Economic Inequality and Societies

wealth distribution

 

In light of my previous post on Christians, Capitalism, and Ayn Rand, I’m going to share a fascinating video and an insightful infographic.

I’ll keep my commentary brief and related to the previous post…

The video shows the health and social problems that rise with economic inequality. If we assume that we can’t fix the broader inequality, perhaps Christians and churches could look to those problem areas as primary places to get involved. How can we contribute something positive in areas of imprisonment, teenage births, obesity, mental illness and addiction…?

The video is nearly 17 minutes long. It’s worth it. Find some time and watch.

The infographic below is enlightening. It shows a marked gap between our perception and reality regarding wealth distribution. Credit to James K. A. Smith (@james_ka_smith), whose symposium I mentioned in the last post, for sharing the graphic.

This isn’t really a theological post. The last one was. This is just to stimulate some further thoughts in light of that one. What do you think?

wealth distribution

 

Christians, Capitalism, and Ayn Rand

cap-socIf you pay any attention to politics, you’ve been deluged with economic talk for the past, oh, four years. We’ve seen the rise of the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, the return of Gordon Gekko, and polarized political views about how to fix a slumping economy. And that barely scratched the surface of what you’ll get in the next three months.

In the midst of it all, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what is an appropriate Christian stance and response.

Capitalism and Christian Economics

Let’s look first at the ardent capitalists. Ayn Rand’s fame has soared in the past few years. People like Edward Conard are writing about how growing income inequality is a sign that our economy is working (see this long but interesting interview with him).

So far as the goal is to increase the number of middle-class people and to increase their purchasing power, I agree with nearly everything the capitalists say. I’m concerned, though, that they seriously underestimate how much people will lie, cheat, steal, and oppress because of their love of money. Rand and Conard clearly don’t believe that the love of money is the root of all evil. Actually, they might say that the love of money is the root of all human ingenuity.

Rand summed up her whole belief system for us: “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

The problem: a Christian worldview disagrees with every bit of this. Christ is the hero, who saves depraved humanity from our sinfulness. Holiness, not some secular understanding of happiness, is the moral purpose of life. Service to God is our noblest activity. And reason often fails and deceives.

I can’t get over the feeling that Rand’s (IMHO) bad theology and anthropology led her to develop a bad economic model. She built her model on the assumption that humanity is essentially good and that an individual’s own happiness is the point of life.

Christian theology and anthropology tell me that humanity is corrupt – that without regulation, people will mistreat others to satiate their own greed. Christian theology tells me that greed is at the root of all kinds of evil. Christian theology says Gordon Gekko is wrong – greed is terribly harmful to individuals and society.

I’m not a Socialist

So now you’re thinking I must be a socialist. Or at least a Democrat. I’m not. I’m not going to belabor the point here, but lest all the conservatives begin assuming I’m just another flaming liberal, I’ll admit that I don’t remember the last time I voted for a Democrat.

Governments are run by depraved people, and they’re equally likely to lie, cheat, steal, and oppress. We’ve seen that when we give government more power, they don’t use it all to fight for the little guy. They use a lot of it to pick their own special interests and protect their own power. In a fallen world, socialism is just as flawed as capitalism.

Regardless if your system is capitalist or socialist, it concentrates a lot of power in the hands of the few. That power will rarely be used in the interest of the person without power, status, or wealth. Whether they be at the top of a government bureaucracy or a big business, people love money and power and will fight for more of it.

Chilling for the capitalists is the suggestion that because of that concentration of power, capitalism will lead to socialism.

In the end, I struggle to know what to believe about politics. I think the capitalists’ philosophy only works if humanity is inherently good – or if the goal is creating more middle-class people, often at the expense of the poorest. If humanity were inherently good, socialism would work just fine for those purposes, too.

A Christian Economic View

As economics go, I think Christians should seek to embody an economic culture that reflects new creation — not counting our possessions as our own, selling property and sharing as anyone has need, having no needy persons among us. That’s very different from the goal of creating more middle-class people with more purchasing power, or from forcibly taking from those with more to give to those with less. No policy can accomplish it.

Are Christians today more focused on fixing the secular economy than living out a Christian economy? In a secular world, greed and extravagance will always prevent a new creation economy, regardless of legislation. Someone will always be scammed, oppressed, left on the outside.

Regardless of where we find ourselves in the world — capitalist, socialist, distributist – I wish Christians would give their energy to taking care of the people who got left out of the system. Our culture has been so immersed in the Tea Party-Occupy world of pragmatic, secular economics that I’m worried Christians are forgetting that our economics start from a different place.

If you have the time to read it, the brilliant theologian Jamie Smith participated in a symposium with a Christian economist that is a great depiction of the problem that economists and theologians are having even trying to have a discussion. I think we’re starting with such different sets of “givens” and assumptions that it’s hard to even understand each other in a conversation. Smith’s opening article is great. If you read the whole thing, you’ll see just how much they’re talking directly past each other because of different starting points.

You should also read…

Do Catechisms Create Parrots?

sentinel parrotsYou may have seen some of my suggestions about using a catechism (with kids, as a crash course in theology, instead of just Bible teaching in Sunday School, or in the UMC) and thought the idea a bit odd. Using a catechism is pretty peculiar for most people.

When I began using the Echo catechism with a group it was admittedly awkward for a few weeks. In our group, I actually ask the questions aloud and have either the whole group or individuals recite the answers. That’s an unusual teaching method in the Church today, but I believe it has its place. I’ll share how we go beyond mere recitation in a future post.

Creating Parrots?

When others hear we’re reciting a catechism, they ask if we’re just creating parrots. “Why not help people construct their own answers to these questions?”

A catechism assumes a different starting point. We don’t start with a bunch of individuals trying to figure out their faiths. We start with a Church that God birthed out of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection.

That Church has a faith which was handed down by the apostles and through the Scriptures. When people come into the Church, they come into a community of faith that has established, common beliefs. We want to teach those beliefs clearly.

Once we teach our people common, concise language about the Church’s faith, I think they can then ask better and deeper questions about whether their faith matches the faith of the Church. They have a starting point for asking what this faith really means and what it requires.

Benefits of a Catechism

When we don’t begin with the Church’s faith, we spend more time on our own thoughts and guesses. It’s good to have space to think through things on our own, but it’s also good to have something with some authority to rely on.

Look at this passage from Sinclair Ferguson, explaining the importance of catechisms for understanding God’s guidance:

Christians in an earlier generation rarely thought of writing books on guidance. There is a reason for that (just as there is a reason why so many of us today are drawn to books that will tell us how to find God’s will). Our forefathers in the faith were catechised, and they taught catechisms to their children. Often as much as half of the catechism would be devoted to an exposition of the answers to questions like the following:

Question: Where do we find God’s will?

    Answer: In the Scriptures. 

Question: Where in particular in the Scriptures?

    Answer: In the Commandments that God has given to us.

Why were these questions and answers so important? Because these Christians understood that God’s law provides basic guidelines that cover the whole of life. Indeed, in the vast majority of instances, the answer to the question “What does God want me to do?” will be found by answering the question: “How does the law of God apply to this situation? What does the Lord require of me here in his word?”

This was quoted in the blog post “The Benefits of the Catechisms,” a good, humorous read if you have time.

In all, I believe a common catechism can be an excellent tool for learning, sharing, and teaching a common faith. The point isn’t to create parrots. It’s to allow the Church’s faith to form our own.