In his memoir, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan reminds us that author Ayn Rand is still influencing the world. He credits her with turning him into something more than a \u201cmath junkie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greenspan is not alone. A 1991 Book-of-the-Month Club and Library of Congress survey asked members which book had most influenced their lives. As expected, the Bible finished first. Unexpectedly, Rand\u2019s most famous book, the novel ATLAS SHRUGGED, finished second.<\/p>\n
Fifty years after its publication and 25 years after Rand\u2019s death, ATLAS SHRUGGED is still read everywhere from college campuses to Wall Street. Given its popularity and its impact, Christians ought to be acquainted with Rand\u2019s work and, especially, her worldview.<\/p>\n
As theologian John Piper puts it, Rand\u2019s work manifests a \u201ccomplete rejection of a divine or supernatural dimension to reality.\u201d The absence of God causes Rand to get human nature wrong as well.<\/p>\n
In ATLAS SHRUGGED and her other writings, Rand articulated a philosophy she called \u201cobjectivism.\u201d Among other things, objectivism teaches that man\u2019s \u201chighest value\u201d and \u201cmoral purpose\u201d is his own happiness.<\/p>\n
By \u201chappiness\u201d Rand meant \u201crational self-interest.\u201d For her, \u201cvirtue\u201d consisted of doing what \u201csecured\u201d your life and well-being.<\/p>\n
Where did that leave altruism and self-sacrifice? As vices. For Rand, altruism and self-sacrifice represented a betrayal of what should be a person\u2019s \u201chighest values,\u201d that is, his life and well-being. Similarly, justice would be possible only where you never sought for nor granted unearned or undeserved results, \u201cneither in matter nor in spirit . .\u201d<\/p>\n
But without altruism and self-sacrifice, how do people relate to one another? Ayn Rand says through exchanges that promote mutual advantage, what she called a \u201ctrade.\u201d In other words, as if each of the parties were businesses, not people.<\/p>\n
Rand\u2019s inversion of biblical norms had predictable results: Scott Ryan, who wrote a book on Rand\u2019s philosophy, called objectivism a \u201cpsychologically totalitarian personality cult that allowed Rand . . to exercise personal power over [her] unwitting victims.\u201d He cites, for example, the way she manipulated \u201cher own unemployed and dependent husband\u201d to get him to agree for her to have \u201can adulterous sexual affair.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not talking here about personal flaws or merely human weaknesses. As Ryan puts it, these abuses are \u201cdemonstrably connected to Rand\u2019s own \u2018philosophical\u2019 premises\u201d \u2014 that is, her worldview.<\/p>\n
Rand and her followers, you see, lived in a way consistent with her worldview. But you can hardly regard a philosophy that exalts selfishness and condemns altruism as the basis for a good society.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why it is so important for us as Christians to understand our Christian worldview and to be able to contend for it, because it gets God right, and it gets human nature right, as well. You can find that worldview in the one book that out-ranked ATLAS SHRUGGED – the Bible.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2007 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint with Chuck Colson” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #20935]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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