{"id":6175,"date":"2009-11-11T06:22:51","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T06:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/economics-at-the-jesus-creed-m-8.html"},"modified":"2009-11-11T06:22:51","modified_gmt":"2009-11-11T06:22:51","slug":"economics-at-the-jesus-creed-m-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/11\/economics-at-the-jesus-creed-m-8.html","title":{"rendered":"Economics at the Jesus Creed: Michael Kruse 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WallStreet.jpg\"<\/span>Folks Michael Kruse finishes off this wonderful series today, and I hope you express your appreciation to him. We need education like this, and to that end David Opderbeck will begin a series next week on “Law” — David’s a Law professor. So, here’s Michael’s last post…<\/i><\/p>\n


<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Today we come to the final post is this series on basic economics. Over the last nine weeks we’ve reviewed several economic issues: scarcity vs. abundance, supply and demand, positive vs. normative economics, opportunity costs and tradeoffs, markets and trade, division of labor, self-interest, wealth, utility, profit, face-to face community vs. commercial society, and capitalism, to name just a few. Any of these topics are book length material. As I noted in the first post, I’m not an economist and I’m certain I haven’t done justice to each issue. Nevertheless, I hope the discussion has illustrated the lens through which economics views the world. I want to conclude this series with thoughts on why I think economic thinking so critical for Christians today.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Why should we care about basic economics?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Many people have noted that material possessions are addressed in the Bible more often than any other topic. Passages like Genesis 1 and Psalm 8 make clear that, in addition to being in relationship with God, our function is to exercise dominion over the created order. Dominion includes the formation of human civilization to carry out our mandate. So in light of our present circumstances, we might ask, “Is capitalism Christian?” There is little doubt in my mind that the answer is, “No “… but neither is any other economic system<\/i>. There is no economic system presented in the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n


<\/i><\/div>\n
A few of questions. I hammer theologians and Christian leaders pretty hard at the end of this post. Is it justified? Do you agree that we need more venues for this dialog to happen? In what venues do you see dialog that draws on both mainstream economics and scholarly theological insight?<\/b><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n


\n<\/p>\n


<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman cultures
\nhad no concept of economics as we have known it over the past century or so … the
\nsystematic analysis of production, distribution, and human decision making. We
\ntend to think of society as government, business, family, religion, and
\neducation, … each with distinct traditions and semi-autonomous institutions. Everything
\nin the ancient world was subsumed under kinship and politics. What happened
\n“economically” was an extension of these two ancient institutions. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Ancient Near East patriarchy and
\nGreco-Roman patronage was the milieu of biblical times. Appreciating this is
\ncritical. God always revealed himself into specific contexts. For instance, it
\nis a cardinal doctrine of Christianity that there is one God. It was believed
\nthat there were many gods in the ancient Near East. Note the first of the Ten
\nCommandments: “Do not have any other gods before me.” Passages like this do not
\ncorrect the mistaken notion of multiple gods but rather limit worship to Yahweh.
\nThe “one God” concept comes into focus later. Concerning enemies, the Hebrew
\nlaw reforms the sevenfold vengeance into the equitable “eye for an eye and a
\ntooth for a tooth.” Then Jesus says, “love your enemies.” Slavery, in one form
\nor another, seems unquestioned in the Old and New Testament. Yet today we
\nconsider it unethical. Treating culturally bound practices and revelations as
\ntranscendent mandates creates a number of problems. Context is important.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus’ context was First Century
\nPalestine. The “American dream” for the Jewish Palestinian was to own his land,
\nto live in self-sufficiency, and to barter within the village to supplement
\nwhat was not produced at home. There was no concept of specialization of labor
\nor an expanding economy. Economic life was a zero-sum game where anyone who
\nbecame significantly wealthier than others did so at the expense of others.
\nFurthermore, the powerful persistently tried to impose monetary exchange on to
\nthe community to facilitate the collection of taxes and fees. Lending was a way
\nof trapping people in debt and confiscating their land. Where we see money as a
\nliberating force, the peasants of Jesus’ day viewed money as a means of
\noppression. This is the context into which Jesus delivered his message of the
\ncoming Kingdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently, we see criticism of
\nhoarding in Jesus’ message. The powerful stored up grain they had extracted
\nfrom peasants. Crops frequently sat in storage facilities serving no productive
\nuse until the owners saw fit to sell them. Some uncritically apply “hoarding” to
\nanyone who has wealth today. Yet most wealth held by the wealthy today is in
\nthe form of productive assets. Wealth is invested through ownership of personal
\nbusinesses or through shareholdings in firms that produce goods and services.
\nWealth is placed on deposit to be lent to other people for business enterprise
\nand discretionary projects. All of this creates more wealth, more goods and
\nservices, and more jobs. Clearly those who invest more wisely are going to be
\nwealthier than others who do not. Are these people hoarding? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, while greed was essentially
\ncraving more than your fair share of a fixed amount in Jesus’ context, is
\nsomeone having more than others do through prudent investing and management in
\nan ever growing economy evidence of greed? If not, than what constitutes greed?
\nIs lending money in order to help finance productive enterprises different from
\nlending money to those in need? How does one determine how much to consume, how
\nmuch to invest, and how much to give? What constitutes a just economic system?
\nHow does one discern the common good, much less pursue it? These are not
\nacademic questions to the great majority of business people I converse with.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

My experience is that Christian leaders
\nof many different stripes do not handle these questions well. They uncritically
\nlift Scripture passages out of context … or maybe read their present context
\nback on to Scripture … to support particular views. There is the prosperity
\n“name and claim it” gospel that cherry picks from passages about faith and
\nblessing. Another view finds free market exchange emanating from the Word …
\nsuccess in business comes close to being equated with spiritual maturity and receiving
\nGod’s blessing. Then there is Liberation theology with its roots in sociology
\nand conflict theory (Marxian analysis.) In Mainline Protestantism, Scripture’s
\n“economic” teachings are little more than soft-socialism baptized in
\ntheological language. Roman Catholic social teaching is one place where I think
\nthere has been some solid reflection on economic issues, although even here I
\nquestion the way some economic issues are framed. But I suggest that there is
\nsomething deeper than just poor interpretative frameworks. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Most theologians and church leaders I’ve
\nencountered have considerable ambivalence, at best, and outright animus, at
\nworst, toward the marketplace. Charles North and Bob Smietana write in Good Intentions<\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

“In interviewing businesspeople for her
\nbook Church on Sunday, Work on Monday<\/i>,
\n[Laura] Nash discovered a chasm between how business people and their pastors
\nsaw economics. Pastors and church leaders talked in restrictive terms about the
\nneed to limit greed. The businesspeople in their congregations had a different
\nview. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

‘Business people took a positive, additive
\nview: faith was about expanding economic opportunity for more people through
\nbusiness success,’ says Nash. ‘For the business person, business was about
\nsolving problems and creating prosperity and it centered on specific
\nactivities.'” (37-38)<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

John C. Knapp, a professor at Samford
\nUniversity and Columbia Theological Seminary, <\/span>wrote an article<\/span><\/a> three years ago about the perceptions of
\nthe church by businesspeople. He mentions one study (which I heard him review
\nin person) that featured interviews with 200 Christians from all walks of life,
\nranging from a Fortune 500 CEO to retail clerks. Each was invited to identify a
\ntime when they had encountered a particular ethical problem in the course of
\ntheir work. When asked if they had sought counsel from a pastor or spiritual
\nleader all but two or three said no. The most frequently given reason for not
\ndoing so is that their pastor would not understand or would not care. Another
\nsurvey of 2,000 people who regularly attend church were asked, “Have you ever
\nin your life heard a sermon, read a book, listened to a tape, or been to a
\nseminar that applied biblical principles to everyday work issues?” Ninety
\npercent said, “No.”<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Miroslav Volf writes in Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of
\nWork<\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

“Given the paramount importance of work
\nin both liberal and socialist economic and social theory, it is remarkable that
\nin our world dominated by work a serious crisis in work had to strike before
\nchurch bodies paid much attention to the problem of human work. Theologians are
\nto blame for the former negligence. Amazingly little theological reflection has
\ntaken place in the past about an activity that takes up so much of our time.
\nThe number of pages theologians have devoted to the question of
\ntransubstantiation – which does or does not take place on Sunday – for
\ninstance, would, I suspect, far exceed the number of pages devoted to work that
\nfills our lives Monday through Saturday. My point is not to belittle the Christ
\nin the Lord’s Supper but to stress that a proper perspective on human work is
\nat least as important.” (69)<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

While more attempts to rectify this
\ndeficiency are emerging, the reflection is still most often done in isolation
\nfrom mainstream economics. In fact, I frequently detect a prideful admission of
\neconomic ignorance in some literature, signaling that the Christian scholar has
\nnot been corrupted by such degenerate thinking. Economics is to Mainline
\nProtestant seminaries what evolution is to many conservative seminaries. Mario Varagas
\nLlosa says human nature demands two things for our world: A hero to solve our
\nproblems and a villain to blame for creating them. Business people are quite
\nclear what role they’ve been assigned by all but some conservative Evangelicals
\nand Pentecostals.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Business people need … and in my
\nexperience many of them crave … to know how their day to day work connects with
\nthe mission of God in the world. They struggle for clarity in the work they do.
\nWhen this connection becomes real for them, ethical decisions become clearer.
\nThe obligation to use resources to bring the poor into the economy with dignity,
\nand to exercise proper respect for the environment, emerges. Yet, the Church,
\nby and large, seems content to A) uncritically lionize business success, B) to ignore
\neconomics and the world of business, or C) to treat brothers and sisters called
\nto marketplace work with condescending platitudes about abundance and avoidance
\nof greed. The venues where genuine economists and theologians meet are few. Scot
\nhas provided a venue here at Jesus Creed for such discussions to develop. I
\nhope many others will follow his lead. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

A few of questions. I hammered theologians and Christian leaders pretty hard at the end of
\nthis post. Is it justified? Do you agree that we need more venues for this
\ndialog to happen? In what venues do you see dialog that draws on both
\nmainstream economics and scholarly theological insight?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Folks Michael Kruse finishes off this wonderful series today, and I hope you express your appreciation to him. We need education like this, and to that end David Opderbeck will begin a series next week on “Law” — David’s a Law professor. 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