage which killed Jesus, force us all into servitude and slavery in the name of "Legality".

The Purpose of Freedom for Christians

I have heard many people accuse Christians of being as bad a socialists, the Church being a sort of proto-socialist organization. Most notorious in this regard (as being accusers) are followers of Ayn Rand. As brilliant as Rand was, I never understood her constant rants against religion and Christianity in particular. Another wing of critics stems from people like Mikhail Gorbachev, who is famous for saying: "Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.". There is a huge difference between being an altruist and forcing people to be altruists. Christians try to do the former, socialists the latter. But this is a huge topic - to be discussed later.
For now let's focus on the issue of why Christians need freedom and liberty. For a Christian (I speak from my own, Catholic, perspective) doing good things is essential; it is a requirement of salvation in the afterlife. "Doing good" means helping others and following Christian dogma, such as the Ten Commandments and other Church laws. In order to do these things, however, one must have the free will to do them. If someone is forced to do a good thing (like giving a poor man a dollar, for example), then that person is not really responsible for doing the good deed as it was mandatory (i.e. the forced socialist way). By the same logic, if someone is forced to do an evil thing (to shoot someone, for instance), they are also not responsible for the killing. Therefore in a socialist society being a Christian has no value. If you pay your taxes and they are used to feed the poor and house the homeless, it is still not a good deed - because you were forced to pay the taxes in the first place. For a free man life is a test of his virtues and values; he can use all his faculties to the ends he thinks are best. For a slave, however, life is just a toil. A slave spends his days eeking out a subsistance and thinking of ways to get more material goods from his master.
A socialist society is a society of slaves.
A Christian society is a society of free men.

Let me end with a brilliant quote from Sir Francis Galton: "A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organization."