Biblical Economics

A condensation of the pamphlet by Rev. Archer Torrey

1. The Year of Jubilee

This paper will attempt to present the teaching of the Bible with regard to land as, well as the evidence given with regard to historical practices. We will take the Biblical account at face value without considering the various “critical theories” with regard to the dating of the various documents. Some people would regard such a study to be vitiated by treating later documents as if they were earlier, but the internal evidence strongly indicates that the so-called “later documents” correctly reflect earlier principles.

We shall begin with the clear-cut and well-known legislation on the subject contained in the Pentateuch, and then examine the evidence for actual practice in Israel….

The laws are stated clearly enough. The basic law is contained in Leviticus 25, and the key principle enunciated is in verse 23: “Land must not be sold in perpetuity, for the land belongs to me and you are only strangers and guests. You will allow a right of redemption on all your landed property.” (Note: Scriptural quotations will usually be from the Jerusalem Bible or the more traditional King James version, but will occasionally be the author's own paraphrase). This concept underlies all the Bible teaching on land. No other teaching is indicated prior to the time of Moses, nor is the teaching anywhere repealed. It is repeated and reinforced by the prophetic teachings.

What makes this study imperative is that where Karl Marx was mistaken in his prophecies, the prophecies of the Bible have been fulfilled.

Underlying the actual legislation in Leviticus is the fact of Israel's invasion of the land of Canaan and the division of the land by lot, as a heritage from the Lord to be passed on to future generations.

The modern word “lot” as used for a piece of real estate derives directly from this concept. The Greek andHebrew word usually translated “inheritance” in the Bible means a division made by casting lots. The countless references in the Bible to “inheritance”, “lot”. “line”, “possession”, etc., are all against this background: that the lot expresses the will of God who divides equally to all his people.

Once the land has been divided and allotted, however, each portion is to remain within the family or clan that has received it and it may never be alienated. The land never belongs to an individual, but to all future generations of the current possessor's descendants. Therefore, he is not free to give the title of the land to anyone else. Nor is he able, however he may covet his neighbors' land, to accumulate a large estate for himself except very temporarily.

According to Lev. 25, when a possessor of land wishes to sell it, all he can do is offer a leasehold up until the year of jubilee. There is no special word in the Bible translated either “lease” or “rent”, because this is what is meant by the word “sell”. The concept of selling land as held in most “civilized” lands today does not exist in the Bible – except as a crime. (There are three exceptions, where a perpetual title was acquired by purchase, and these will be examined.)

Under the normal law, when a piece of land is sold (leased) the seller has a right to redeem the land at any time by refunding the balance of the lease. If the seller is unable to redeem the land himself, his next-of-kin may do so. The maximum lease is for 50 years, but all leases expire in the same year, the Year of Jubilee, or the Year of Liberty, or the Year of the Trumpet. The Hebrew word “yobel” is translated both “trumpet” and “jubilee”, depending on the context.

The year of the Trumpet is the year after the seventh in a series of sabbatical years. The sabbatical years are referred to in Ex. 23, Lev. 25, and Deut. 15. In the sabbatical year the land was to lie fallow, debts (including mortgages) were to be cancelled, and slaves and bondservants were to be set free. When land is under mortgage, the mortgage is cancelled in the sabbatical year, but if it has been sold in good faith, it does not return until the jubilee unless redeemed by the payment of the remaining rent.

In the year of the Trumpet, the “shofar” or ram's horn is to be sounded on the 10th day of the 7th month, the Day of Atonement. This gives everyone five days to travel back to his ancestral land to keep the great feast of Tabernacles on the 15th day, when the Jubilee begins. It also gives the previous lessor of the land time to harvest his last crop before returning the land to the original family.

2. Laws Concerning Property

Houses in walled towns are exceptions. The right of redemption is limited to one year, except in the case of Levites, who have no landed property other than the pasture lands attached to their towns. Levites have an unlimited right of redemption and, if they are unable to redeem a house, it returns in the year of liberty.

Leviticus 27 elaborates the law with regard to property donated to God (i.e. for the use of the Temple). Its value is computed according to the number of years until the jubilee However, if the owner, instead of exercising his right of redemption, should transfer it to another party, when the jubilee comes it will return not to him but to the Temple. If a man dedicates a leased field to the Lord, it returns to the original owner (or his heirs) in the jubilee.

Deuteronomy adds nothing to Leviticus, but stresses the sabbatical year and the cancellation of debts, along with a solemn command not to covet another's fields (5.21). In time, the coveting of other men's lands and the seizing of them by foreclosing of mortgages became a serious abuse which would only be justified by appealing from the laws of the Bible to the laws of Baal. There are further references to the sanctity of boundary markers and subsidiary issues. Deuteronomy, however, allows a number of exceptions in dealing with non-Israelites, and the three cases, referred to above, of land being bought in perpetuity happen all to involve purchase from non-Israelites. In each case, however, it was not a private transaction but involved the approval of the entire tribe from whom the title was obtained.

All other titles were obtained directly from the Lord by the casting of lots on land taken in war under the divine mandate to possess and divide the land of Canaan.

The three exceptions are as follows. Gen. 23: Abraham buys a burial place for a perpetual possession from the Hittites. Presumably this was a valid sale under Hittite law. The ruling body of the Hittite people witnessed the transaction and approved. Gen. 33: Jacob buys a lot on which to build an altar, from the Shechemites. This transaction is referred to again in Josh. 24.32 and John 4.5. It was purchased from the whole tribe, not from any private individual. Finally, in 2 Samuel 24 and in I Chr. 21. we have the account of David buying a threshing floor from the chief (Araunah, or Ornan appears to be a title, not a man's name) of the Jebusites.

A fourth case is that of Omri (I Kg 16) buying the hill of Samaria from a private individual. But, as we shall we, Omri was the revolutionary or usurper who introduced the Baal land laws into Israel, and it is recorded of him that “he did what is displeasing to the Lord.”

3. Mishpat – The Laws in Practice

We come now to the question: Were these laws enforced? If not, what other laws were accepted? In the absence of specific references to the jubilee, the trumpet or the year of liberty, it has been supposed by many that some other system was in force. Even this argument from silence, weak as it is, breaks down when we recall that the expression “proclaim liberty” is used.

Actually, very few of the many laws in the Pentateuch are referred to again in detail, but we are told frequently whether the “the laws of the Lord”, or the “covenant of the Lord” was kept or violated. We arenot told that the laws were ever repealed or other laws enacted prior to the time of Omri, except for the specific case of “the sin of Jereboam the son of Nebat”, which consisted in making golden calves inBethel and Dan, thus leading the people into idolatry and schism and weakening the authority of the Lordso that the way was paved for the introduction of Baalism and the total rejection of the laws of the Lord.

There is no evidence that Jereboam repealed the civil system and, if he did, there are no clues to indicate what system he substituted.

The prophets of Israel (the Northern Kingdom), Elijah, Elisha, Amos, and Hosea all assume that Israel is still under the Lord. They see the problem not simply as that of the golden calves but the total abandonment of the Lord for the landlords' god, Baal, introduced by Omri and Ahab. It was this constitutional change under Omri that gave rise to the great prophetic movement which provides the bulk of the material in the Bible.

With this in mind, let us go through the Bible and find the references to land laws and see what they indicate with regard to the validity of the actual legislation set forth in the Books of Moses. The very first reference is in the book of Numbers. It deals with a case where a man had only daughters and his fellow clansmen were afraid that the land would pass to their husbands' clans in the year of liberty (Num. 36). Moses ruled that the girls must marry within their fathers' tribe and that the inheritance could not be allowed to pass to another tribe. This case is referred to also in chapter 27, but the specific reference to the jubilee is in 36.

Within the same year, the people crossed the Jordan and entered the promised land. The first fruits of the conquest was the city of Jericho, and it was ceremonially dedicated to the Lord. Joshua 6 contains the account, which is significant for its use of the word “Yobel”. There are two words translated “trumpet” in the English. The word “shofar”, for the ram's horn, is used 13 times in the account, and the word “yobel” five times. This was the first jubilee, the liberating of the land from the Canaanite and the beginning of its distribution to the Israelites.

Judges 11.2: Japhthah, an illegitimate son, is prevented by action of the entire clan from receiving any portion of the clan's inheritance. This supports the picture of the division of land into clan allotments as referred to frequently in Numbers and Joshua.

Judges 21.24: “The people returned each to his own inheritance.” It appears that after the elapse of some 250 years, no significant alienation of land occurred, or, if it had, that the jubilees had been declared and enforced. This is the language of Lev. 25.10.

The story of Ruth takes place in the time of the Judges, two generations before the time of Samuel. Here a land inheritance plays a key role in the romance. Apparently, before Elimelech left Bethlehem for Moab, he sold (leased) his famine-stricken acres for whatever he could get. Ten years later his wife Naomi returns to Bethlehem with her daughter-in-law Ruth, but husband and sons are dead. If she lives long enough, Naomi will get the land back in the jubilee or, if she dies and Ruth has married within the tribe ofJudah, Ruth's heirs will be able to claim it. The only right Naomi can exercise prior to the jubilee is the right of redemption. Since, due to her extreme poverty, it is not in her power to redeem the land, she offers to “sell” it (that is, to transfer the lease) to the next of kin, who has the right of redemption. But she makes a condition: she will not give this right of redemption to the next of kin unless he is also willing to act as the brother of the deceased and marry the widow to raise up progeny for him. Thus the land will revert, in the jubilee, to the eldest son of Ruth and her husband, who will be counted as the grandson of Elimelech. The conditions Naomi lays down are unacceptable to the next of kin and he transfers his right to Boaz, who is next in line and cheerfully ready to redeem the property and marry Ruth. The entire affair is premised on the legal code of Leviticus.

The next specific reference to land is in I Sam. 8.10ff. Here the prophet Samuel, a bitter opponent of the monarchy, warns the people of what will happen if they insist on having a king. He says that “this will be the manner of the king”, and goes on to predict land seizures in the style of the neighboring countries. The word “manner” translates the Hebrew “mishpat”, which may also be rendered “rights”, or “customs” as well as its more usual translation “judgment”. It is used equally of customs established by Israelite(divine) law and the “customs of the heathen”, which is what is in view here; the people have demanded of Samuel, “Give us a king to rule over us like the other nations”, and the Lord replies to Samuel: “they have rejected me from ruling over them …. only you must warn them solemnly and instruct them in the customs of the king who is to rule over them.”

Samuel closes his warning against the violation of the ancient land laws which the monarchy will certainly introduce with the words: “When that day comes you will cry out on account of the king you have chosen for yourselves, but on that day God will not answer you.” The prophetic writer adds: “The people refused to listen to the words of Samuel. They said, 'No! We want a king… like the other nations.'”

The “rights”, then, that the king will claim, following the custom of other nations, will include: “He will take the best of your fields, of your vineyards and olive groves and give them to his officials.” There is nothing in the record, however, to indicate that Saul, the king then elected, did anything of this sort, but we have the following interesting words of Saul himself, in I Sam. 22: “Listen, men of Benjamin… is the son of Jesse ready to give you all fields and vineyards… that you all conspire against me?” This suggests that, although Saul has not followed the pagan custom, he suspects Ben-Jesse of bribing support with such promises. It is not clear, however, whether the fields and vineyards are to be seized from citizens ofIsrael and given to his officials, as Samuel had threatened, or whether they are going to be from land taken in war.

4. Naboth's Vineyard

Omri came to power 125 years after David's accession, and his line came to an end just 50 years later with the execution of his daughter, Athaliah, who was queen in Jerusalem. But the laws which Omri introduced and which his son Ahab and daughter-in-law Jezebel enforced continued to compete with the law of the Lord until finally the law of the Lord was almost forgotten and Israel was wiped out as a nation.

Micah, the eighth century prophet, speaking shortly before the fall of Samaria, when the SouthernKingdom, Judah, was also deeply dyed with the land lust of the Phoenicians, said, (Mic. 6.16) “For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that I should make thee a desolation…” This is elaborated in 2.2; “They covet fields and take them by violence: and houses and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.” This describes Ahab.

The episode of Naboth's Vineyard is the central fact given for Ahab's reign, and the specific reason given by the prophet (I Kg 21.19) for the destruction of the entire dynasty of Omri. It involves Ahab's greed for land and Jezebel's application of Phoenician (Baalistic) law to Israel.

Ahab wanted to buy or exchange Naboth's vineyard, but Naboth pointed out that, under the law of theLord he was forbidden to alienate the heritage of his clan. Ahab, still an Israelite at heart and half a believer in the Lord, hesitated to act. Under the Phoenician system, however, this was a ridiculous position and, moreover, Naboth's refusal to accede to the King's reasonable request (under the Baal system) was lése majesté. Jezebel said to Ahab: “Aren't you the king of Israel? I will get it for you myself,” and proceeded to have Naboth condemned in a public trial for blasphemy against God and the king. Certainly, it was blasphemy against Baal to assert rights or duties given by the Lord (Yahweh), and it was blasphemy against the king to assert that he was not free to enforce the Phoenician system which treats land as a commodity and not as a heritage.

5. Baal – The God of Landlords

The concept of “heritage' is important: it means that the land is God's property. The “possessor” is given the use of the land by God on the understanding that he must pass it on to his descendants. Naboth's reply to Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my ancestors!” is, indeed, under the laws of Omri, blasphemy against God (Baal), and king. Naboth and his heirs were executed and the land reverted to the crown, but not without an immediate condemnation by the fierce prophet Elijah, who was sent to meet the king as the latter was in the act of taking possession of Naboth's land. Elijah pronounced God's sentence of death on Ahab, Jezebel, and every male descendant of his line. The episode is referred to again in I Kg 22.38, with the account of Ahab's death, again in 2 Kg 9.7-10 when God's commission to wipe out the house of Ahab is given, and again in 9.26 when Jehu killed Ahab's son, Joram, and threw his body into Naboth's field. The prophet's word on Ahab, in I Kg 2.1, given at the end of the account of the Naboth episode, was”Indeed there never was anyone like Ahab for double dealing and for doing what is displeasing to theLord, urged on by Jezebel his wife. He behaved in the most abominable way, adhering to idols, just as theAmorites used to do whom the Lord had dispossessed for the children of Israel.“ Here the idolatry (Baal worship) of the Amorites is clearly put in the context of the land issue.

The prophet Elijah had received a commission from the Lord to anoint Jehu king and this commission was passed on to his successor, Elisha (2 Kg 9). Not only did Jehu make a clean sweep of Ahab's dynasty, but he also, by pretending that he was going to go along with the Baal thing, wiped out all the devotees ofBaal, not just the prophets and priests, but all the worshippers. This effectively broke the back of any landlord opposition to the enforcement of the laws of the Lord.

There was one woman of Omri's line, his daughter, Athaliah , who was not killed in Jehu's revolution. She continued to support the landlord movement in Judah. The taste for power and luxury living which had been introduced into both kingdoms by this family did not die easily.

Elijah the prophet dealt only with Ahab and his son, Ahaziah. but his successor, Elisha, headed the opposition to the Baal movement during the reigns of Ahab's second son, Joram (who succeeded Ahaziah), the reformer, Jehu, and Jelin's son Jehoahaz and grandson Joash. During the time of Elisha, one land case is recorded, but the king's name is not given. Presumably it was Jehu or one of his successors. The account is given in 2 Kg 8.6. The account is of a Shunamite woman whose son had been raised from the dead and who had been warned by Elisha of a famine and advised to leave the country. She was gone seven years, and when she returned she found that her land had been confiscated. We are not told by whom or on what pretext. It may be that the influence of the laws of Omri made it impossible for her to receive justice in the lower courts. She appealed to the king and the king, influenced by the prophet Elisha, ordered her land to be restored to her together with the revenues for the time she was away. This would indicate that she had not, as Naomi and Elimelich had done, leased her land, but had intended that it should lie fallow. The king's order that she should be given the revenue from the land indicates that this was not a case of someone refusing the right of redemption (a right unique to he laws of the Lord). Had this been a case of redemption, the revenues up to the time of redemption would have belonged to the lease-holder The land had been seized illegally.

6. The New Testament

The New Testament does not add to, nor amend, the legislation of the Old Testament, but puts it in a different perspective, that of Jer. 31.3 1, Ez. 36.24 and Joel 2.28. In these passages God promises not to repeal the laws which his people have failed to keep, but to write his laws on their hearts and to place his Spirit both within them and upon them so that they will be able to keep his laws without external sanctions.

In the Old Testament, the law of the Lord is either enforced or repealed by government sanction, by the actions of kings who enforced the laws of the Lord or the laws of Baal. In the New Testament it is expected that each individual will have the power of the Holy Spirit to keep the laws in the interim until the final establishment of God's eternal kingdom.

Jesus' first recorded sermon, announcing his platform, is the “Sermon on the Mount”, given in Matt. chapters 5, 6, and 7. After quoting several key Old Testament passages, including the promise of land to the downtrodden (“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land” – quoted from Ps. 37.11), he goes on to say: ”'Think not that I have come to destroy but to fulfil…“

This led some of Jesus' listeners to conclude that he, as the anointed king, the Messiah or Christ, would enforce the laws. This role he expressly rejected when he was asked to intervene in a case of injustice over land (Lu. 12.13 14) and be a “divider”. Instead, he called on his disciples to do their own dividing: whatever you want someone else to do for you, you do for him (first) - Mt. 7.11.

On one occasion, a very rich young man, presumably a large landholder, asked Jesus directly what he should do. Jesus told him to keep the law. The man replied that he had done so all his life. Jesus told him bluntly, to dispose of everything and give it to the poor. This, clearly, was beyond the requirements of the law. (The story is given three times, and is obviously considered very significant: Mt. 19.21, Mk. 10.17, Lu. 18.18 etc.) Who this rich young man was, who went away sadly, we do nor know. We do knew that just such a man, on the Day of Pentecost or very shortly thereafter (see Acts 4.36ff), followed just this advice, first selling some of his land, then following Jesus as an apostle. His name was Barnabas, and the record shows that eventually, after financing his and Paul's first missionary journey, he disposed of all that remained of his wealth and worked as a laborer to support himself in his apostolic work (I Cor. 9.6).

7. Proclaim Liberty

Jesus' most startling definition of his mission came in his home town of Nazareth. The record is in Luke 4. On this occasion he quoted Is. 61.1-2 as his text and made it clear that he had come to proclaim the year of liberty! The words of Isaiah are, themselves, quoted from Lev. 25. 10, but with the characteristic “new” covenant touch: the reference to the Holy Spirit. Here, again, it is the Holy Spirit who is going to bring in the jubilee, not the civil power.

In Luke 4.22 it is said that the people were amazed at these “words of grace.” Grace, of course, is the free gift: cancellation of debt, restoration of the heritage, and Jesus is here announcing grace, proclaiming liberty. The essence of the legislation for the sabbatical years and for the year of liberty is the word “free”. Each man returns to his inheritance, freely. No charge, no obligation, nothing done to merit it. God orders it. This concept is spiritualized in the New Testament. God sees his people dispossessed by Satan, enslaved by sin, debt-ridden by unfulfilled obligations, and he proclaims liberty, he sets them free in return to their own inheritance, which is fellowship with God and a portion in his kingdom.

Most of the New Testament is concerned with the battle by which Jesus won the victory – it is quite intentional that the name “Jews” is the Greek form of “Joshua”, who won the battle and led the people into the promised land which made this redemption possible. The words “grace”, “freedom” and “redemption” are the main themes of the New Testament, and they all derive from the Old Testament land legislation! But now the land in question is no longer the good earth of Palestine, but the comingKingdom of God, the inheritance of God's new people, the new Israel, the disciples of Christ.

The Christian Church, ever since the “conversion” without repentance of the landlords of the RomanEmpire in the time of Constantine, has been playing the game of the prophets and priests of Jeremiah's time, making things easy for itself by ringing the changes on the spiritual interpretation of the old land laws while ignoring studiously their practical application, or fulfillment, in everyday life.

This course has been frequently justified by arguing that the Church has lacked the authority to give or execute land legislation. The fact of the matter is that Jesus' first disciples had no question in their minds as to how the jubilee was to take place: they took Mt. 5.17 and Mt. 7.11 literally and, we are clearly told in Acts 2.41ff and 4.32ff, instituted the jubilee among themselves in the power of the promised Holy Spirit. “They that gladly received Peer 's words ere baptized; and the same day there were added about3000 souls… and all that believed went together and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all, as every man had need… neither said my of them that aught of the things he possessed was his own; but they had all things common… neither was them any among them that lacked: for as many of them were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices ofthe things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made to every man according as he had need.”

That this action was entirely voluntary is made clear by the story of Ananias and Sapphire (Acts 5.3-8), a couple who tried to get credit for more generosity than they really had. They were told that they didn't have to sell their land, in the first place, and, if they chose to sell it, they were free to do what they pleased with the proceeds. The word “free will”, which is frequently used in the Old Testament of offerings and sacrifices above and beyond those required by the law, is the Greek word (in the Septuagint version) “dektos”. The word was used by Jesus in proclaiming the “acceptable” (that is “Free, will”) year of the Lord. What God does is free, and our response is free.

8. The Ongoing Jubilee

Jesus's promise of a jubilee was fulfilled within only three years, when his own disciples, without waiting for the law or the government, took it upon themselves to practice what Jesus had preached. Thus was the Law of the Lord not destroyed, but fulfilled, right under the nose of a selfish, brutal, and hypocritical ruling class which gave lip service to the Lord but practiced the laws of Baal.

Even so, this is not the final jubilee. According to the Bible, there is one more to come, that described byEzekiel and the book of Revelation. It is also referred to in Matt. 24.3 1: “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds.” I Cor. 15.51: “Behold, I show you a secret: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound and we shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed… thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ… your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Finally in the book of Revelation (Chap. 18) comes the summary of all the prophetic messages, the sweeping condemnation of the world system based on international trade in luxury goods, high living, ruthless exploitation of the poor, armaments trade, injustice and bloodshed, and buying and selling “the souls of men”. When this final Babylon” is defeated, to the sound of not one trumpet, but seven, the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven onto earth and the theme of Ezekiel is picked up again as the earth is once more distributed among men in a new fellowship with God far transcending that of the garden ofEden, and the river of life flowing, not through the garden, but through the city, with the tree of life on either side of the river with twelve kinds of fruit and leaves which are for the healing of the nations, flowing on out to bring new life to all the earth.

And the ongoing jubilee among God's spirit-filled people is the foretaste.

9. The Church and the Land

A few words about the Christian church and the Bible's land laws. For three centuries Christians practiced the “freewill jubilee” (sharing goods voluntarily) and eventually there were so many followers of Christ that the emperor Constantine felt obliged to recognize Christianity. However, nothing was said about changing the land laws. When Rome conquered Carthage 200 years before Christ, the laws of Baal, under which Carthage had been governed from the time it was settled by Jezebel's relatives at the time of Ahab, stimulated the greed of many Romans. In time the old Roman system was replaced by the Baal system and the sturdy independent farmers of Italy became serfs on the estates of the new land owning class. The same system which “found Rome brick and left it marble” also led to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. But the church did not offer to change it. On the contrary, the church became dominated by the landlords to the extent that all of North Africa rebelled against Christianity and becameMohammedan under the slogan (taken from the Bible), “The ]and belongs to God.”

The same pattern was repeated in the Middle East. In Europe, after the barbarian invasions had destroyed what was left of Roman civilization, the church did make various efforts towards a more equitable land system, but by the 16th century, when the Anabaptists (modem Mennonites) called for Biblical land reform, both Catholics and Protestants persecuted them ruthlessly. In nearly all of Europe the church had become the biggest landlord. In the wars between Protestant and Catholic the real issue was not religion at all, but land. This can be seen most clearly with regard to Ireland – where successive kings of England, under the pretext of saving the souls of the Irish, seized their lands and bestowed them on their Anglican or Presbyterian henchmen. The “Irish problem” is nothing but the Baal problem. The same “Christian” Europeans, parceling out Africa to land-hungry Colonists, destroyed the relatively fair land systems of Africa and instituted the Baal system with disastrous results in impoverishment of the Africans and the breeding of bitter hatred along with the corruption of the colonists and a continent torn by war and murder, anger, fear, soil erosion and starvation.

Almost every country that, since the Russian revolution, has gone communist, was once a Christian Country – nominally. In every case the underlying cause of the problem was the practice, by the Christians or their allies, of the land system of Baal and the rejection of the Biblical system or anything resembling it. Where there has been land reform or a land-value tax, L.V.T. (based on the concept that the land is to be rented, not sold, an effort to modernize the jubilee concept), there has been successful resistance to Communism and outstanding prosperity (e.g. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, etc.). It is notable that severe poverty and starvation is not a product of “overpopulation,” but of improper land distribution. The most densely populated countries of the world have less poverty than some of their neighbors, because of more equitable land systems. Corrected for the amount of arable land and the number of growing seasons, the most densely populated countries are South Korea (5000/sq mi.), Japan (4000/sq mi.), Mainland China (2115/sq mi), North Korea (1900/sqmi), England (1300/sq mi), Taiwan (1250/sq mi), Benelux and Lebanon (1100/sq mi each), and Java(800/sq mi). Relatively underpopulated are Bangladesh (750/sq mi), India (250/sq mi), and Pakistan(150/sq mi).

Let us Christians pray earnestly that our country will not be tempted to adopt the Baal system but, on the contrary, move in the direction of a Biblical system of land distribution. Christians can begin, as some are doing in America by organizing land trusts and buying land and seeing that it is used to benefit those who are willing to work it, as well as working for land-value taxation.

Appendix: From The Condition of Labor: An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII by Henry George (1891)

This world is the creation of God.

The men brought into it for the brief period of their earthly lives are the equal creatures of His bounty, the equal subjects of His provident care.

By his constitution man is beset by physical wants, on the satisfaction of which depend not only the maintenance of his physical life but also the development of his intellectual and spiritual life.

God has made the satisfaction of these wants dependent on man's own exertions, giving him the power and laying on him the injunction to labor – a power that of itself raises him far above the brute, since we may reverently say that it enables him to become as it were a helper in the creative work.

God has not put on man the task of making bricks without straw. With the need for labor and the power to labor he has also given to man the material for labor. This material is land – man physically being a land animal, who can live only on and from land, and can use other elements, such as air, sunshine and water, only by the we of land.

Being the equal creatures of the Creator, equally entitled under his providence to live their lives and satisfy their needs, men are equally entitled to the use of land, and any adjustment that denies this equal use of land is morally wrong.

Being created individuals, with individual wants and powers, men are individually entitled (subject of course to the moral obligations that arise from such relations as that of the family) to the use of their own powers and the enjoyment of the results.

There thus arises, anterior to human law, and deriving its validity from the law of God, a right of private ownership in things produced by labor – a right that the possessor may transfer, but of which to deprive him without his will is theft.

This right of property, originating in the right of the individual to himself, is the only full and complete right of property. It attaches to things produced by labor, but cannot attach to things created by God.

While the right of ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to land a right of possession.

This right of private possession in things created by God is however very different from the right of private ownership in things produced by labor. The one is limited, the other unlimited, save in cases when the dictate of self-preservation terminates all other rights. The purpose of the one, the exclusive possession of land, is merely to secure the other, the exclusive ownership of the products of labor; and it can never rightfully be carried so far as to impair or deny this. While any one may hold exclusive possession of land so far as it does not interfere with the equal rights of others, he can rightfully hold it no further.

To combine the advantages of private possession with the justice of common ownership it is only necessarily therefore to take for common uses what value attaches to land irrespective of any exertion of labor on it.

We propose – leaving land in the private possession of individuals, with full liberty on their part to give, sell or bequeath it – simply to levy on it for public uses a tax that shall equal the annual value of the land itself, irrespective of the use made of it or the improvements on it. And since this would provide amply for the need of public revenues, we would accompany this tax on land values with the repeal of all taxes new levied on the products and processes of industry – which taxes, since they take from the earnings of labor, we hold to be infringements of the right of property.