Show 1 S j r A N LOOKING LOOKING AHEAD 1 By George S. S Benson President Harding College r Searcy Arkansas To Profit Is Not Christian Anti-Christian t There is a conspiracy working in in America today which has as its first objective the building up of public resentment resentment ret re re- re- re t against the profit motive The hidden powers in inS inthis I S S. S this conspiracy are the Communists and the Socialists They wish to Destroy lestroy public acceptance of the profit motive as r the first f fatal tal step in destroying the American capacity for production which has made America the strongest na nation on l l in the world Norman orman Thomas head of t the he American Socialist Party i for the past 20 years says The American profit system can only be prolonged under the impetus of mass insanity J and the brutality of fascism William Z Foster head of r the American Communist Party says substantially the samei same r i thing Such public statements from the heads of the two two K t movements seeking destruction of the A American way of life wont won't surprise many people But it may be surprising to learn that the same attack on the profit system is being t carried on either unwittingly or through cleverly planted c propaganda writings in some influential church literature and widely used school and college textbooks Profit Pro Motive Denounced I As I this column is being written I have before me an educational nal booklet published by a leading church It denounces denounces denounces de de- de- de the profit motive and calls for the elimination of the profit system This booklet says The profit motive tends to excite the exploitive impulses impulses- glorifies selfishness and rewards rewards rewards re re- re- re wards graft It recommends a profitless production for use system with the government owning and operating the facilities of production and distribution precisely as is advocated advocated ad ad- by Thomas and Foster Foster- In most cases cases cases' such attacks on our American profit system in church literature stem from sincere but misguided idealism among the clergy or or- whoever writes the literature However some of it comes from calculating conspirators All of it helps push America along toward the objectives of Socialist Thomas and Communist Foster The few churchmen church church- men who openly attack the profit motive contend that it itis itis i is unChristian out of harmony with the teachings of the I Bible In this they misrepresent the Bible Gods God's Own Law The profit motive may be said to be one of Gods God's own laws In a sense it is the reward motive operating within the natural law of compensation which is basic in I economics and in our spiritual life Ralph Waldo Valdo Emerson wrote on the Law of Compensation Human labor through all its forms from the sharpening of a stake to the construction construction construction con con- of a city or an epic is one immense illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe The absolute balance balance balance bal bal- ance of Give and Take the doctrine that everything has its price is not less sublime in the columns of a ledger than thanin in the budgets of states in the laws of light and darkness in all the action and reaction of nature Jesus said Mark 10 30 1028 30 2830 There is no man that hath left house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospels gospel's but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands The Master here was speaking specifically of material profits a hundredfold Bible Teaches Sharing ring I. I S The apostle James dealt with a business situation embodying embodying embodying em em- bodying the profit motive and he did not criticize it Some people James 4 16 13 were boasting that they were going into the city to buy and sell and make profit for a year and the apostle addressed them thus Ye know not what shall be on the morrow Ye ought to say If the Lord will we shall live and do this or that The rebuke w was s for ignoring the power of God over their lives no criticism was made of the avowed plan to make profit The Bible teaches that the Christian use of profits requires requires requires re re- re- re quires sharing And yet here again the Law of Compensation Compensation Compensation is shown to rule the man who does not share his good fortune with another misses the spiritual rewards which are far greater than the material ones Nowhere in the Bible is there a suggestion that a person should be forced by another individual or an organization or the he government to share his earnings or his s savings Force is not a tool for making Christians And the profit motive is not a man-made man law it is the driving incentive in the spiritual as well as the material life Heaven itself is the reward for a Christian life I |