Give unto God what belongs to God

Somewhere in every nation’s history there is a moment when the state stopped being a servant and started trying to be the master. South Africa’s is not in the future. It is in the ledger.

The corruption is not an accusation from outside; it is the record of the last three decades, written in the same municipalities where the taps run dry and the streetlights stay dark. When a country hands the largest share of its national income to a state that cannot account for it, it does not become a just country. It becomes a country where honest weight is a criminal act. Proverbs 20:23 is blunt about this: “Unequal weights are detestable to the LORD, and dishonest scales are no good.” A nation that cannot keep honest weights in its own tender cannot be asked to keep them in its own homes.

Scripture is not neutral about the marketplace. It never hands the economy to the state. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21) was Jesus telling the religious establishment that God has never surrendered the world’s wealth to any government; and the parable in Matthew 25 is about the Master coming home to settle accounts with His servants over the little they were trusted with. A Christian case for economic freedom is not an import from Chicago. It is what you get when you believe that work is honourable (2 Thessalonians 3:10), that a man who will not work should not eat, that the one who steals must work with his own hands so that he has something to share (Ephesians 4:28), and that God’s people are to be “God-fearing, trustworthy… averse to dishonest gain” (Exodus 18:21). That is the Jethro test. That is the leader standard our own Biblical Standard already names.

And note the second order of that: free markets are not a way to become rich. They are the shortest road out of poverty for the person who will work. “If anyone is unwilling to work, he shall not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) is a statement about dignity, not a sneer. The alternative to honest work is not a job; it is a handout that teaches a generation that nothing is owed to anyone. Then Micah 6:8 becomes impossible to keep: how do you “act justly” toward the poor while the system that produces them is defended by men who “hate dishonest gain”?

There is a moral case for the market and there is a moral case against it, and pretending otherwise makes us useless to the people we are trying to reach. The question a Christian must answer is not “free market or social democracy”. It is: which system makes it hardest for a dishonest man to sit in a position of power, and easiest for a poor man with willing hands to earn a living? We believe the answer is the first. And we are not shy about saying so.

So the manifesto test. Before you vote, open the manifestos of the parties on your ballot — the ones contesting your municipality on 4 November — and look for three specific things: whether they defend private property and independent enterprise; whether they commit to open, competitive tendering and an end to state procurement that is captured; and whether they say plainly who is responsible for the failure. If a party cannot tell you what it will do about the thing that is visibly broken in your street, it has already answered the question. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. On 4 November you can stop the loop.

Mark the tick. Press the golden tick if this analysis holds. And tell us in the comments: which line in this row do you think your party will refuse to sign?