November 15, 1988

Legalized gambling is in danger of becoming "the great addiction of the 1990s" (Christian Science Monitor, November 4, 1988). As the result of the November elections in the United States, five more states have accepted legal lotteries and joined the 28 who already had them. The growing acceptance and proliferation of legalized gambling is one more indication that people have lost their sense of how the natural world really works. The flawed "free lunch" myth is being accepted. Christians who are more and more surrounded by such a society need to review how lotteries are incompatible with both Christian principles and natural law.

There are at least three reasons why Christians will not participate in legalized gambling (including the lottery) but will actively oppose it.

First, the lottery is an affront to the poor. It is a repressive tax stacked against the poor. The deceptive advertising and the enormous odds take advantage of the weak. A study done in California in 1987 found that among the unemployed two out of three peple had at one time or another bought state lottery tickets. It also found that four out of 10 people in an average lottery pool were unemployed. A New Jersey survey, done this year, determined that 36 percent of those residents earning less than $10,000 per year spent 20 percent or more of their household income on the state lottery.

The lottery is an inappropriate way to raise taxes. It is controlled by the rich and exploits the poor. The Bible has much to say about this exploitation. Just two examples from Proverbs will illustrate:

"If you oppress poor people you insult the God who made them." (14:31) "Speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves ... protect the rights of the poor and needy." (31:8-9)

Second, the lottery extols riches and encourages coveteousness. It idolizes money. Bible teaching is clear on the danger of riches. Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, "If you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich, you will never get all you want. It is useless." The well known words of Jesus in Matthew 6:24 are also pertinent. "No one can be a slave to two masters; he will hate one and love the other; he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." As to the sin of covetousness, the tenth commandment appropriately identifies this evil.

Third, the lottery promotes a cruelly unrealistic "free lunch" mentality. It nurtures a "something for nothing" perception. The real world is not like this. The Bible warns against such fantasy. Galatians says, "Be not deceived, God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (6:7 NIV)

Because the "free lunch" perception is so subtle and pervasive I will discuss it in more detail.

The "free lunch" mentality is not limited to lottery promotion in our world today. It permeates much of our economic system. It is responsible for an unsustainable food and agriculture system, plus an industrial system that degrades the environment. It promotes unrealistic expectations about the accumulation of wealth.

The natural law (God's law) that negates the free lunch myth is known in scientific circles as the "second law of thermodynamics." Simply put, the second law recognizes that to live is to expend energy. This energy for life comes originally from the sun and is converted by green plants into a usable form. In any conversion of energy to useful activity (work for living), some energy is always degraded to a more dispersed or less useful form. It is essentially "lost." One can never get more energy out of a system than is put in; there is always some loss. Energy continually needs to be brought into the earth's living systems.

The limitations of the second law can be temporarily circumvented to give the "appearance" that energy can be gained. This temporary circumvention is the basis for our affluent industrialized society which is now part of the developed world. The apparent energy gain is at the expense of fossil fuel and other natural resources combined with cheap human labor. For example, it takes ten calories of energy to produce one calorie of food in American agriculture today. Yet one farmer is said to be able to feed about 80 people. This can only be done by using enormous quantities of stored energy from fossil fuels, degradation of the environment or by exploiting human energy (such as the use of migrant workers).

I know of no example of free (or cheap) energy that is obtained without some exploitation of the natural world or human beings or both. Therefore the accumulation of wealth -- which takes energy -- must also exploit to some extent. No free lunch (or even cheap lunch) is possible. To live takes work and thus energy which is not free.

Jesus understood the second law of thermodynamics. He understood the consequences of trying to circumvent it. Jesus did not play the lottery. He did not accumulate riches. He knew that both exploit people and the good creation. Thus he taught his disciples to live lightly on the earth, to look to the birds and the flowers for models of appropriate lifestyle. He taught as one who understands that the creation has sufficient resources for all to have their needs met, but not for all to have their greed satisfied.

The laws of creation and the teachings of Jesus run counter to the free lunch mentality that permeates legalized gambling (and the accumulation of wealth). For the Christian this should provide sufficient reason to reject both.