Another reason to thank God for the Conservative Resurgence…

…as if any were needed a quarter century after the battle was concluded. But, why not remind some of our younger, thirtysomething, goateed, spike-haired, shirttail brethren about the kind of Southern Baptist Convention they would have if not for Adrian Rogers, Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler, and the vast host of lesser brethren who showed up in the 1980s to vote. A reminder once a quarter would be enough, I think.

If there were no Conservative Resurgence, Robert Parham would probably be the leading denominational ethics schoolmarm. Read his piece, Uncut Tax Movement Is Morally Righteous

Parham, unsurprisingly, heartily endorses a British tax increase program commended below by a leader of a mirror movement in the US:

"The message is simple – before you sacrifice hard-working public sector employee's [sic] jobs and necessary public programs, why not first make the richest of the rich pay their fair share in taxes?" Gibson told The Guardian about the motives of US Uncut.

Parham adds, and don't fail to note the abundance of snarl and scare words, that:

…unless we – the people – insist on corporations paying for the right to live in and benefit from good societies, then good societies will be at risk for dirty water, unclean air, unregulated food, substandard public education, predatory financial institutions, health care only for the those who can afford it, collapsing infrastructures like roads and bridges, cutbacks in fire and police protection.

Were there to have been no CR, we would in the SBC be paying to receive a steady diet of the wonderful Christian doctrine of government control of private businesses for the purpose of wealth redistribution.

To be fair, tax policy and Christian ethics is a legitimate issue. The devil is in the details and in the degree of taxation and government regulation but when religious liberals start talking about a “fair share” of taxes, one would be wise to reach for their pocketbook – someone’s after their hard-earned money. When religious liberals think of helping the poor, saving jobs, and providing citizens with health care, their default position is to compel the government to use coercion to take, by force, the earnings of ordinary working citizens so that they can assuage their own consciences.

I recommend that Parham take what he has earned himself and give to those he feels needs it more than he does. I will do the same.

I’m just glad we aren’t paying to hear this stuff with our offering plate dollars.

Addendum: In contrast to Parham, I believe that Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, makes a much better case for religious liberty than does what we SBCers do pay for. Sample of Walker's clear defense of religious liberty.