Cornel West in a social media post wrote, “To my dear brother Eric Adams, my dear brother Zohran Mamdani has got it right! Based on Acts 2:45 and Acts 4:35, a call to abolish poverty and redistribute wealth downwards is a moral and spiritual matter. In this way, Karl Marx is building on a rich prophetic tradition of Jerusalem shot through the best of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”
The texts referenced by Professor West document the practice in the early church where Christians freely shared of their bounty to assist the less fortunate among their number.
According to West's interpretation, this is the source's dictum referenced by Zohran Mamdami in a tweet posted 5/27/20 reading “Each according to their need, each according to their ability.”
For supposedly being one of America's foremost public intellectuals, West's exegesis is disturbingly incomplete.
For starters, these particular scriptural texts are descriptive in that these passages detail what these particular believers did.
The actions are not extolled as binding upon all Christians in every conceivable circumstance.
While the narrative can inspire emulation, other admonitions in the same book extolled by West clarify that not everyone is obligated to respond with the same degree of eleemosynary.
If Professor West had not allowed his grandiose virtue signaling to get in the way of his study of the Scriptures, he would have encountered the account of Ananias and Saphirra.
In the anecdote of the couple struck dead not for financial avarice but rather for deliberate deception in the hopes of gaining the sort of public acclaim of which Dr. West is himself a connoisseur, the Apostle Peter explains that the proceeds raised from the sale of their land was their's to do with as they pleased so long as they did not make a spectacle.
Yet the Marxism, celebrated by West as a rudiment of divine revelation despite Marx ranking as a foremost blasphemer and his ideology being a justification for religious persecution on the part of regime's built upon his thought, does not grant any freedom like Peter the Apostle did as to whether or not the individual participates in these income redistribution campaigns.
For example, Zohran Mamdani is on the record as proposing that White neighborhoods ought to pay higher taxes than jurisdictions populated by residents of other phenotypes.
So if the form of wealth redistribution advocated by Mamdani is a Biblical one, as Dr. West assures by his accumulated knowledge in the realm of religious studies, then a Mamdani administration would have no issue with Whites refusing to comply with these punitive assessments.
It is revealing to the extent to which West advocates despotic intervention in the lives of citizens when it comes to confiscatory asset seizure in the name of religion.
Yet as a reflexive progressive, West would probably recoil in horror at the mere suggestion that the rights enjoyed by free people do not stem from the state but rather as a gift imbued by God as an inherent part of being made in the Creator's image.
Despite his considerable ballyhooing about the ethical beauty of invoking the threat of force in the name of resource redistribution in pursuit of radical egalitarianism, Professor West is as capitalist as anybody else when it comes to jockeying for his own economic advantage with the least amount of effort possible.
Something of an academic diva, Professor West is not so much about what is best for the discipline he espouses or even his students.
First and foremost, Cornel West is about what is best for Cornel West.
For example, rather than picking a single Ivy League institution and dedicating his life to it for the benefit of the student body and the expansion of human knowledge, Dr. West bounces back and forth clamoring for position and individual recognition.
Such is not idle speculation that cannot be backed up with evidence.
In a high-profile dispute with the then-president of Harvard Lawrence Summers documented by sources no less esteemed by the circles in which West attempts to ply the racial guilt from which he finances his posh lifestyle such as the New York Times and the Associated Press, the celebrity academic was accused of ditching classes and failing to produce serious scholarship in favor of more “financially lucrative” projects such as a spoken-word CD.
So apparently Dr. West thinks that he should not only be able to accumulate wealth but also keep it for himself.
It must be remembered that West is something of a preening virtue signaler in not only condemning those doing so as capitalists but also condemning those not eager to do so for violating key tenets of the Gospel message.
For it seems giving away other people's money is one of the few allegedly Biblical virtues that Professor West vocalizes any degree of enthusiasm in support of.
From texts such as Luke 16:18 and I Corinthians 7:15, those unlike Dr. West who are not educated beyond the point of wisdom and common sense come away with the impression that God is not really all that keen on most of those having gotten a divorce getting remarried while the former spouse is still alive.
After all, Malachi 2:16 informs that God hates divorce.
Yet God is also a forgiving God.
With fallen people and societies already hobbling through life as it is, nearly all but the most hardline of Christians and congregations are willing to overlook failed marriages in the lives of fellow believers so long as some harsh lessons are learned from the heartache and such souls go on to make betters lives for themselves should they find love again.
But despite his knack for education, it seems Cornel West has learned very little in this regard. For it seems this otherwise homely academic that women would otherwise recoil in revulsion from if he did not labor in a vocation that afforded him a degree of celebrity has been able to pull off five marriages interspersed between four divorces.
Among the circles in which Cornel West orbits, if one proves useful to the elites undermining sound tradition and good morals, such wanton libertinism is not frowned upon. Secularist education has often been at the forefront of encouraging the erotic exploration of almost every bodily orifice in nearly every possible permutation of titillating stimulation.
Sophisticates might posture so as to overlook shortcomings such as carnal promiscuity. However, it cannot be overlooked that a number of liaisons and concubines accuse West of abandoning the children resulting from these dalliances when much of West's public persona is predicated on his vocal concern for those marginalized and neglected as a result of what he critiques as a free market economy run amok.
Yet another common tactic to divert attention from what is the scandal of a father abandoning his children --- a number seemingly sired with women he was never married to --- is the invocation of the adage of let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
By this, it is meant that most in one way or another have led less than exemplary lives in regards to relationships, matters of the heart or even family. For these concerns rank among the most subjective aspects of all of human existence.
Though it falls woefully short of the stated public objective, unlike the vagaries of human romantic and erotic impulses, the United States tax code is alleged to operate by a logic that would leave Mr. Spock cold. One is either in compliance with a given regulation or not.
One might sympathize with the average individual found ensnared in these Byzantine regulations.
However, Cornel West is celebrated as one of the nation's keenest philosophers not only schooled at and employed by the most elite universities but (as noted in his posted social media remarks) but for possessing what might be considered prophetic insight into God's plan as to how resources accumulated by others ought to be redistributed as to how the government sees fit.
If that is such a moral profundity (the kind of thing Professor West is lavished with accolades for his ability to point out) why at one point did he owe over $500,000 in delinquent taxes?
For if Cornel West really believed that the destitute have a claim to the resources of the privileged such as himself (but a deceptive rhetorician such as himself would probably insist that such a categorization can only be applied to the White devils) wouldn't he be chomping at the bit to get things squared away with the IRS well before any deadline after which he would stand in default?
Another of the few Biblical admonishes favored by those from the leftwing of the political spectrum is “judge not, lest ye be judged”. Usually this is invoked to deflect criticism regarding any number of carnal debaucheries wallowed in by those downplaying traditional moral standards.
In the case of Professor West, perhaps his time would be better spent ensuring that his own finances are in compliance with the dictates of the revenuers rather than grandstanding in condemnation of you simply wanting to keep more of your own.
By Frederick Meekins
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