The Church and the Economic Sphere: Spheres of Sovereignty, Spheres of Responsibility – R. Ward Holder
Christianity has had to deal with the fact of the world’s economy since its founding. Anyone who has read the Magnificat, Mary’s song given in response to the Angel Gabriel’s news, recognizes that issues of wealth and poverty were close at hand in the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Obery Hendricks offers a keenly tuned eye to the economic messages in the gospel narratives in pointing out the issues of taxation and debt that are so frequently skimmed over in a casual reading of the scriptures.[1] The theologians of the early church had to deal with issues of luxury, and the medieval scholastics considered the nature of economics from an ontological perspective that denied the possibility of the earning of interest. Laws were passed Calvin’s Geneva to protect the economically vulnerable from the rapacity of those who would take advantage of opportunities for price spikes.[2] Throughout Christian history, thoughtful Christians have recognized the dangers of temptations from the realm of commerce, even while various Christian institutions were demonstrating the earthly values of conspicuous consumption or at least conspicuous purchasing – the paintings in the Sistine Chapel were not free, but they are gorgeous.
But in the modern Western world, Christians have lost that sense of caution about the dangers of the economic sphere. Sometimes that may come from a mis-guided Kuyperian sense of the sovereignty of the various spheres – economics is separate from ecclesiastics. Perhaps it comes from the overwhelming success of the basic philosophies of Adam Smith, frequently called the “father of capitalism,” who in the Wealth of Nations argued that individuals unreservedly pursuing their own economic interests would be led by an invisible hand to promote ends that were not their intention, a public good. Whatever the root cause, Christian churches in the Western world have become the havens of the middle and even upper classes.
While the posh mega-churches that dot the American landscape are one indicator of this fact, others abound. Prosperity gospel preachers do well because Western Christians want to hear this. This is not bound by race, one can find African American as well as Caucasian preachers out proclaiming that God wants really good things for their congregations, with the emphasis on things. Another point of evidence comes when Pope Francis suggests that trickle-down economics have failed to demonstrate their claims. Immediately (in the Economist, the National Review, and the Acton Institute), he is ridiculed as out of his depth.
This phenomenon of the church becoming the haven of wealth creates a series of problems. While I will take up some others in further posts, one significant issue is that of charitable giving. To point that out is almost a conversation stopper, since the greatest number of those who would wish to defend the Christian churches’ alignment with the wealthy will frequently do so from an argument of utility – Christians need to have money in order to be able to give money away.
This was certainly Andrew Carnegie’s point in his “The Gospel of Wealth.” He considered the gaining of wealth a duty for those capable of doing so, but argued just as vehemently that once an industrialist gained fabulous amounts of capital, he should neither expend it on his heirs nor simply leave it for others upon his death.[3] Instead, Carnegie believed that those who had demonstrated themselves so capable were the best suited to spread that wealth among the populace. This was his solution to the significant concentration of wealth that he saw in his day – the late 19th century.
Writing four decades later, Reinhold Niebuhr took a decidedly dimmer view of philanthropy. While he did not argue that great goods could come out of this, he noted that the powerful man, even though a human impulse might arise within him, always remained a beast of prey.[4] For Niebuhr, this led to a variety of problems, including the masses deluding themselves about their own ability to gain enormous sums of money. But for all of his perspicacity, Niebuhr never directly contradicted that wealth could serve a public good through philanthropy.
We live in an age when that matters. The wealth of the nations has become increasingly concentrated in the upper classes. While this is true in most developed Western countries, it is especially true in America. Further, this is the case in both wealth and earning power. Meanwhile, the world’s economy has suffered from an economic collapse, the Great Recession, that continues to confound economists. Clearly, there has been a recovery. But just as clearly, the influx of jobs, rising wages from competition for labor, and steep drops in unemployment, all of these have not occurred. Whether in Boston or Chicago, Nashville or Seattle, food pantries are being utilized to their capacity. Philanthropy is not a luxury, but a need.
But as that need is so acutely felt, just at that moment is the reality coming home about charitable giving. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has released its analysis of American giving from 2006-2012. Across that six year period, most of it in the crater of the Great Recession, donors making over $200,000 per year decreased their giving by an average of 4.6%. In that same period, givers making under $100,000 per year increased their giving by an average of 4.5%.
So we return to the simple messages of the New Testament, the warnings from James and Paul (who would have thought they agreed on anything!); the egalitarianism of Luke. And we begin to grasp that what was being suggested to the church was not only for the salvation of the poor, but for the saving of the souls of the wealthy.
R. Ward Holder is a historical and political theologian, and professor of theology at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and serves as moderator of the Presbytery of Boston. He writes on John Calvin, biblical interpretation, and the manner in which religious convictions shape modern politics and political theory. His most recent work was co-edited with Peter B. Josephson, The American Election 2012: Contexts and Consequences (Palgrave – 2014). He holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell College, a master’s in divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a doctorate in theology from Boston College.
[1]Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., “The Grades of Wrath and the True Vine: Reading from Below Is the Way to Go,” in The Universe Bends Toward Justice: Radical Reflections on the Bible, the Church, and the Body Politic (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2011), 41-88.
[2]Mark Valeri, “Religion, Discipline, and the Economy Calvin’s Geneva,” Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997): 123-142.
[3]In fact, Carnegie was so against the leaving of great sums to others upon passing from this world that he looked upon the advent of inheritance taxes as a wholly salutary accomplishment.
[4]Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 13.