After reading in the Daily Herald about Orem councilman/mayoral candidate Hans Andersen saying that “God has economic principles we don’t follow,” I decided I should consult the ultimate authoritative text on God’s word: the Bible.
There are indeed passages concerning economics scattered throughout the various sections of the Bible. Two from Deuteronomy clearly spell out God’s divine economic plan.
The institution of lending is addressed in Deuteronomy 23:20: “Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shall not lend upon usury.”
God’s word says it is fine with him if you cheat a stranger but not a brother, loosely defined as any member of your own group, family, clan or religion. Payday-loan sharks charge obscenely usurious interest rates to strangers (the poor), as do many credit-card companies. And the economic collapse associated with the housing bubble was in part due to massive increases in mortgage interest rates and hedge-fund scams, often targeting certain demographic groups. Here, God’s economic plan is the guiding principle.
God’s economic plan also demands the selling of inferior goods and services to strangers, even to the extent of knowingly endangering the life of another: “Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: Thou shall give it to the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it, or thou mayest sell it unto an alien; for though art holy people unto the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 14:21).
So, God himself is perfectly OK with you selling or buying (if you be not of the chosen group) tainted, yea, even toxic and faulty products that threaten your very existence.
Almost weekly, there seems to be another disclosure of bacteria-infested food making its way into the market and our bodies. The low-nutrition, heavily processed crap sold and eaten in this country, and the documented but unreported (in the USA at least) perils of genetically modified food that makes up a majority of food consumed here, are shining examples of adherence to God’s economic plan, as given to us all through Moses.
Far from straying from God’s economic plan, we are following it religiously.
CLEE PAUL AMES
Eureka
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