Explore this public good approach to Christian ethics in the public square, especially in the United States. This series will highlight twelve key relationships distorted by Plantation Capitalism, a system of production where elites exploit people and the planet, and corrected by Jesus in his Jubilee Economy.

The goal of the series is to suggest helpful ways forward on policies, by being well informed and also rooted in a strong Jesus-centered, biblical framework for loving our neighbor.

Sessions 1 - 7 are an introduction from Scripture, analyzing twelve major relationships. Later Sessions focus on specific industries, laws, or policy areas, with suggestions about how we can bring about policy changes.

The biblical figure of Cain in Genesis 4 became the first plantation owner. Cain murdered his brother and damaged his own relationship with the land, but defied God and built a city, enmeshing his son to produce for him and protect him, producing a culture of violence, lies, and scapegoating. Trigger warning: This video contains an image from Darnell Frazier's video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on, and murdering, George Floyd.

1:30 What is Plantation Capitalism?

2:58 Colonial Virginia as example of Plantation Capitalism

4:30 What is Jesus' Jubilee Economy?

7:36 The Plantation Owner, and Cain as the First Plantation Builder

9:32 Reading of Cain's story from Genesis 4:8 - 24

15:12 The Meaning of the Hebrew Names in Genesis 4

19:19 What Gets Passed Down from the Oppressor? Lies, stress, retributive justice, broken relationships

30:36 Cain's Alienation from God and the Garden: Enoch cannot leave his father; the cultural uniqueness of "a man will leave his father and mother"

We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Plantations vs. Planet, and Producers vs. Consumers — the first 2 of the 12 relationships we will cover. And: Why do we take a public good, common good approach to Christian faith and public policy? Because Jesus’ teaching & story require us to be concerned about other-harm. He carries forward Israel’s wisdom impacting Gentiles in uplifting the poor and oppressed (we look at 5 examples).

3:40 Romans 13 and Four Interpretations.

4:58 The Public Good, Common Good Interpretation, and Why.

9:05 Five Examples of Israel Influencing the Gentiles in Policy

9:15 Example 1: Abraham pulls a "Saving Private Ryan" with Lot and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah

10:55 Example 2: Joseph provides for the Israelites and the Egyptians

11:24 Example 3: Daniel tells King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to care for the poor

11:36 Example 4: Esther and Mordecai help the Jews overcome a plot to kill them

11:53 Example 5: Psalm 72 says the Davidic King will influence the Gentiles to care for the poor

13:30 The New Testament addresses structures and systems, in Luke 3:12 - 14 and 19:1 - 10

18:32 Plantations vs. Planet: soil depletion; whale decimation; ecological warfare and bison killing. 20:43 Jesus' response to the exploitation of the planet; Jesus' use of temple-mountain imagery; Jesus' claim to own the planet; Jesus' care for nature

28:15 Producers vs. Consumers: "do not steal," "do not lie," limited liability vs. full responsibility. 31:45 Jesus' intent to make an honest, responsible people. 33:15 British evangelicals opposed corporate limited liability law.

Christian faith had set up certain laws in Europe that abolished chattel slavery, thwarted the worst of labor exploitation, and persistently tried to limit finance and banks. The colonies were a legal gray zone, where people could get away with exploitation and theft that they couldn't get away with back in Europe. European colonizers treated the North American colonies as a safe place to practice their heresies. We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Enslavers vs. the Enslaved, Thieves vs. Victims, Lenders vs. Debtors, Employers vs. Workers, Poor Workers vs. Even Poorer Workers — 5 of the 12 relationships we cover.

2:40 Relationship 3: Enslavers vs. the Enslaved

20:10 Relationship 4: Thieves vs. Victims

29:34 Relationship 5: Debtors vs. Lenders

35:12 Relationship 6: Workers vs. Employers

42:46 Relationship 7: Poor Workers vs. Even Poorer Workers

We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Men vs. Women on Sex and Childbearing. Please be advised that these are mature topics. We discuss rape during the time of slavery. Enslaved Black women were raped, forced to bear children, and then often separated from them. Meanwhile the sexual purity of White women was seen as the property of White men. But God’s vision was to hold up marriage as holy, and Jewish law recognized that wives had a right to protection from marital rape and a right to sexual fulfillment, whereas husbands do not.

1:54 Black Women on Plantations in the U.S. South; Laws Making Women Responsible for Childbearing

4:25 Slave Breedings Farms

6:59 Growth of the Enslaved Population based on U.S. Census Figures 1810 - 1860

10:00 Black Women Were Experimented on by White American Gynecologists

11:25 Mixed Race People and the Sexual Purity of White Women as Property of White Men

14:28 Hagar, and Why Abraham and Sarah Were Wrong to Try Surrogate Motherhood

17:10 Women Made Responsible for Sex and Childbearing

19:20 Incels Treat Women (by Race) and Sex as Commodities Again

24:21 Campaigns to Repeal the 19th Amendment

26:55 Exodus 21 and Jewish Tradition Against Marital Rape and the Rights of Wives

30:05 White Evangelical Teaching on the Submission of Wives

We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Men vs. Women on Sex and Childbearing. Please be advised that these are mature topics. We continue from part 1 on the discussion of marital rape, and discuss domestic sexual abuse in other contexts, and the notion of hierarchy in the husband-wife relationship promoted by some Christians.

1:09 Sexual Abuse of Women in the Military, Police, and other Hierarchical Organizations

6:54 Domestic Violence

9:10 The Biblical Story of the Rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13)

12:05 The Book of Samuel as the Reversal of the Book of Genesis

14:43 How Christians Today Teach Hierarchy of Husbands Over Wives

18:08 Headship in Marriage; Power Relations in the Trinity?

21:20 The Biblical Patriarchy Movement and Domestic Discipline

22:17 Critique of Jay Adams and Nouthetic Counseling

26:58 Hope for Men and Women: Jesus' Teaching on Friendship

We examine Jesus’ teaching on the relationships of Labor vs. Capital and Privatizers vs. Common Goods. Jesus asserted his claim on all creation and all people. So he extended the relational vision of God for human flourishing, where human health and land health, along with human rights and labor rights took clear priority over the rights of capital and the ability of elites to use money to make more money. How does Walmart do?

relationship 9: LABOR VS. CAPITAL

5:20 The Dominance of Capital Rights in the Colonies and Early U.S.: Banks Financialized Slave Bodies; Enslaved Black Women Used for Breeding More Slaves

8:42 Economic Capital Consolidation by Rich Whites, and the Condition of Poor Whites

The Dominance of Capital Today

10:50 Patterns of Public Disinvestment

16:45 WalMart as Example of Elites Extracting Wealth and Health

18:24 Wage Theft

22:55 Tipping

23:44 Externalities -- Shifting Costs to the Environment and People

Jesus' Jubilee Economy on Labor Over Capital

26:15 Jewish Law and Jesus' Claim on All Creation

39:11 The Priority of Labor over Capital

42:14 The Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act

45:46 More Examples in the U.S.

relationship 10: Privatizers vs. Common Goods

52:28 Privatizers, English Law, and John Locke's Theory of Private Property Absolutism

59:15 God Gave Creation in Common to Humans

1:06:21 Examples of Early Christian Thought on the Commons: Ambrose of Milan and John Chrysostom of Constantinople

Like with the British East India Company, the corporation was developed by colonial governments as a legal mechanism for investors to exploit people and the planet in colonies and other countries. These profiteers hired private security, shaped US gun culture, and even formed public policing to serve their limited interests, not the public good. We are still trying to regulate violence in all its forms. This is Relationship 11: The Violent vs. the Victims.

Why is this a matter of concern for Christians?

Because US Christians inherit from British Christians a very misleading translation of Exodus 22:2 - 3 popular in 18th century England. It directly influenced the "castle doctrine" and "stand your ground" laws in the U.S.

Because even though Jewish law rejects judicial torture, US prosecutors use plea bargaining, which is -- at least in its current form -- psychological torture that accelerates the efficiency of the police-prison state and its violence.

Because John the Baptist and Jesus in Luke ch.3, v.14 told Roman soldiers to stop using their coercive power to extort and exploit even colonized peoples -- much less formal citizens -- and serve a public purpose. We are still trying to make regulated, legal violence serve the public, common good.

1:18 The Corporation: Legalized Tool of Colonial Exploitation Dependent on Violence

1:51 Strike-breakers in the U.S. Urban North

7:49 Slave Patrols in the U.S. South, and Southern Gun Culture

11:12 Public Policing in the U.S. North

12:26 Exodus 22:2 - 3, the Castle Doctrine, and Stand Your Ground Laws

23:42 White Supremacy and the U.S. Culture of Fear, Violence, Property, and Guns

29:55 Israel, Jesus, and Limitations on Empire and Policing

33:06 Jewish Law and Plea Bargaining as Judicial Torture

CNBC business news host Jim Cramer called Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers union, "Marxist and Communist!" Why? What does he hope to achieve? Not accuracy! Cramer wants to produce knee jerk fear in his audience, like how the plantation elite manipulate people to side with their agenda of how they can keep economic and political power.

Sadly, a large majority of white evangelicals also fall for this rhetoric. Which makes White American evangelicalism very vulnerable to fascism. And it's not at all a new weakness. Confront the history and present reality of White Evangelicals siding with racial fascism.

1:27 Jim Cramer Calls Shawn Fain, "Marxist! Communist!" like Other Political and Evangelical Conservatives

12:16 The Biblical Story of Naboth's Vineyard (1 Kings 21); Ambrose of Milan, and His Sermon, On Naboth

17:32 Christian American Exceptionalism: Why Christians Believe They Are Entitled to More Wealth and Power Than Other People

19:29 Historical Examples of Christians Calling Other People "Marxist"

22:30 Current Examples: The Utah Shooter and Former President Donald Trump

27:12 Fascism Comes from the Right

29:08 Hayley and I Critique Christopher R. Browning's Reluctance to Call Trump a Fascist

33:37 Political Violence and Donald Trump

37:35 Evangelicals Siding with the Fascists: The Civil War

43:11 Evangelicals Siding with the Fascists: Reconstruction

45:08 Evangelicals Siding with the Fascists: Smedley Butler and the Business Coup Against FDR's New Deal

55:33 Evangelicals Siding with the Fascists: The Cold War Against the USSR

59:12 Christian Faith in Nazi Germany and in the U.S. Today

White evangelicals jumped on the fascism train through the issue of abortion. By joining the Reagan coalition, white evangelical Republicans took leadership of the anti-abortion movement from Catholic Democrats. But by joining Reagan's anti-communist coalition and "Southern strategy" to peel off white Southern segregationists from the Democratic Party to the GOP, they moved abortion policy from a social welfare issue to a criminal justice issue.

They also asserted that if you have sex and get pregnant before you're ready, you should have a child as a consequence, and face economic hardship as a punishment. So they agreed with Reagan to dismantle the New Deal with its pro-labor, anti-poverty, democracy of small businesses vision. They supported a "you're on your own" libertarian economics.

Catholics and evangelicals also used abortion as an issue to stave off their fears of science and stay culturally relevant. So they tied their politics of disgust to their fears of science. Which is why they have such a hard time reassessing their views of the fetus when the science of embryology shows us that God does not ensoul the fetus from conception. Early on, probably. Conception? No.

In this video, we explain Biblical passages that impact our interpretation of the fetus: Exodus 21:22 - 25 and Psalm 139. We touch on the difference between the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of Exodus 21. We highlight how the early Christians approached the science of their day as a helpful and necessary ally, and how the Latin West and the Greek East came to different conclusions about the fetus because they followed different scientific opinions. We appeal to Christians today to treat embryology as a friend and ally in our attempt to know and honor the unborn fetus, and not respond to abortion policy with disgust and fear.

Confront the history and present reality of white evangelicals siding with racial fascism.

1:12 The Comet Pizza Case and How Evangelicals and Catholics Use, and Get Used by, the Emotion of Disgust

5:48 Disgust as a Christian Spiritual Formation Issue

14:34 Abortion in Christian History

30:29 Abortion in US Constitutional Law

35:41 Abortion and Christians in the US from the Great Depression to Reagan

46:00 Why Catholics Changed Their Minds on the Fetus in 1869

53:15 Why God Doesn’t Ensoul the Early Fetus

59:55 Christians Use Abortion as a Political Issue Because They Are Afraid of Science

1:05:55 When Christians Use Retributive Justice to Punish Abortion and Unexpected Pregnancy

White evangelicals jumped on the fascism train by being trained to respond to fear. In movie theaters, a projector projects an image onto a screen to elicit emotions. In society, plantation elites project their fears to get other people to fear the same things. Much of evangelical theology trains people to respond to fear. When people believe that God's justice is retributive, and that Jesus absorbed divine retributive justice as taking the penalty for them (penal substitution), they are being trained to fear God for threatening them with torture, trauma, and separation. It's as if the Bible said, "Perfect love casts out fear, but you have to feel fear first!" Moreover, people who believe in US Christian nationalism also feel fear that God will judge, penalize, or punish the US for deviating from American exceptionalism, or the supposedly Christian heritage of the US, or having too many non-Christian neighbors. The theory of divine retributive justice and the notion of Christian nationalism are both wrong. But much damage has been done, and continues to be done, by training evangelicals to be so fearful. Hayley and Mako explore these fears. They survey many fears which white American evangelicals, especially, have felt in recent years: fear of "communism"; fear of "the end of the world"; fear of being "left behind"; fear of Muslim attacks after 9/11; fear that Barack Obama was the antichrist; fear of racial or sexual minorities. How would Jesus have us respond to these fears?

6:33 Evangelicals and Fear: Divine Retributive Justice and Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theology

16:57 Evangelicals, Fear, and Christian Nationalism: Will God Punish the US?

26:40 Evangelicals Giving Off the Vibe That We're Afraid, in the Public Sphere: Book Bans, Home Schooling, Anti-Abortion Laws, Etc.

38:55 Types of Evangelical Fear from the 1970s and Now: Eric Metaxas as an Example

43:05 Evangelical Fear-Vengeance Responses to September 11th, 2001: War in Afghanistan

52:10 Evangelical Fear-Vengeance Responses to September 11th, 2001: War in Iraq

1:01:05 What the Old Protestant Witch Trials Teach Us About Evangelical Fear

Work today can be back-breaking and mind-numbing. It can also throw your daily and weekly rhythms off, especially if you work odd hours. Hayley shares about her young family's challenges when her husband worked a demanding retail job. Life felt more like the Israelites slaving away under Pharaoh in Egypt than in the garden of Eden or a promised land.

This is Session 8 of our series, Plantation Capitalism vs. Jesus' Jubilee Economy. Join us as we look at how God made us in creation to rest, then work - work is a reward for resting well, not the other way round. Then God restored rhythms of rest to Israel in the Old Testament. We look at why rhythms of rest continue to be so important for our growth. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, which includes caring for the quality of their rest, and ours.

Also, we touch on negative Christian influences that interfere with rest: the "Protestant work ethic," John Locke's theory of meritocracy, and the megachurch mentality of mass-produced church involvement. We show how God made rest and work to reflect our interdependence on each other and creation, not our independence and individualism.

1:30 The Cost of Modern Work: Hayley’s Family

5:50 Evangelicals and Rest

13:52 Rest and Work in Creation

26:05 Rest in the Jubilee in Israel vs. Egypt

29:00 Jesus' Good Samaritan Parable and Loving Your Neighbor

31:50 Living Out Love for Neighbor

Parenting today is more expensive and emotionally demanding than years ago. While children are a joy, they also have the amazing superpower of making you lose sleep, pull out your hair, and make you want to reach out for help. So, why does the U.S. rank almost dead last among peer nations in public investment in children? Why did we just plunge millions of children back into poverty? Is that what it means to be a "Christian country"?

Join Hayley and Mako to hear what they think of Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin saying that he doesn't think it's society's responsibility to care for "other people's children." Right after the COVID pandemic.

This is Session 9 of our series, Plantation Capitalism vs. Jesus' Jubilee Economy. Join us as we look at how God shaped his people in both Old and New Testaments to care for all God's kids. In the Jubilee of Leviticus 25, God trained the Israelite parents to care for all the kids of the community, not just their own. And in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18, Jesus taught his disciples to welcome and bless all kids; Jesus then taught us about the sharing, generosity, and mission he envisioned for his new kingdom family. What can we do practically to give parents more space, time, and resources to parent well?

1:40 Parenting Today: What the Fast and Slow Pandemics Show Us

12:00 The Partisan Divide on Life Expectancy and Parents Being Broke and Burned Out

25:44 Comparing the US with Other Countries on Public Investment in Children

36:27 Child Welfare Policies Work!

39:22 David Brooks Says "The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake"

46:14 Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) Doesn't Want to Help Other People's Children, and Our Response to Him

49:31 Jesus' Jubilee Economy: Parents Need Spaces, Time, and Resources - Some Ideas

George Santos. Terrible liar. Brilliant self-promoter. Now, disgraced former Congressman. How did we get here? During World War II, governments learned that war propaganda got people to buy war bonds. During the Cold War, many governments propagandized their civilian populations. They built up people's individual self-image and national self-image. This is one reason why especially U.S. Boomers look back at the 1950s Eisenhower era as so glorious. The U.S. was powerful, led the world, and had plenty of jobs.

Spiritually, this marketing experience was based on a Protestant notion of dominion from Genesis 1 as domination of a sort. And not content to dominate nature, the U.S. also set out to dominate people in other countries. That led to a kind of idolatry where we don't simply worship idols, we inhabit the idols we worship to influence others. We sell back an image of ourselves to people. You make your curated social media image, and sometimes physical image, the product you want to control. You make your media diet reflect the national self-image you want to control. George Santos did succeed at this for a while. Meanwhile, social media and traditional media companies make you the product. Massive cloud computing companies are the new feudal landlords, plantation owners of a new order. And technologies of mass surveillance predict out your wants, behaviors, future health, and possible locations just in case the military needs to find you.

1:07 The George Santosification of Everything

5:09 A Spiritual Diagnosis: Defining Dominion and Idolatry in the Protestant World

13:02 Brandscapes of Control

21:53 Cold War Propaganda for the Public

36:23 The Villages Retirement Community in Florida: A Brandscape of 1950s America

49:13 September 11th and the Fear of Muslims, Marxists, Groomers, and Non-White People

58:03 Recap: How We Inhabit the Idolatry Today

Plantation Capitalism exploits our longing for beauty and to be beautiful. Two of the wealthiest ten families in the world made their money off fashion: clothing and cosmetics. The steeper the economic inequality, the more money people spend on looking wealthy, and the more high fashion companies make.

And, our longing for power and to be powerful. Taller people make more money than shorter people for the same job. In mixed skin-color cultures, lighter-skinned people have higher status than darker-skinned people, in part because being indoors is a sign of wealth, in part European colonialism. People are considered powerful and even attractive and sexy if they look individually competent and confident (especially among men) or youthful and fertile (especially among women).

We are suffering the aftermath of two spiritual influences: the corrupted Protestant notion of dominion from Genesis 1 as an individual domination of a sort; and idolatry where we put ourselves in the idol and market it/ourselves back to others. Jesus, in his Jubilee Economy, challenges us to restore the dignity of all. He challenges the way we focus on our appearance. Paul challenged the honor-shame dress code of the Roman world (1 Corinthians 11). We also introduce Orthodox iconography as a way of trying to theologically point to God as the Source of True Beauty and how we can participate in that Beauty in Christ. This is Part 2 of Session 10 of our series, Plantation Capitalism vs. Jesus' Jubilee Economy.

1:18 The Ten Wealthiest Families in the World and High Fashion

4:50 Dominion and Idolatry: Definitions

7:39 Idolizing Youthful Power and Mature Power

12:39 The Survival of the Prettiest - for Babies

13:33 Colorism and Colonialism and the Story of Miriam's Skin Color

17:44 Clothing and the Plantation's Exploitation of the Poor and Middle-Class

22:05 Shared Dominion and Paul's Challenge to Honor-Shame Dress

26:48 If Jesus Had an iPhone... What Should Christian Art Be Like? A Quick Exploration of Iconography

Many White American Christians have been the reputation launderers of Plantation Capitalism. Whenever the Plantation elite have exploited people and the planet, various White American church leaders bent over backwards to justify it, deflect from it, or ignore it.

1:51 The church worship service over the cries in the slave dungeon: the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana as a symbol of reputation laundering.

9:26 The 2000s: David Barton, the "evangelical" "historian" who tries to launder the sins of White American Christians in U.S. history.

28:15 The 1970s: Donald Macgavran, C. Peter Wagner, and the "Church Growth Movement" forget the Christian sins of the past and focus on reaching "Saddleback Sam."

How often did this happen? At every major stage in U.S. history, from colonial times back to the present:

34:21 Colonial Times: John Cotton and "God's Plantation" co-opted the story of ancient Israel to make the Puritan colony the nation politically covenanted with God and justify seizing land from Natives.

39:03 Reconstruction: Dwight L. Moody saved souls but not bodies, supported White reunification but not Black civil rights, and promoted "the sinking ship" idea.

49:15 Post Civil War South: Rev. Moses Drury Hoge of Second Presbyterian Church of Richmond, VA justified the "Religion of the Lost Cause".

1:00:21 Post Civil War North: Princeton and J. Gresham Machen and libertarianism justified inaction against racism.

1:04:07 New Deal Era: James W. Fifield, Jr. and "Christian Libertarianism" argued for unregulated business over labor, and for the rich over the poor and middle classes.

1:06:18 Cold War Era: Dwight D. Eisenhower rallied Americans against the USSR using God, freedom, and capitalism.

1:08:38 Civil Rights Era: W.A. Criswell and the Southern Baptists argued for racial segregation and fought Brown v. Board.

Caveat: Many people who hold to Penal Substitutionary Atonement do not go down these paths, thankfully, for other reasons. But we believe PSA opens a door to a slippery slope.

In Part 1 of Session 11, we covered historical examples of White American evangelicals reputation laundering the U.S. plantation system. In Part 2, we examine the role Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) plays in reputation laundering.

When many people in The Gospel Coalition and adjacent to it reject the call for reparations for racial injustices; they say it betrays Penal Substitution. There, it's explicit. In cases of clergy sexual abuse and domestic abuse, it's implicit. Some Christians assume that forgiveness means reconciliation, which is not true. While forgiveness is unilateral, reconciliation is not. Reconciliation requires repentance and change on the part of the offender, and even then, the relationship might still never be the same.

But under Penal Substitution, you are encouraged to forgive injustice and abuse like God supposedly does: without conditions and with an infinite capacity to suffer ongoing harm. In fact, you are supposed to believe something like this: the declaration of forgiveness itself and full relationship are what motivates an offender to repent. In this framework, oppressed people should not only forgive oppressors but also accept their oppression without critique. Abused wives should not only forgive abusive husbands but also receive their abuse in silence. And abused congregants should not only forgive abusive church leaders but welcome them to stay in their positions. This is a recipe for disaster. And disasters have struck. Over and over and over.

1:06 The Southern Baptist Convention being legally considered a racketeering organization under RICO laws

11:53 Case study 1: Some White Evangelicals use PSA to reject reparations for racial injustice

20:18 Case study 2: Why PSA probably behind calling the vulnerable and the victims into quick forgiveness of sexual abusers

26:50 Case study 3: Why PSA serves churches who don't want to be up front about their beliefs about male power over women and staying in an abusive marriage

32:29 Prosperity theology defined: external, not internal, rewards

41:40 PSA defined: A supposed Power Hierarchy in heaven that fuels power hierarchies on earth

47:48 PSA defined: A supposed punishment transaction confuses the importance of repentance

50:36 The early Christian alternative: what remission of sins really entails. The medical paradigm, not the legal, in Paul's letter to the Romans. God's justice is restorative not retributive. Jesus' atonement is a Medical Substitution, not Penal Substitution.