INTRODUCTION
Attempting to combat wokeness, conservatives have framed the conflict with the woke left as “equality of outcome” vs. “equality of opportunity.” Equality of outcome means that everyone deserves to live the same quality of life. Equality of opportunity means that everyone deserves the same opportunity. Conservatives allege that the woke left advocates for equality of outcome, whereas conservatives claim to advocate for equality of opportunity. Equality of outcome means the results are levelled, and equality of opportunity means that access to opportunity is levelled. Both, nevertheless, are inconsistent with a Christian worldview. The Bible does not teach equality of outcome as a social virtue, nor does the Bible teach equality of opportunity as a social virtue. Rather, offering all persons free access to grace through Christ, the Bible teaches equality before the Law.
That the Bible opposes equality of outcome should be a given, so much so that it is not worth more than a pinch of argumentation. Scripture offers punishments and rewards for various behaviours. Bad behaviour must be punished. Good behaviour is to be rewarded. That should be a given. Equality of outcome is a stupid idea, and it deserves no credence whatsoever.
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IS WRONGHEADED
Equality of opportunity is also wrongheaded, but it warrants further discussion because it is a popular doctrine among those on the political right. Because right wing personalities assert equality of opportunity, many believers assume that equality of opportunity is a societal virtue. It is, however, an unnatural doctrine that Christians should abandon. Allow me to offer two reasons for this assertion.
First, equality of opportunity denies a providential view of reality. God has endowed each person with different circumstances. Some are more gifted, and some are less gifted. Some are gifted in one way, while others are gifted in other ways. Some are from well-connected families, and others from families that have little to no connections. Some are given a lot of money from their families, and some are given no money. Some are born into difficult situations, like war, famine, and economic depression. Some are born into easier situations. All these variables, with many more and with varying combinations, are providentially granted to each person. God simply calls each person to steward his lot in life. Providence does not afford each person the same lot, but God does call each person to be content with his lot and steward it properly with thankfulness. Providence awards varying degrees of opportunity. Equality of opportunity denies a providential view of reality.
Second, biblical Law never offered equality of opportunity. God is the author of Law, and the Old Testament society that He designed offered no such vision for society. For example, only descendants of Levi could serve as priests. No matter how much an Ephraimite or Simeonite desired to be a priest, he was disenfranchised from the priesthood. By virtue of tribal bloodlines, God reserved the priesthood for Levites. The same was true for the office of king. Only a Judahite through the line of David could be king. For the descendants of Asher or Naphtali kingship was forbidden. God, in His perfect Old Testament Law, disenfranchised various persons of various ancestries from holding various positions in society, while He also placed various responsibilities on certain persons because of their ancestry. God, in these cases and others, forbade equality of opportunity.
Some might object that we no longer live in Old Testament times. I agree, but that notwithstanding, God’s Old Testament Law was perfect. He was perfectly just to demand that some peoples are barred from some aspects of society, while also demanding that other peoples steward inherited duties. In the New Testament, similar principles surface. For example, God prohibits women from being church elders. By God’s decree, equal opportunity to be an elder does not exist.
Equality of opportunity denies a providential view of reality, and God’s perfect Law never offered equality of opportunity. God’s Law, in some points, prohibits equality of opportunity. Equality of opportunity is not a social virtue.
BIBLICAL EQUALITY
That said, the Bible does teach equality. Scriptural equality, however, is not equality of outcome, and it is not equality of opportunity. The equality of Scripture is equality before the Law. This means that each person has the right to obey the Law of God and each has a right to be protected by the Law of God. The right to obey the Law is grounded in the 10 Commandments. Each has the right to worship God (1C, 2C), honour the Sabbath (4C), govern his family (5C), protect his family against murder and violence (6C), marry (7C), ethically exchange goods and services (8C), and be assumed innocent until proven guilty (9C). Equality before the Law also means that the Law protects each person from infringements on those rights. Any person or agency that infringes upon those rights must be summarily tried and punished for said infringements. Equality under the Law is the right to obey God’s Law, and it is the demand that violators of those rights be punished accordingly. That is the equality that God teaches, and it is the equality He expects society to uphold.
APPLICATION
When we consider abandoning worldly views of equality for a Scriptural view, there are several applications that immediately come to mind. I’ll list three.
First, being able to serve in a government office, whether elected or bureaucratic, is not a right. In fact, it would be wholly just for certain persons to be disenfranchised from such positions. For example, requiring that one’s family has been naturalized in Canada for a certain number of generations could be just and could also protect our national interests from being compromised by foreign allegiances and alien ideologies.
Requiring a religious test for office would also be beneficial. Some might balk at that suggestion, but our own head of state, His Majesty King Charles III, and his successors are by law required to not be Roman Catholic. By design that was to preserve liberty in England and her dominions, as English law was historically rooted in a Protestant understanding of the world. Beyond that, it would be unthinkable for a successor to the British throne to be an American, Russian, or Indian. He must be British. Similar principles could justly be applied to public offices for the same reasons.
Second, universal suffrage is not a right. In fact, demagogues have capitalized on universal suffrage to infringe upon actual rights. As in the case of serving in government, it might be wise and just to require that one’s family has been naturalized in the country for a certain number of generations before being enfranchised into the vote. Demagogues push mass immigration to dilute the native population and manipulate elections, so restricting the vote in this way would weaken this subversive tactic. Restricting the vote to property owners who receive no government handouts would help ensure that voters bear a certain level of responsibility and are not casting votes to pillage the treasury for their own ill-gotten gain at the expense of actual producers. Restricting the vote to one per household would recognize the family as the foundational unit of society, as opposed to the individual.
Third, whereas the Bible unequivocally condemns manstealing, not all forms of slavery are immoral. When persons are delinquent in their own self-governance it would be just to hand them over to the custody of another, who would competently govern them. For example, our streets are filled with vagrant drug addicts, with government programs multiplying the problems. Vagrants and addicts could be rehabilitated as slaves under ethical masters, who prohibit controlled substances on their properties while affording the slaves the dignity of productive labour. The master, in such cases, must be required by law to uphold the slaves’ rights as delineated in the 10 Commandments, but the master would be given immediate jurisdiction to forcibly govern the slaves’ labour and appetites while furnishing the slave with the necessities of life. In this case, the slave, along with society, would be better off than if he were loafing around high on fentanyl, defecating and littering needles in public places. This would be a better solution than prison, as it would render the addicts and vagrants productive while isolating them from the criminal population. Furthermore, slavery was a legally sanctioned and privately funded way to naturalize foreign aliens into Israel’s social fabric, all within the confines of a loving household and far removed from facelessly cold centralized bureaucracies. Something is to be said for that.
Those are just three ways society could be improved if we abandoned our worldly view of equality and embraced a biblical view of equality. There are many more. As it stands, our false notions of equality have hamstrung us from the ability to solve actual problems, while also multiplying the problems we do have.
CONCLUSION
The Bible offers no vision for equality of outcome, and most Christians on the political right know this. Many wrongly assume, however, that equality of opportunity is a social virtue. Despite what conservative personalities claim, equality of opportunity is also unscriptural. Providence does not equally distribute opportunity, and God has even at times legislated against equal opportunity. Christians, thus, must repudiate the ideal of equality of opportunity along with the ideal of equality of outcome. Abandoning those unscriptural views of equality, we must embrace the ideal of equality before the Law. The free offer of the Gospel to all, with equality before the Law is the Christian view of social equality. All other notions are novel innovations of men, which are contrary to God’s design.
