Lux Lucet

The Sacrifice of Elijah Against the Prophets of Baal. Luca Giordano ca. 1650 -1660.

In 1 Kings 18, we read the account of the famous head-to-head between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Elijah had challenged Baalites to a prophetic version of a pistols-at-noon duel. The supports of Baal would have their opportunity to call upon their god, Elijah would have his opportunity to call upon his. Addressing the people of Israel, Elijah set the terms of the challenge by saying, “I alone am left a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are for hundred and fifty men. Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD; and the God who answers by fire, He is God” (1 Kings 18:22-24).

Could the priests of Baal call fire from the heavens to consume the sacrificial bull? This was a fair challenge, and one the Baalites could hardly refuse. Had they taken a pass, they would have cast doubt on their entire belief system. Elijah had them cornered. Scripture tells us, “So they [the prophets of Baal] took the bull which was given them and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” (1 Kings 18:26). But for all their infinite passion, nothing happened.

This had to be enormously embarrassing for both the priests and for their royal patrons, King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. Taking advantage of their obvious failure, Elijah mocked the Baalite prophets, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating , or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened” (I Kings 18;27). Faced with the prospect of a crushing defeat, Baal’s prophets doubled down on the only trick they had. Unfortunately for them, that trick, which already wasn’t working, was about not to work once again. Scripture tells us that in response to Elijah’s sarcasm, the prophets of Baal, “cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice (I Kings 18:28, 29).

What was their reward for all this effort, all this blood-letting? Crickets. The sound of crickets. The Bible tells us, “But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention” (I Kings 18/29).

Those familiar with the account know how it ends. The Lord answered Elijah’s simple prayer and sent fire from heaven that consumed “the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench” (I Kings 18:38). Adding injury to their humiliation, Elijah ordered the execution of the false Baalite prophets.

The problem with the prophets of Baal wasn’t their lack of passion. It wasn’t that they didn’t give it their all. The reason they failed was simple: they had a flawed concept of reality. They had turned their back on the Lord and embraced a lie. Professing to be wise, they had become fools.

Today’s Prophets of Baal

The above well-know Old Testament account has resonance in today’s world. For the prophets of Baal are

John Maynard Keynes. English economist, 1883-1946.

still with us, they just go by different names. In particular, I’m speaking about that woeful tribe known as Keynesian economists. Keynesians, you see, have dedicated their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the dodgy proposition of English economist John Maynard Keynes that nations can too deficit spend their way to prosperity. And like Baal’s prophets of old, if for some reason all the money printing and deficit spending they advocate fail to cure what ails the economy, they simply double down on their theory, arguing that the problems lies not in their ideas, but in the fact that we haven’t taken on enough debt. Invoking the name of their god and leaping about their altar of economic growth, the Keynesians cry out all the louder, “O Lord Keynes, hear us!” What is worse, they expect us to listen to them.

If it seems like a bit of a stretch to compare today’s Keynesians with prophets of Baal, please consider the recent New York Times column titled Debt is Good by über Keynesian Paul Krugman. Generally speaking, most observers of the world economy acknowledge that things aren’t going so well these days. Those who believe in free markets, honest money and limited government put the blame for the current malaise on socialism, fiat currency, and deficit spending by bloated, out of control governments. But Krugman will have none of this. Deriding those who believe that government should get and keep its financial house in order as “fiscal scolds,.” Krugman writes in all seriousness that, “there’s a reasonable argument to be made that part of what ails the world economy right now is that governments aren’t deep enough in debt.”

This is an astonishing statement. Consider that it took the US federal government from 1776 until 1982 to amass $1 trillion in debt. It took only four years to reach $2 trillion. In the year 2000, US federal debt stood at $5.6 trillion. The current debt of the federal government stands at over $18 trillion. The US is the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world.

But it gets worse. Economist Laurence Kotlikoff argues that merely citing the federal debt grossly understates the seriousness fiscal danger facing the US. According to Kotlikoff’s testimony before Congress, the correct approach for analyzing the financial position of the US is called “the infinite-horizon fiscal gap” method. In this approach, the value of all projected future receipts (money coming in to the US federal government) is subtracted from the value of all future expenditures by the US federal government using a reasonable rate of interest to discount these values to the present day. When Kotlikoff ran his analysis, he found that the US federal government faces a fiscal gap of $210 trillion. Looked at this way, the US federal government faces a financial crisis of nearly incomprehensible proportions. And this without any new spending. God has so constructed the universe that all debts must be paid. Make no mistake about it. This fiscal gap will be closed one way or the other. And it is Krugman and his fellow Keynesians who are largely responsible for putting the nation on the hook for what is an almost comically large sum of money. But what is Krugman’s response? Does he show any signs of remorse? Does he in any way repent? No, not at all. He doubles down on his Keynesianism, leaping, wailing and cutting himself as he calls for even more of what hasn’t worked in the past.

The problem with Krugman and his fellow prophets of Keynes is not effort. They have dedicated their lives to the propositions that currency debasement and government debt are good, and that honest money and fiscal prudence – things the Bible praises – are bad. No. Their problem is not that they lack passion. Their problem is that they have a grievously flawed understanding of reality. And it is this that leads them to call good evil and evil good. Professing to be wise, they have become fools. And persuade others to follow them.

It is high time for a contemporary Elijah to call their bluff.