Appearing on Kenneth Copeland’s “Believer’s Voice of Victory” television program today, David Barton declared that God opposes retirement because it is “a pagan concept.”

“Retirement is not a biblical concept,” Barton said, putting forth a theory that he appears to have stolen from Rabbi Daniel Lapin. “That is a pagan concept that comes from the Babylonian system. If you want to live in Egypt, you want to live in Babylon, great, retire. God’s people, that is not a model.”

“One of the great indications that something is not part of what God wants is the fruit that accompanies it,” he continued. “And one of the things that I’ve always believed is Deuteronomy 6:24, He says, ‘Everything I tell you is for your benefit, that you can enjoy a long life, that you can prosper,’ and so if we see something in the way of statistics or science that shows that we don’t have a long life, that will diminish our life, then we know that’s not part of what God wanted us to do.”

Citing statistics that supposedly show that, on average, people die within three years of retiring, Barton claimed that is because “your body says, ‘Oh, you want to do nothing? Great. Let’s just shut down.'”

“God did not design us for retirement,” Barton said. “He did not design us to quit being productive, and when you start doing things that go contrary to what He designed us for, it always gets bad results. And so the statistics are there that God did not design us for retirement.”