Author’s note: I know that people from many traditions follow Spokane Faith & Values. So I feel the need to explain that while this blog is about Christians (because I feel more entitled to critique my own tradition), its significance is not necessarily limited to Christians.
It never ceases to amaze me the ways in which we Christians can and do ignore biblical teachings about money and wealth and rationalize our behaviors. It seems to me that the Bible is pretty clear on this subject.
1 Timothy is one of the most blunt. “For the love of money is the root of all evils…” reads 1 Timothy 6:10.
The Gospel of Luke (the longest of the Gospels) is all about money and wealth: beginning with Mary’s hymn of praise,
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant … He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:46,52-53) and ending with his last “teaching” before he shares his last meal with his closest friends.
He begins the teaching by contrasting the rich gifts of the wealthy with the tiny gift of the widow: “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on” (Luke 21:3-4). In between, the Bible records such sayings as “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” (Luke 18:24).
I am often stunned by the irony that the people who insist that Leviticus condemns homosexuality (a concept that was not even part of the worldview of that culture) are often the very same people who discount the clear and unequivocal laws on land Sabbath and Jubilee:
“[I]n the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard” (Leviticus 25:4).
“And you shall hallow the 50th year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family” (Leviticus 25:10).
These economic laws that God gives the Hebrews as they prepare to enter the Land of Promise are specifically designed to prevent huge accumulations of wealth and (thus) power. Every generation, the original allocations of the land are restored. In an economic system in which wealth derives primarily from land, this ensures that no one is allowed to accumulate several generations of wealth or power.
My son’s favorite passage was Acts 4: 32-37, which describes the economic practices of the early Christians. They lived together in community. No one claimed private ownership of anything. Everything was held in common and distributed to each as someone had need. My son started reading political science in seventh grade. One day he came to me with Karl Marx in one hand and the Bible in the other and wanted to know why Christians weren’t communists. And how they could possibly justify capitalism. I had to admit that I could not justify such a position.
So with all this biblical authority on economic justice, how is it that the vast majority of Christians in the U.S. actively support the capitalist system, oppose using the community’s taxing authority to share the responsibility of caring for those who need economic assistance and maintain very comfortable standards of living while insisting that they cannot afford to give more to their church’s ministries with the poor, hungry, homeless and otherwise needy?
We do it by rationalizing. Jesus didn’t really mean it literally when he told the rich young man to give away all that he possessed to take care of the poor. The law of Jubilee is unrealistic; therefore it was never actually practiced. We don’t really love our wealth; we just use it to be comfortable, so that we can be good Christians (maintain pretty buildings, have inspiring worship with gifted musicians … ).
Economic questions are not easy ones for those who would take Jesus’ teachings seriously. How much is enough? Are there jobs that are immoral (creating weapons of mass destruction, for example)? If I have been given much, is it enough to tithe 10 percent? If I don’t have much, do I need to tithe 10 percent? The fact is very few Christians even tithe (give 10 percent of gross income to the work of God).
There are spiritual disciplines that could save us from our greed. Many years ago, Richard Foster wrote an excellent book, “Celebration of Discipline: the Path to Spiritual Growth.” He followed that with “The Discipline of Simplicity.” There are countless resources for making spiritually healthy choices about money and wealth. But we continue to ignore or avoid practicing these disciplines because they would require us to be counter-cultural. And our souls are the worse for it.
Join us at 10 a.m., Oct. 5 for our next Coffee Talk for a conversation on Money and Ethics. The discussion will take place at Chairs Coffee. Conklin is a panelist.
I’m not sure I understand what the point of this post is about? Practicing agricultural Jewish laws, shared purse, temple tithes, giving away all your stuff?
One point is:
Everyone assumes that one has to successfully critique capitalism as the first step in talking about what a just/moral/Christian economic system would look like. In fact, if we are following Biblical teaching one would have a hard time justifying capitalism as an ethical economic system. As my son pointed out, the default system for Christians should be communism, unless one can prove that another system is more ethical. And even if before Jesus radical teachings on money and wealth, the Levitical law required an economic system that prevented large accumulations of private wealth. Yet we follow none of these teachings.
Got it, thanks for the clarification.