God and Socialism

First, the new Voice of the Heretics podcast has been posted- get it at iTunes here or download from the podcast page here.

Now for something I was thinking about last week. In today's political world, the word "socialism" gets thrown around a lot. Whenever it is mentioned, I've noticed a couple of things. 1.) A lot of people don't really know what "socialism" really means, and so perhaps because of that, 2.) a lot of people seem to have a real fear of anything that seems like "socialism", or perhaps more accurately, anything that their leaders or congressmen or NPR labels as such.

Taking that last point even further, I've noticed that there seems to be this ingrained fear in Americans, especially white, Republican, fundamentalist Christian Americans, that people are going to get things that they did not work for, earn, and do not deserve.

While I understand the concerns, I can't help but be thankful that God doesn't share this same fear. After all, isn't that at the heart of the gospel? He sent Jesus to die so that we could have something that we don't have to work for or earn, and that we definitely don't deserve.

That's all. Just thinking.