"The Rich Man and Lazarus isn’t a parable about financial planning. Scholars describe it as representing the heart of Luke’s theology of economic justice — a story in which a wealthy man goes to hell explicitly because a beggar sat at his gate suffering and he didn’t notice. Not because he was cruel. Not because he stole the bread from Lazarus’s mouth. Because he had and Lazarus had not and that gap was never addressed. Theologian John Dominic Crossan put it plainly: the parable doesn’t tell us the rich man did anything wrong, or the poor man anything right. The roles simply reverse in the next world. That’s the whole point. That’s what made the Pharisees furious.
Paul doesn’t tell that story. Paul tells you to be content in all circumstances. Paul tells you that godliness with contentment is great gain. Paul’s theology, however unfairly we might be reading it, tilts toward acceptance of social order. Jesus’ tilts toward its interrogation."
"Sojourners — a Christian social justice publication — captured the incompatibility plainly: “I’m supposed to love God and love my neighbor. If I am forced to compete with my neighbor for limited resources, that’s not conducive to being a Christian.” Competition is the engine of capitalism. Love of neighbor is the engine of the Gospel. These are not complementary systems dressed in different clothes. They are adversarial frameworks pretending to share a building.
American Christianity chose competition. It chose the theology that blessed its existing social arrangements and asked the least of its most comfortable congregants. It chose Paul."
~ Derrick Day
"Capitalism, Socialism, And Christians Who Ignore Jesus"
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