Last month Republican City Councilman John Kelly lost his bid to replace Peoria Mayor Rita Ali, getting 7,122 votes to Ali’s 11,006.

I get along OK with Kelly (although our close friends may look at us askance and think, “What are you thinking?”). We used to have spirited, civil conversations at the Twin Towers’ cigar shop, and we share the Catholic faith — although I’d argue I’m more of a New Testament Book of James guy, and John’s found good ideas in parts of the Old Testament.

In fact, Kelly, a former financial adviser, published “The Other Law of Moses: God’s Remarkable Plan for Prosperity” in 2012, and reading it now, amid all the economic chaos unleashed in Washington, D.C., Peorians might view the April  election results as missing an opportunity, or dodging a bullet.

I recently asked Kelly to reflect on his 250-page paperback.

Q: The bare bones of your book’s analysis of ancient Israel’s system was equal rights, days of rest, an occasional Sabbath year/Jubilee year, and tithing (which seemed comparable to modern property taxes). Do you feel there are elements that would make sense to everyday people now?

JK: The five principles I [wrote about] are Equal Rights, the Sabbath day, the Sabbatical year, the Jubilee year, and the Tithe.

Equal Rights: The Law applied to all adults, from a king to a commoner. Unearned government privilege was forbidden. Outside of special government-granted privilege, we are heirs of this idea, to our benefit.

The Sabbath day: A day of worship and gratitude to God, as well as a day of rest from all but essential labor; not optional. Today, most of us do not acknowledge God’s sovereignty over His creation on a regular basis, if at all. This leads to social strife and excuses immorality and disorder.

The Sabbatical year: After six years of working the land, the seventh year was a sabbath for the land. No planting or harvesting was to be done. The land was left to lie fallow. Further, all debts were to be cancelled.

The Jubilee year: After seven Sabbatical years (49 years) the following year, the 50th, was the Jubilee year. The main feature of this year of celebration was the redistribution of land to each family in all the tribes except the tribe of Levi (who inhabited 48 towns throughout the country). So, all families had about the same endowment of land, and, therefore, economic potential. This was legal land possession, not ownership. God was the landowner, and He gave His people equal shares in it. This land redistribution was unique, then and now.

The Tithe: The tithe was a land rent to the landlord: God. A 10th of the land’s production was the price of land possession. If a person was engaged in a non-agricultural profession, there was no tithe payment required. Only the best 10% of the tithe was used for religious or worship purposes. The other 90% was used for what we would today call civil government: roads, bridges, irrigation systems, etc. The only other legal source was a head tax, where each family was charged the same amount. Used during the Exodus, it was seldom used once the Israelites acquired the Promised land.

Once the era of kings began [from the reign of Saul, around 1020 B.C., to the Babylonian exile in 586 B.C.], these rules were routinely broken, resulting in social harm, less prosperity, and more royal grants of unearned privilege. By the time Jesus appeared, the average Jew was in poverty, while usurpers of the land prospered.

Q: Do you think the book and law has any 21st century applications — especially in this Jubilee year, which the Catholic church for centuries has advocated for cancelling debts, freeing slaves, letting ground stay fallow and recover, etc.?

JK: Yes. Debts in biblical times were short-term by today’s standards because the collateral (livestock, this year’s crop, etc.) only had value for a short time. Lenders took that into account as well as how close the next Sabbatical year was.

Today’s collateral assets typically hold their value much longer: houses and other buildings, a company’s balance sheet, or an individual’s net worth. I believe that our people and certainly our governments carry too much debt.

Slavery involves the coercive ownership of another’s person for the purpose of owning that person’s labor, We all agree that that is immoral, but it also results in diminished economic outcomes for society. In the meantime, the slaveholder, who holds great legal power, gets rich.

I find it interesting that the federal government relies on this coercive system, taking the fruits of citizens’ labor — wages and salaries — to fund itself. As in classical slavery, this diminishes economic activity.

The Israelites were forbidden to hold another Israelite as a slave. However, they were allowed to hold a person from a conquered nation as a slave for six years. At the end of such time, a significant grubstake was required to be given to the freed slave.

As a result of little debt and even less slavery, Israelites were individually much more prosperous than their counterparts in other nations. So: I believe that governments should eliminate income taxes, on grounds both moral and economic. The resulting surge in economic activity would lead to much greater prosperity and personal freedom.

Q: Lastly, whether Peoria, rural areas or Washington, D.C., do you see merit in your book’s observation that accepting privilege makes one complicit in upending the law? On page 189, your book cites Matthew 23: 23-24 — “You hypocrites! You pay your tithe of mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law — justice, mercy and good faith … You blind guides, straining out gnats and swallowing camels!”

JK: An unearned government grant of privilege is a benefit given to a favored person, group or entity, but denied to everyone else. The lobbying industry lives and breathes on seeking such boons. Special deals for special people are often unfair. Carve-outs in government action, to demonstrate the efficacy of a policy or law are acceptable, so long as there is a sunset to the demonstration.