Greg: Private Property and Kingdom Economics

Jack,

There's no doubt that life expectancy in Sena would be way down.  Or that it would involve a great deal of suffering.  And, in so many ways, as you point out, it would be a life seemingly less attractive and considerably less comfortable.  Yet, we might also find among such a "primitive" people a deep sense of community, an appreciation for the earth, a sense of oneness with the Divine (as they are able to understand Him/Her), and an inner peace about who they are and where they belong in this world. I cannot help but notice that our own society is filled with people who lack many of those basic characteristics.  In fact, we find a deep and rampant spiritual hunger expressed everywhere in our culture, which is why pop spirituality and self-help are constantly among our nation's best selling books. We likewise are witnessing a strong disconnect from one another and breakdown of community even as the use of social media is on the rise.  Furthermore, never has any culture been as thoroughly disconnected from the earth as ours.  I could cite examples of each of these, but we both are well aware of these maladies since we live in the same culture.  Put simply, we are a nation that is physically rich, but spiritually impoverished.  

To return to my previously mentioned definition of poverty as alienation from God, from others, from the earth, and from self, I would suggest that we might find less poverty among some of the "uncivilized" peoples around the globe than among our own.  I am obviously using the term "poverty" in a way very different than you are when you make statements about economic wealth and yet I think my theological use of the term of poverty is appropriate, in fact more appropriate in light of what eternally matters (as well as in resonance with biblical language).  Of course, the truth is always more complicated than what we like to admit and I am certainly painting with broad brush strokes in my descriptions of our culture (Chicago) and that of "less civilized" people (Sena).  Both are, of course, marred by sin and bear the marks of the fall.  I don't mean to paint one as innocent and the other as guilty or fall into the trap of Rousseau that you mentioned.

I guess here's why I wanted to engage in that little thought experiment together:  I question that our notion of "progress" which comes largely from Hegel and continental philosophy is, in fact, leading us toward what, as I'm sure you know, Francis Fukuyama termed "The End of History."  I don't need to explain this view to you, but (for the sake of those who may read our blog) I would simply say that his view sees the rise and spread of capitalism across the globe as inevitable (and desirable) -- to the point that every human on earth will one day have an electric toothbrush.  Fukuyama and others like him laud capitalism as a sort of savior of civilization, and it is remarkable to me the extent to which that narrative of progress had captivated the imagination of even today's Bible-believing Christians.  Now I do not mean to keep "beating" on you over this Enlightenment thing, but what economists value is deeply rooted in this narrative of progress and faith in the ongoing growth of technology through the accumulation of capital -- sometimes, it sounds, as a sort of salfivic human project.  (By the way, I've even read one theologian who interpreted the resurrection at the end of time as the inevitable result of the march of human progress; in his theory, humans were able to find the DNA of every human that had ever lived and were able to bring them back to life through modern technologies.  A sort of Jurassic Park meets resurrection.  It's far fetched, of course, but it is a melding of the Christian narrative with the narrative of the Hegelian dialectic and faith in progress that can often typify modern economic thought).  

It isn't that I blame economists.  I just think that we are trying to answer different questions from the very beginning.  Economists ask, "How do we produce wealth?"  Theologians, like philosophers, ask questions like, "Who are we?  Where do we come from?  What are we made for?  What is our end?  How do we get there?  What is the nature of the God who created and redeemed us?" and so on.  That's the tension I'm trying to articulate.  My example of Chicago and Sena was an attempt, however poor, to shift the conversation to the question, "How does the way we arrange our communal life impact who we are a humans?  And are there underlying assumptions and biases that we in the West have about other cultures and ways of life that might even critique our own if we were willing to listen?"

You're right that there aren't many Chicagoans leaving the comforts of urban American life to go and live in the African bush.  However, as Wendell Berry has pointed out in his many books and poetry, sometimes the "simpler" life -- including a renunciation of the modern fast-paced economy in favor of a rather Luddite agrarian lifestyle -- is more consistent with what it means to be a Christian.  And we do, in fact, see many younger Christians choosing to do just that.  (Just this afternoon I ate lunch in an intentional Christian community -- a commune -- that chooses to share life together by eliminating private property amongst themselves as a form of witness to an alternate way of life -- a way of life that is not dominated by the accumulation of things or of "capital," but rather oriented toward the sanctity of human relationships and, they would say, communal relations with God.)

Reba Place Intentional Community in Evanston, IL.  Residents share three meals a day, daily devotions, daily "life together," and a "common purse" (all their money goes into one pot that they share).  They stand as a modern-day example of an alternate form of economics in our capitalist economy.  On Sunday, October 13 my family enjoyed the hospitality of their table during lunchtime.

I want to answer your question about what precisely I'm concerned about my "beating" on you about the Enlightenment.  You asked me, "What [economic] concepts are we dealing with, and do they somehow lose meaning if we try to apply Scriptural values to them?"  That's a very important question.  Before I venture a specific answer, indulge me while I make some general remarks.  

The Bible calls into question the hegemony of economics over human life, of profits over people.  And it constantly warns against the dangers that wealth pose to the life of the disciple.  Jesus famously said, "You cannot serve two masters… You cannot serve both God and Money."  And many other similar passages of Scripture warn about how wealth presents the temptation to idolatry (see Deut. 32:10-18; Isa. 2:5-18; Jer. 5:7-8; Ezek. 7:19-24; Hos. 2:5-9; Matt. 6:19-21, 1 Tim 6:6-7 and 17-19; James 1:9-11; Eph 5:5; Col 3:5 and so on). In fact, Jesus warns against the love of money more than any other single sin.  

So (to get very practical) when we choose to orient our life decisions, as so many American do, around what a job will pay and how much profit we can make from such and such an activity, we are in danger of idolatry.  Instead, according to the Bible we are to trust that God will provide for our needs; our job is to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness more than chasing after increased wealth and worrying about things like clothes and food and economic provisions.  I realize how insanely simple this sounds.  The Sermon on the Mount has a habit of coming off that way.  Yet I think Jesus really is addressing our oikos (our economics) when he invites us to seek first his kingdom.  As you'd heard before, John Wesley interpreted this as a command to "gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can."  (By the way, the word "save" there doesn't mean put money in the bank; it means be thrifty).  

So in terms of personal economics, the biblical message would mean something like this:  Worry not about your 401(k) or your stocks.  Don't invest your money in stocks and bonds (that would be to "tear down your barns and build bigger ones;" the one who does so is called a fool since "this very night your life will be taken from you.")  Instead, work hard, earn honest wages, live simply off of those wages so that you're not a burden on anyone else, and then give the rest away.  Trust God with the rest.  Your future is in in His hands.  This all might sound like pious jibber-jabber in light of the complexities of the modern American market, yet today I sat and ate with people who practice this very way of life.  So perhaps their table fellowship -- the free food that they offered to me and my family through Christian hospitality -- is the economics of the kingdom.  That would be one way that the conversation is shifted by bringing the Bible into economics.  (Of course, I am not extrapolating from that act that we must become communists or socialists on a political level; just noting the economic orientation that must mark the life of a believer.  I believe that the Bible never endorses any particular form of government as better than another.)

To finally go back to your question about what economic terms/concepts have different meanings in light of the Bible, I would start with "private property."  Private property was, of course, such a concern for men like Locke and his compatriots;  they wrote of the right to "life, liberty, and property" -- the basic building hocks of a "free" society.  Interestingly, the Bible calls even this fundamental concept into question at times.  Take Leviticus 25 and the Jubilee laws.  Although we have no indication that they were ever put into practice (perhaps because Israel proved too stubborn), they reveal the heart of God's economic values.  As Christians who take the whole Word of God seriously, we must read such a neglected chapter and ask, "Why was this written?"  I'd suggest that the best interpretation is this:  God does not will that in any society 1) there would be a class of people permanently dispossessed of land or 2) there would be a large, permanent gap between the rich and the poor.  The Jubilee laws were intended as a guard against both.

But turning to the New Testament, the guiding principle for Christian practice regarding private property is stewardship, not ownership.  We do not actually own or possess anything.  We, as those who bear the image of God in his good creation, stand as stewards, keepers, and protectors of God's property.  This means that Enlightenment notions of private property are relativized since I no more own what is in my bank account than I own the ocean.  All of it is God's.  What is in my bank account is for me to use to meet my family's needs (since doing so pleases God), but beyond that the use of those resources are up to God.  The biblical teaching of stewardship is a far cry from the Enlightenment insistence on private property as an inalienable right (… and can we just please note the irony of the fact that these very men who demanded the right to private property also owning other human beings as slaves?)  The ethic of stewardship found in Acts among the early disciples (see especially chapters 2-4) was what motivated Wesley to ask the early Methodists who were part of the select societies to keep all of their money together in a "common stock."  He deeply feared that as Methodists began to work hard and earn more money as the result of that work, they would stop giving all that they could and that the ensuing riches would corrupt the heart of the movement.  It was a prescient insight.  The upward mobility of the later Methodist movement proved to be its downfall as a movement.  And almost the exact same thing happened among us Free Methodists only a century later (Have you read Robert Wall's insightful article "The Embourgeoisement of the Free Methodist Ethos"?  If not, its a great read about the changes in our own denomination.  Here's a link to the journal it appears in:  http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wesleyjournal/1990-wtj-25-1.pdf)

I've focused this letter on "private property" and how the Bible challenges that concept on different levels.  My argument is not that the concept is entirely unbiblical (otherwise, why would we have the commandment, "Thou Shall Not Steal"?!?), but it does relativize and deabsolutize it, especially in light of the theme of stewardship as opposed to ownership.  In future letters, I will look at other commonly used economic concepts in the light of Scripture and see how the Bible often challenges some of our basic assumptions as Americans about what economic life should look like.  Also, I have not forgotten about you letter of October 11 and points 2-6.  In fact, I'm especially anxious to answer the charge you made in point #2 that I need to "blame God" for the "rigged game."  I have lots of thoughts on that one!  But this letters seems to be long enough so I'll end it here.  No need to reply unless you want to.  Even if you don't reply, I plan to write a second letter that gets back to your points that we have missed from earlier.  

I do think we're making some progress.  I know that I am certainly being challenged and am learning, at least.  

One final question:  What would you think about opening up this correspondence to a few other chosen folks who could contribute on occasion?  That way we don't always feel the pressure to be the only ones to reply.  (I know that I, for one, am not an economist so I feel unprepared to answer some of your questions/challenges to me; that's why I've taken a decidedly theological turn in this letter -- I feel like I should write about what I know.)  But the idea would be that our blog could have a small forum of contributing authors (maybe four to six, with an even split between those on the "right" and those on the "left").  Does that sound good to you?

Grace and Peace be on you, Jack.

- Greg