If Jesus is merely a Superman the left can spin as a Middle Eastern Oprah with a beard, who cares if capitalism is anti-Jesus? I might as well declare capitalism anti-Babe Ruth and reconstruct the Bambino as someone who, given the poor circumstances of his birth, would reject capitalism. As the mass exodus from liberal churches shows, few care what an irrelevant Jesus recreated in the image of the modern man has to say. It doesn’t matter to most that a centurion standing at the death of this fictional Jesus would say, “Surely, this man was a nice guy with a small carbon footprint.”

The reason Moore and friends rarely cite the full body of scripture is that, read in context, there’s no justification for a socialist interpretation of the text. In Romans 13, Paul describes the function of government as “being a terror to evildoers” and warns that the state doesn’t bear the sword in vain. He never talks about the state as a provider…

The Bible is clear about the folly of living a life focused solely on acquiring riches and the spiritual emptiness that results. However, it is also clear on the dangerous folly of looking to the state as a messiah. Those who seek to create an anti-capitalist, pro-statist Christianity imagine one error can be corrected by practicing another vigorously.