Excellent.

Can you great Jesus Creed readers do me a favour? I was reading the comments of a post (I think it was an RJS post), and in the context of “accommodation” (as per the use of term in the discussion of origins, inspiration of scripture, etc.) someone mentioned Jesus and the parable of the mustard seed. I cannot seem to find it, and if anyone could track it for me, it would be greatly appreciated. If you don’t mind, please email me: walshmat-at-gmail-dot-com
Sincerely,
Matt

Ahh Dopderbeck,
If it were only that simple. I’ll be expecting Michael Kruse to weigh in here and explain how developing countries need to guard intellectual property rights and capitalism too.
In gleaning a field, the poor had to work. They could not go to a rich man’s barn and help themselves to the harvested grain. Nor could they swipe the tools from the metal smith, make a million copies of each one and sell them for a pittance. Neither could they use the rich man’s oxen at night on the 3rd shift (as factories in the People’s Rep. of China) to go and plow their own fields.
But we do all long for the “simplicity” of an agrarian society at times I suppose.
By the way, Dopderbeck, I hope you will send my a copy of your first (next?) book so I can put a new cover on it and sell it as my own!

Here’s my question: Are we to assume that this rethinking of this passage applies to the US? The problem of course is that the US is not a “Christian Nation” (see notable irateness about the Patriot Bible below). Is this to the world at large absent a commitment to Christ? This is going to be hard to apply to nations with other religions at their core.
God was speaking at the time to a nation with whom He had a covenant and over whom He was King. Is there a physical kingdom right now in this world to which this passage can be applied as Dopderbeck paraphrases?

Percival,
I seriously doubt if dopderbeck is advocating doing away with intellectual property rights. Especially as on his site he notes that his legal scholarship focuses on the law, norms and economics of intellectual property and information, and he teaches intellectual property law. This is his area of expertise.
But there are ways to allow “gleaning” without giving up intellectual property rights.

Wow — thanks for the re-post!
Percival — you make some good points; all of these global economic issues are complicated. As RJS mentions, I don’t suggest IP rights should be abolished, but I do believe some important modifications need to be made to the international IPR system to facilitate access in developing countries to essential medicines and other basic technologies. For some extraordinarily boring and wonkish details on how I think about the North / South divide and intellectual property, see my article “Patents, Essential Medicines, and the Innovation Game,” 58 Vand. L. Rev. 501 (2005) (copy here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=458620)

Amen dopderbeck! The world needs all who have various property rights to hear the Spirit of the gleaning passages. The One to whom the land (and intellectual property, etc.) truly belongs has been generous to you; he requires you to follow suit.

Percival @ 3,
You’re right, gleaning involved work. But it still involved coming, unannounced, to someone else’s land and taking their crops in exchange for nothing.
What that specifically would look like in practice today is an open argument.
Intellectual property rights, properly understood, are an important part of encouraging the proliferation of arts and culture. But that is their main function. Protecting the incomes of artists (or, more accurately, corporations) is not their primary purpose.

Just trying to follow along here. So we are applying this passage to the laws of the nation/world? Are we bringing trying to establish the OT law as binding to all nations right now?

Dave (#9) — I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the OT law is “binding” today in a one-to-one sense. I personally am not anything like a theonomist, nor, I am sure, is the professor who assigned this to us (BTW, the course was an online course at Biblical Seminary — really great stuff!). I think, though, that the gleanings laws beautifully reflect some overriding moral themes in the Bible: that all the resources we have ultimately are given by, and belong to God; that God cares deeply about the poor, the oppressed, and the stranger; and that those who have resources are obligated to share with those in need. My paraphrase is just an attempt to apply these principles to the sort of resources that often matter most in our post-industrial culture.

LOVE it doperbeck… simply love it…
Capitalism and other things set aside.. following the rule of “love thy neighbor… and loving them by giving them access…

Love this! This law doesn’t have to do with countries and IP as much as companies. We – those following Jesus- own stock in, are employed by, and have 401k funds invested in these companies. It very much pertains to US!!
Brilliant challenge – thanks

Dopderbeck,
I respect any serious effort to solve real problems. I’m afraid I assumed you were a idealistic (young?) seminary student with little real-world experience! Thanks RJS for setting me straight on that. I tried the link that had your “boring and wonkish” details, but it led nowhere.
I live in a country with very little respect for patents or intellectual rights. I’ve seen some of the consequences of this. We have bootlegged products from everywhere, including medicines. The problems with this are sometimes not obvious at first, but the whole business atmosphere is poisoned by it.
I also wonder if we don’t often expect companies and laws to do the work that we as the church have failed to do. It’s easy to speak out against the exploitive practices of pharmaceutical companies. It’s harder to go serve in a clinic in a developing country with a broken-down system.
Sorry I couldn’t respond more quickly, but we sleep here while y’all are blogging there.

Don’t know why that link didn’t work. Weird. Here’s another one: http://law.vanderbilt.edu/publications/vanderbilt-law-review/archive/volume-58-number-2-march-2005/download.aspx?id=3036