Kruse Kronicle

Living Simply in Abundance (25)

What can we conclude about living simply in abundance? Here are eight thoughts.

First and foremost, living simply is not a matter of material wealth. It is relational matter with God. It is our singular focus on God that will orient our relationship to our wealth, and to every other aspect of our life.

Second, God’s intention for humanity is not mere subsistence. It is human flourishing. God intends widespread communal abundance. The biblical narrative begins in a garden and ends in a garden-city. God pronounced creation good but he will also redeem human cultural affectations and pronounce them good as well.

Third, material abundance is not a zero-sum game. Our abundance is not reciprocal to someone else’s deprivation. We have learned the wealth generating benefits of trade and technological innovation. We need to draw more people into trading relationships and diffuse technological innovation so others may experience material prosperity.

Fourth, extending from the previous thought, we are right to enjoy the abundance God has provided for us. We should thankfully embrace the gifts God provides for us with the caveat that our consumption of those gifts exists within a broader context of holistic stewardship.

Fourth, contrary to dark visions painted by neo-Malthusian pessimists, we are not on the verge of imminent resource exhaustion or climate catastrophe. Problems exits but our aim should be to bring as many people as possible into prosperity now as we prudently work to develop alternative energy options.

Fifth, our stewardship begins with ourselves and extends to our families. From there, the biblical model suggests that our churches should be communities of families that look out for each other. The primary way we transform communities is by inviting others into our communal abundance. Subsidiarity comes into play for civic institutions and government beyond this localized level but it is a supplementary role, not a lead role. We need to rethink what it means to be in mission as a community.

Sixth, we are limited human beings with limited resources who alone can not save the world. Seeing a need does not constitute a calling. Our stewardship and our response to needs has to flow from our relationship with God and from our community with others.

Seventh, we know that the love of money is root of all kinds of evil. Possessing great wealth can actually make us more anxious if we let it define our identity. Possessing great wealth in a culture of wealth dulls us to the plight of billions around the world. Possessing great wealth can detract from our singular focus on God. Therefore, we need strategies in our lives that challenge our “need” impulses. We need financial strategies, born of prayerful reflection, that render us less easily influenced by impulses that may mislead us. We must be intentional about reducing our isolation from the poor, as we strive to keep our abundance and its relative importance in perspective.

I’m aware this is an incomplete coverage of the topic but it took me 24 posts just to discuss this much. :) It has been helpful for me to process some of this out loud and I truly appreciate the interaction it has generated. Down the road I may have to write more after this initial attempt has had a chance to simmer awhile.

Any thoughts you want to add? Stuff you think I should have covered? (I'll be happy to steal ideas for future posts. :) )

Peace!

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Living Simply in Abundance (24)

I’ve suggested that we need to get in touch with the forces within us that distort our sense of need and we need to be intentional in our financial management. Beyond this I want to suggest that we also need to become disillusioned.

Isn’t it interesting that the word “disillusion” has a negative connotation? After all, if we are living an illusion, wouldn’t coming to the truth be a good thing? Most Americans are trapped in an illusion that our existence is normal. We are cognitively aware that we have it pretty good and that billions of people do not share our abundance, but it does not really penetrate our consciousness. We are easily seduced into the illusion that our experience of the world is the norm. In reality, famine, disease, war, illiteracy, pestilence, and oppression have been the norm for humanity throughout the ages. It is our experience of abundance that is novel. We need to be disillusioned to the idea of that our existence is the norm. We need to lose our sense of entitlement and have our eyes opened to the gracious abundance in which we live.

When our illusions are dispelled, two things happen. First, we become deeply grateful for the abundance we have. The "need" monster is cut to size. Things that once consumed us lose much of their allure. There is often a great sense of freedom. Second, when we become aware of how little others have, we become aware of the ability we have to contribute to the betterment of others. A generosity springs forth from within our abundance. So what is the key instrument in our disillusionment? I think it is connection with people who are poor.

There is an old joke where a guy says, “I’m not a racist. I don’t even know any black people.” The fact is that many of us aren’t indifferent to poor because we don’t even know any poor people. We need to be confronted with the lives of the poor. Ideally, I think every American Christian should be exposed to poverty in developing nations firsthand. There is nothing like seeing the conditions of the people who live off the garbage dump in Kingston, Jamaica, or the squatter villages surrounding Monterrey, Mexico, or the Spartan existence of the poor in China. The sights, the sounds, the smells, and the voices make a permanent imprint on our psyche.

A church I did some work with four years ago had a number of urban poor youth from Kansas City, MO. One of the women at the church, with a heart for Jamaica, organized a Christmas break mission trip for these kids. They spent more than a week working and getting to know the poor in a Jamaican village. Nearly all these kids, several of whom had never been outside the Kansas City metro area, came back transformed. They came back with a new appreciation for the opportunities they had available to them compared to the poverty of the Jamaicans they encountered. They were both more motivated to take advantage of the opportunities they had before them and they developed a sense of the abundance they could share with others.

Years ago, Melissa and I located in an urban neighborhood that is by no means a slum but it is squarely in the mix of urban life where we can’t help but come into contact with people of differing economic status. We are involved with a couple of groups that serve the poor in our area. That brings us into contact with the people who wrestle with poverty issues.

Each of us has a different set of circumstances but there are ways that every one of us can reduce our isolation from the poor and we need to be intentional about doing so. We need to be intentional about introducing our children to the lives of those who are without the material abundance we experience. This discipline, more than most, has the power to break the hold materialism has on us.

With that said, it is important that we do not move from indifference toward the poor into romanticizing the poor. The poor are human beings created in the image of God and intended for stewardship. Where there is injustice impacting their lives we need to be partners in seeking justice. Where economic acumen is missing, we need to be about skills transfer and bringing the poor into a position of being stewards who participate with us reciprocally in the economy. We need to be open to what the poor may have to teach us.

We need to avoid romanticizing poverty itself. More than I decade ago I heard Tom Skinner, a powerful Black minister from Harlem speak at the Christian Community Development Association meetings. He railed against Christians who came into his community and want to live in poverty in solidarity with poor. His message was basically that if you have a problem with words like “profit” and “business” then stay the heck out of his neighborhood! The poor have been excluded from knowing how the economic game works and they need people they can learn the game from, not people who perpetuate ignorance out of some romantic notion of solidarity. The poor do not want us to become like them. They want to share in our abundance.

It is beyond the scope of this series to say all that needs to be said here but intentional identification with the poor is important to living simply in abundance. It both reshapes our distorted notions of reality and it connects the lives of those with great material abundance with those who are without. We are finite beings with limited resources but we can attach ourselves to one finite set of circumstances and start there. Which circumstances we attach ourselves to will be related to our context, our proclivities, and our passions, but we must find practical ways in which a portion of our time and money are invested in others.

Even better is when we live as communities among the poor, or we at least engage the poor as part of a missional community. Needs are always well beyond the response any one individual and the diversity of gifts within a community of Jesus’ disciples makes it more likely that a range of resources will be brought to bear. The example of community where others look out after each other and then invite others into that community should be the norm for the church. We have strayed far from this reality. We need to recover it.

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Living Simply in Abundance (23)

False needs, or attempts to meet legitimate needs inappropriately, often lead us into destructive economic behaviors. In the previous post I wrote that we need to search ourselves and know what drives us to have a false sense of need. But we do have legitimate needs. How do we sort out the difference? At the risk of sounding too practical, how about having financial goals and a budget?

There is much to be said for sitting down and being intentional with our finances. Without such a plan we tend to become slaves to whatever anxieties or proclivities we might have. As I wrote in earlier in this series, consumption, saving, and giving are all part of responsible stewardship. What the balance should be among these three will vary enormously by family makeup, occupational demands, stage in life, and a host of other variables.

What I find telling is how little attention (usually none) is giving to finances in books and discussions on spiritual formation. We are material beings created for a material world. Our commission is to be stewards of God’s creation and resources. The Bible targets economic issues above all others as the ones that lead people astray and create injustice. Our interaction with our material possessions is integral to who we are as human beings and our relationship with God. Yet where is the discerning discussion of our finances in the context of the church and in spiritual formation?

Henri Nouwen wrote that in counseling sessions he conducted, people would go into the most intimate details of their lives, including their sexual behavior, with hardly the bat of an eye. Yet he noted that when he probed into financial behavior, people almost universally were defensive and disliked the fact that he was getting into their “personal lives.” That observation speaks volumes.

For the great majority of us, there is probably more pride, shame, guilt, fear, and a host of other powerful emotions, attached to wealth than to any other aspect of our lives. There can be no real spiritual formation for us without confronting our relationship to our finances. Sadly, almost the only time we talk about personal finances in our church settings is in terms of a stewardship Sunday. It is usually aimed at funding the church operations and not about people learning true stewardship. Furthermore, pastors often feel very ill equipped to teach in this area.

I’ve gone through some Christian financial programs and felt they left much to be desired. Most of the financial principles taught are sound enough but the appalling level of proof-texting, and lifting passages out of context to justify financial actions, was beyond my comfort level. I know people who’ve applied the financial principles to great benefit but I believe these programs fail to adequately connect the biblical narrative with financial practice. There are very popular programs like Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace seminars that make some reference to Christian principles, but the theological angle is often muted to appeal to a wide audience. I actually find this approach preferable to proof-texting but it still doesn’t take us where I believe we need to go with our spiritual formation.

It is beyond the scope of this post to spell out what financial planning would look in the context of spiritual formation. Yet planning and budgeting, with periodic re-evaluations, seem essential to accurately and more objectively assessing what we “need” and determining our limits. Ideally, discussions about these matters would be normal conversation between fellow disciples of Jesus Christ in community with each other. Instead of being financially blown about by every emotional pull, or unreflectively expanding our consumption to match our income, we would be driven by a carefully considered plan of discipleship.

I will say this about giving within a financial plan. I don’t believe there is a New Testament mandate for tithing. However, I believe that most of us give far less than is healthy for us. Most of us, with a healthy financial plan in place, should be able to give at least 10% of income. I don’t mean to be placing guilt on anyone who doesn’t live to this standard. I’m just suggesting that lack of giving may be depriving us of fully participating in God’s joy.

So I’ve claimed that we need to conquer the language of need in our live. I’ve suggested that we need to be intentional with our finances and make them part of our spiritual formation. These are two important realities I’ve found in my life. But there is yet one more issue I want to raise. In the next post, I want to suggest that we need to take steps to prevent ourselves from living in isolated bubbles of our own prosperity.

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Living Simply in Abundance (22)

What are our primary obstacles to giving? I think many things stand in our way but I want to focus on three issues that are obstructions for me.

First, there is “the language of need.” Next time you are in line at a fast food joint listen to how many times you hear customers declaring something like “I need a Whopper with cheese.” Need a Whopper with cheese? I’m aware that a Whopper may be tasty. It may even be highly desirable on occasion. But need?

Years ago I read a book written about need. It challenged me to listen to my own speech (internally and externally) for how often I use the world “need.” It was striking. It is not that using the word is always wrong. I might say, “I need to put gas in my car.” The implied logic is that transportation is an important part of my daily functioning. If I’m going to function normally, then I need to put gas in my car.

The problem is, that if I listen to myself often enough, I find myself articulating a “need” to satisfy something I can’t immediately identify. Often I just mean “I want” or “I would like” a particular thing. Upon reflection, I’ve learned that sometimes my desire for something is an attempt to compensate for some insecurity, medicate some hurt, a reaction against parental values I was raised with, or driven by some sense of “ought-ness” that I learned from who knows where. I’ve worked over the years to avoid the “need” word unless I can be clear about what the basis of the need is. I try to use “I want” or “I would like.” (And even here, it is good to probe why I “want.”) 

We have an entire culture that obsessed with “need” gratification. Yet the attempt to meet our needs outside of a relationship with God usually leads to more anxiety. If we have not carefully examined our personal language of need, then we are susceptible to every tug and pull on our psyche, drawing us into ever expanding needs.

Often the things we purchase lead to ongoing investments of our time, energy, and financial resources as we now have to maintain, service, update, repair, insure, and make payments for the stuff we bought. Our sense of need escalates. Furthermore, without a plan in place, we can quickly find ourselves in debt and our options greatly limited because we need to maintain a level of income in order to perpetuate a lifestyle. Fewer things are more enslaving than having a negative net worth and having your identity defined by the things you own and buy.

This brings us back to the issue of simplicity. Simplicity is not about how many things we should own or not own. Simplicity is singular focus on God and the narrative God is unfolding in the world. It is about having our personal narrative integrated with God’s larger narrative. It is about sanctification. It is about being set free from the multitude of insecurities, dysfunctions, and sins that too often drive our needs. It is about having “need” and “want” reframed by God’s narrative.

When I can come to grips with the “need” I’m experiencing versus what I really need, I often find that generosity emerges. But it is also true that giving, even when I don’t feel generous, can actually break the spell of need. Some of us are natural givers. Others like me need to make it a spiritual discipline. Each has our own path of spiritual formation we must pursue. And that brings me to my second issue. It is about something that I find disturbingly absent from most of what I read and see concerning spiritual formation.

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Living Simply in Abundance (21)

We’ve acknowledged that there is a role for institutions like government to play in addressing issues of material abundance. We are to support legitimate efforts by these institutions to fulfill their roles. But what is our personal response to the world outside of our faithful stewardship to our family and local community relationships?

One of my favorite writers is R. Paul Stevens. At a recent conference Stevens said:

“For Christians the need of the world is not the call of God. The call comes from God and we will need to withdraw frequently and regularly from compulsive need-meeting in order to hear the voice of God.”

There is no formula! Giving comes out of an abiding relationship with God. We are finite individuals with limited resources and limited knowledge. A pastor friend of mine says he keeps handing his job application to become savior of the world. God keeps returning it stamped, “Position already filled.” We are not to take on all the suffering of the world as though it were ours to solve. We are to be witnesses to the one who has taken on all the suffering of the world and bring others into abundant community with him and his disciples.

Stevens talks about discerning a call from God as we determine what needs of the world we should personally address. Actually, I believe there is only one call for all us and that is to enter into loving relationship with God and join his family. Yet love is action and what action we take in response to God’s call will vary by individual. Here are just a few factors I believe figure into our discernment of how to respond to God.

Gifts and Experiences – What capabilities, innate or learned, do we have to offer God? How has our personal biography equipped us to serve others? Each of has abilities to contribute, but in addition, we each have life experiences that enable us to deeply empathize with others who are shaped by similar life experiences.

Passion – What are we passionate about? Our passions can sometimes be driven by inappropriate motives, like the need for recognition, having false expectations placed on us by others, or fear of failure. But with maturity and wise counsel I believe our passions can also serve as a vital indicator of how God would have us personally respond to the world. The Spirit nurtures passions within us and God takes immense pleasure along with us when we engage these passions.

Context – What context do we find ourselves in? What are our life circumstances and what resources do we have available to us? What are the greatest needs within our sphere of influence that we might address given the constraints of our personal context? (ex., marital status, caretaker for children/parent, income level, physical condition, etc.)

All of this discernment is done in relation to the scriptural narrative and within family and a community of others who know us, are honest with us, and seek the best for us. When we are in ongoing reflection on these matters, decisions about things like a career and financial matters become far more focused. The focus of our giving (time and money) becomes a natural outflow of the rest of our life before God. Instead of trying to establish our giving based on a formula, or on assuaging guilt about our status relative to someone else’s, our giving comes out of the simplicity of our focus on God.

So what is that stands in the way of our giving generously as God desires and how can we become more generous? Some thoughts about that in the next post.

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Living Simply in Abundance (20)

We have reviewed the concept of subsidarity and the importance of the family. But what about single folks? What about nuclear families who are isolated from family support systems? There clearly are needs for relationships beyond the family.

Voluntary associations are one way we connect. Educational associations, youth sports leagues, hobby groups, service groups, and political activities are just some of the ways we form connections with others. These associations serve an important function. Yet these groups tend to be purely task oriented with limited levels of commitment both in terms of depth and duration.

The core of community life used to be neighborhoods. Neighborhoods were places where people living in close proximity participated in each others lives, welcomed each other into homes, and watched out for each other’s children. These relationships were more organic, of indefinite duration, and were less goal focused than voluntary associations. It was about sharing life together. As we’ve seen in books like Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, neighborhood like relationships have been on the wane for decades now. With the demise of neighborhoods we have also seen a concurrent propensity to shape our identities according to material standards. We find ourselves, like the rich fool in Luke 12, talking to ourselves in isolation, contemplating building “bigger barns” to hold all the stuff we have used to secure our identity.

From a Christian perspective, there is yet another form of association that trumps these forms association: The church. The most common metaphor for church relationships in the New Testament is family. Paul in particular used fictive family metaphors to persuade Christians embrace each other across ethnic and social barriers. The archetypical family of the era was also a business. This comported well with the idea people engaged in mission. Yet the idea was one of communities in mission. Mission led to community and community led to mission. These communities provided a context where not only nuclear families had a place to belong, but orphans, widows, and single people were full fledged members of the missional community as well.

In our examination of New Testament passages concerning wealth, we found Paul taking up an offering for the church in Jerusalem. There were many poor people in Corinth yet Paul did not have the church taking up an offering to aid them. Instead, he took up an offering to help another church. John cautioned against being someone who will not help a brother in need. Fictive family descriptors usually signaled “other Christians.” In short much of the giving we see in the New Testament (not all) appears to be oriented to taking care of other Christians.

Historical accounts show that the expansion of the church in the early centuries happened because people were drawn to the mutual care and support Christians had for each other even in the face of great persecution. Rodney Stark points to the joyful self-sacrificing behavior of Christians during plagues in the second and third centuries as major transformational moments in the expansion of the early church.

I suspect that part of our problem in addressing poverty today is that we view the lack of material sustenance in isolation from a holistic human anthropology. We dissect various aspects of human existence into “issues” to be addressed and lose the integrated whole. The early Christians saw material matters as integrally and inseparably related to other matters of being in community. I suspect that helping someone economically divorced from other aspects of being in community would have seemed foreign to them. Therefore, the idea of sending offerings to alleviate poverty for nameless people as we do today may not have occurred to them.

Regrettably, far too much of the church today sees itself as a little more than a voluntary association peddling religiosity products (i.e. worship services, youth programs, education.) The idea of an organic mission oriented community into which others can be integrated and uplifted describes very little of American Christendom. The culture is hungry for genuine community but for unlike Christians in the early Roman era there is little that would compel outsiders to join or fellowships.

This isn’t to say we are without expressions of the church wrestling with these issues. There are a variety of movements working to create intentional communities and struggling to discern how our contemporary church life might be transformed. But at present we are without the kind of witness the early church had. The church effectively demonstrating and inviting the culture into organic caring communities has, among other things, the potential to lessen individualism, strengthen families, provide a community of identity for single or isolated people, provide for material needs, and a lessen the need for intrusion by the government into the lives of families and individuals.

I’ve written that simple living is singularity of focus. We are to be focused first and foremost on God’s narrative for what is unfolding in the world and conforming ourselves to that narrative. At the economic level that means sound stewardship and as we pursue communal abundance. Sound stewardship begins by first being responsible for ourselves so we can both be of service to others and not be an unnecessary burden to others. Next it requires that we be responsible for kin to the best of our ability. But beyond this, our call is to be part of witnessing community, not lone rangers. We draw other people into our community with us partly by the care we show for each other. I believe this is the biblical intention but it is poorly executed in our culture.

Exploring the role of government and macro-institutions is beyond the scope of this series. Just as the Mosaic Law had nationwide provisions about gleaning and offerings to aid the poor, there is a role for larger institutions to play in softening the difficulties people encounter, particularly when it comes to catastrophic events. A “pull yourself up by your bootstarps” model is not sufficient (although personal initiative is important) and government intervention often has perverse unintended consequences because of its indiscriminate methods of assistance (although government assistance is important too.)

At the core of an abundant society is a wealth of relationships where family is the leading player. From a Christian perspective, it is families and individuals in covenant communities that bring transformation to society. Other institutions should exist to supplement and protect the families and localized associations, not replace them or dissolve them.

I’ve acknowledged that our macro-institutions have a role to play in assisting others in need but what is our role as individuals and families in addressing the needs of others beyond our family, church and local community?

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Living Simply in Abundance (19)

Modernism has tended to offer us only two approaches through which to address human social and economic problems: Individualism and state control. Individuals and the state both have a role in addressing these problems but there is another alternative: Mulitple societal operating according to the principle of subsidiarity. What is subsidiarity?

The subsidiarity article at wikipedia gives a good short description:

Subsidiarity is the principle which states that matters ought to be handled by the smallest (or, the lowest) competent authority. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.

The subsidiarity principle was first explicitly articulated as part of Catholic thinking by Pope Leo XIII in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, although elements of it are present at least as far back as Thomas Aquinas. Federalism has a strong element of subsidiarity in it as we can see in the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

We can also see shades of subsidiarity at work in the Old Testament law where there was a progression from family, to clan, to tribe, to nation in resolving problems.

But even in natural law and in classic philosophy we see elements of subsidiarity at work. Aristotle took a position of kin altruism. Aristotle observed (and it has been confirmed throughout the ages, including through scientific inquiry) that parents are inclined to give their biological offspring greater attention and care than others are inclined to. Mothers will obviously know which children are their’s but fathers will not know if social institutions are not in place that regulate sexual behavior. Marriage and sexual exclusivity are critical for bonding fathers to their children so kin altruism can do its work. The Western concept of marriage and family, founded on a covenantal relationship between a man and woman, sprang not only from Judeo-Christian values but also from classical philosophy.

The institution of the family makes certain that the people who give life to a child are also the ones most responsible for caring for the child. This greatly improves the odds that children will be cared for by people with the children’s best interests at heart. Extended family is a cocoon around the nuclear family, supporting it in times of need.

From a biblical perspective, the family is the only institution ordained by God prior to humanity’s rebellion. While expanding and filling the earth anticipates the formation of other human relationships, the family is prior to them all. The state may choose to give legal recognition of families but the family does not exist at the pleasure of the state.

It has always been true that institutions and relationships beyond the family are needed, but as societies become larger and ever more complex, this reality becomes more pronounced. However, the purpose of other human institutions is to supplement the family, not replace it. The family is independent of the state. Excessive individualism weakens the commitments of families and puts the most vulnerable in society at risk. But so does excessive state involvement. When the state begins to do what families should be doing for themselves, the ability of the family to provide those functions atrophies. Children are increasingly cared for by bureaucratic structures and laid evermore bare to the whims of the state rather than having altruistic kin seeking their best interests. The family is essential to a healthy society living in abundance.

To illustrate the impact of the family on the issue of poverty in America, let’s break down the poverty by household family configuration. The rate of poverty in America was 20% in the early 1960s. After the Great Society programs of the 1960s that rate dropped to an all time low of 11.1% in 1973. It climbed to 15.2% in 1983 and again to 15.1% in 1993. As of 2005 the rate was 12.6%. After countless hundreds of billions of dollars and more than thirty years later, the rate of poverty is 13% greater. Yet the poverty rate has dropped significantly for every household configuration! How is this possible?

In the table below, I use four household types: Male headed households, female headed households, independent males and independent females. (1) Independent households are adults living alone or with others to whom they are not related. I compared 1974 data to 2005 data. (2) Here is what I found. (3)

Individual Poverty Rate by Household Living Arrangement
	1974	2005	% Change
Male Headed	6.2%	4.4%	-29.2%
Female Headed	36.6%	31.1%	-15.0%
Male Independent	19.5%	17.9%	-8.2%
Female Independent	27.3%	24.1%	-11.7%
Total Population	11.2%	12.6%	+12.5%

When we look at the poverty rate by household arrangement we see that some significant headway has been made against poverty, particularly in the traditional husband and wife household arrangement. But how could the poverty rate decline for each type of household and yet the overall rate went up? The answer is quite simple. The percentage of people living in the various household arrangements has changed.

Percentage of Individuals in Household Living Arrangements
	1974	2005	% Change
Male Headed	80.0%	69.1%	-13.6%
Female Headed	11.1%	14.4%	+29.9%
Male Independent	3.7%	7.9%	+114.3%
Female Independent	5.3%	8.7%	+64.6%
Total Population	100.0%	100.0%	---

Had the same percentage of people lived in each of the household arrangements as they did in 1974, the present poverty rate would be 8.9%! People have shifted into household arrangements with higher levels of poverty. This shift also explains why poverty among seniors is very low but poverty among children has been slowly increasing in recent years. An increasing number of children are being reared in single parent homes and these homes are more susceptible to poverty.

Explaining why this shift in household arrangements has occurred is a complex discussion, but it underscores what social scientists have been telling us many years now: The two most important things you can do to avoid poverty are to live in a household with a husband and wife have at least a high school education. Families are critical to having a society with widespread communal abundance.

Now we know that not everyone lives in a two parent home with children. About 40% of persons over 15 years old are single, divorced, or widowed. Furthermore, we know that families, even with extended family support, are not capable of isolated independent existence. They must be integrated into a broader community. So what people in non-traditional families? And what is the role of broader social institutions?

Notes:

(1) Male headed households would include families without a mother. I could not devise a way to disaggregate this information from the data I was using but they are a relatively small percentage of the total.

(2) I used 1974 data when the rate was 11.2% because the 1973 Statistical Abstracts was not available online.

(3) Data is from The Statistical Abstracts for the United States, page 415, “Table 673: Persons Below Poverty Level, by Family Status, Race, and Sex of Head, 1959-1974”; and The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2007, page 66, “Family Status, Sex, and Race, 1986-2005.”

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Living Simply in Abundance (18)

I ended the last post noting that God call us to other centered community. But there is an important question that at first not some obvious: Which others? The world is filled with more than six billion people. Which ones do I start with? Isn’t choosing one over another being judgmental?

There are ethicists who argue that as long as there is one person in the world in need, our use of anything beyond our most basic of necessities is tantamount to murder. Some simple living folks like to emphasize that the US is 5% of the world’s population but consumes more than 20% of the world’s resources (and usually left out of this is that the US also produces more than 20% of worldwide goods and services.) We should be living with less and giving more. But more to whom?

Many activists try to shame us into giving to their championed cause by making the above comparisons. However, if I give money to refugees in Darfur, am I not neglecting the poor in Peru? And if I give to Darfur and Peru, am I not neglecting the starving folks in India. And if I give to Darfur, Peru, and India, am I not neglecting the poor in my own town? The list can expand endlessly. Many people make this connection and an overpowering sense of futility sets in. They see their restraint on consumption and their meager contributions relative to the world’s need as meaningless. This drives some to seek ever more radical changes while a great many others sink into despair, and ultimately apathy, where they no longer even try to address such issues.

But despair and denial don’t satisfy either. After awhile, those who have grown up with adults in this futility funk (or in self-absorbed denial) are inspired by a new generation of idealists. They use the same shame tactics and the whole process repeats. There is no way to prioritize help given to others and the ability to enjoy material abundance is precluded. The dramatically shrinking world via global media and the internet makes us both better informed and more overwhelmed, exacerbating our sense of futility.

We need a different lens through which to view the problem. I believe that much of our problem comes from the polarizing consequences of modernism. Modernism has polarized our view of rights. First there is state sovereignty, where rights emanate from the state and people exist to serve the greater good of the state. Second, there is individual sovereignty, where rights emanate from free individuals who join together to form governmental entities that are meant to protect the sovereignty of individuals. Our views of how to assist others tends to be heavily shaded by this polarized thinking. We either try to solve problems on an individual-to-individual basis or we believe the state should solve problems. While these two options may be legitimate responses for any particular problem they are far from being our only two options.

Imagine different ways you might conceptualize the human body. One way would be to see the body as a solitary object, with little regard to its differentiated composition. Another way would be to see the body is as a collection of billions of cells. Either way is legitimate but far from complete because the body is also a complex organic web of organs and systems that interact with each other. To try to address an illness in the body either on a cell-by-cell basis or as an undifferentiated unit is not likely to be productive.

Similarly, we can’t eliminate poverty purely on a “cell-by-cell” or “individual-to-individual” basis. But solutions that treat society as one undifferentiated mass, instead of as a complex organic web of organs and systems that interact with each other, is doomed to failure too. I believe the escape from debilitating polarities is found in the concept of subsidiarity and at the core of subsidiarity is family. Contrary to what some Christians teach, family is the most important (but far from only) “other” when it comes to sharing our abundance. We will see why in the next post.

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Living Simply in Abundance (17)

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. 1 Timothy  6:10 (NRSV)

This passage is frequently misquoted as “Money is a root of all kinds of evil.” The statement is that “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” Money is an amoral entity. It is a store of value. Money is an amazing facilitator of trade, exchange, and retention of value. Money has the power to facilitate astounding good and the world …. and it has the power to facilitate equally astounding evil. Money in the hands of fallen human beings is both a wondrous and dangerous thing. Why is money so dangerous? Because empowers us to live by the illusion bought by Adam and Eve that we can become autonomous masters of our lives. It does this better than anything we know.

In the New Testament world, money facilitated advancement in patron-client relationships. Patrons did deeds for recipients that recipients could not repay, thus transforming recipients into clients obligated to serve the patron. Status was measured by the number of clients you had in your debt. High patron status was the most treasured social position of Greco-Roman Culture. I suspect that the rich man’s struggle to part with his wealth in Mark 10 was related to the impact giving all his wealth away would have on maintaining his patron status. Jesus also tells the parable of the man who isolated himself from others yet kept building bigger barns to store harvests he could not possibly use. So clearly the idea of hoarding wealth for personal security was a problem in the culture as well.

Patron-client relationships are largely gone from our Western culture. Our individualistic market economy presents us with similar but slightly different challenges. As I mentioned earlier in this series, the three primary uses of wealth are consuming, saving/investment, and giving to others. Depending on the person and the circumstances, each of these can be an outlet for idolatrous use of wealth.

To understand how this works we need to look at something called the Laffer Curve in economics. The Laffer Curve is employed to explain the dilemma of determining appropriate rates of taxation. If zero taxes are collected, then obviously government can not function. However, if the tax rate for income above a certain level is set at 100%, then all incentive is removed for people to earn beyond that amount, thus decreasing economic productivity, and thus decreasing the amount of income that would otherwise have been created and been available for taxation. The optimal level of taxation is somewhere between 0 and 100 percent providing the optimal funds for government and incentive to earn more.

This Laffer Curve effect can be seen with consuming, saving and giving as well. Neither 0% nor 100% is appropriate with any of these three categories.

Consuming – Consumption is an important part of exercising good stewardship of ourselves. Feeding, clothing, sheltering, and educating ourselves keeps us healthy and enables us to contribute our gifts to the well-being of family and community. Consumption for purposes of recreation (being at play with God and others) or celebration are other important reasons for consumption.

But the temptation for some is to find our pleasure in the gift instead of the giver. Consumption becomes a way to fill needs apart from God instead seeing our needs met by God through his provision. Conspicuous consumption can be the determining factor for our identity in the world. Consumption can lead us into the bondage of excessive debt, restricting options God may otherwise have had for us, and denying us the positive aspects of saving and giving. Yet an overly ascetic view of consumption can leave us ill prepared to be all that God would have us be in his service. We also miss out on the pleasure God takes in recreating, celebrating, and our gratefulness for God’s provision. Imbalanced consumption comes from false narratives we tell ourselves about our place in God’s narrative.

Saving – Saving is critical at the personal level to tide us over in times of crisis and in our twilight years. Saving is important at a societal level because it makes capital available for business and economic activity. Saving is another we exercise stewardship over our selves so that we may be free to serve others and not drain resources toward our support that could be used for other purposes. 

Yet some of us are fearful of the future. We save because we do not trust God to provide. Our savings becomes our security in the world. We live more ascetic lives than we ought and/or we are stingy in our charity toward others. Some of us save because we envision the status our accumulating wealth will bring us. Others of us feel guilty about saving because that seems somehow selfish to us. Imbalanced saving comes from false narratives we tell ourselves about our place in God’s narrative.

Giving – Giving is our declaration that we trust God for our provision. It acts as a check on the seductive power wealth has to divert us into finding our identity in consumption and in saving. It brings us into the heart of the triune God who is all about giving and being interested in the other. Giving strengthens the communities we live in as those in crisis or otherwise unable to provide for themselves are empowered to participate and contribute of themselves to the community. It provides ways in which we can jointly celebrate God at work in the world.

Yet for some, giving is a way of achieving status and recognition. It can be a way we buy friendship or establish an identity for ourselves. Some give out of a martyr-like reputation they believe giving brings them. Giving done to the neglect of appropriate consumption and saving may actually debilitate us from serving others in ways God would have us serve. Failure to give leaves us susceptible to the powers of consumption and saving to define our lives. It disconnects from participating in one God’s most powerful attributes. Failure to give diminishes our life together by diminishing our community. Imbalanced giving comes from false narratives we tell ourselves about our place in God’s narrative.

I wrote in the previous post about the importance of self-interested stewardship. I wrote that self-interested stewardship can only be realized when we see ourselves living within God’s narrative. But we can’t pass by self-interested stewardship without acknowledging the single greatest threat to cause us to wander into selfish idolatry: The love of money and wealth. It is the single greatest threat to thwarting our simplicity of focus on God.

But we must also recognize that our self-interest has purpose beyond ourselves. Our self-interested stewardship is what places us in a position where we can live out our greatest service to God: Other-centered community.

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Living Simply in Abundance (16)

So far in this series we’ve explored the relationship between consumption, saving and giving; we’ve talked about the dynamics of generating economic abundance; we’ve looked at the economic differences between our world and the ancient world; we’ve done a quick survey of the biblical narrative concerning wealth and abundance; we’ve reflected on the impact Modernism, both good and bad; and we’ve deconstructed neo-Malthusian visions of “living simply” in order to halt resource depletion and to stop climate change. How can we apply all this to our lives as we seek to live simply in abundance? I have some preliminary thoughts. I’ll begin with two points in this post. The first will probably not be controversial to most Christians. The second may be controversial.

First, to live simply (with singularity of focus of God) requires that we begin with God and his narrative. God owns all that is. We are co-creative stewards meant for community with God and with each other. Nature is both our habitat and the object of our work. We are here neither to neither preserve nor destroy nature, but rather to bring creation to fullness. We live as sinful human beings in a time where God’s vision for creation has been corrupted. There are forces at work in the world that pressure us to find our identity in anything other than God. Only when the New Creation is finally consummated will complete shalom be restored, but as God’s people we’re called to give evidence of the coming shalom in the here and now. Part of shalom is communal prosperity and abundance.

As we engage God’s narrative we must do so in community with others. We need each other to give full witness to the coming Kingdom. We need to be in a community where we reflect God’s truth back and forth to each other. We do not wait until we feel spiritual or inspired before we act. Jesus said “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) Our heart will go to whatever we invest ourselves our in. Investing in God’s narrative, practicing spiritual disciplines, and being in community with fellow travelers will shape what we come to love. It will shape our very identity. God’s narrative must be the central theme in all we do.

My second observation is that our relationship to our wealth begins with self-interested stewardship. I suspect that for many that this is a controversial claim. Let me elaborate on what I mean.

“Self-interest” and “selfish” are not synonymous terms. One can’t be selfish without being self-interested but it is possible to be self-interested without being selfish. When raising children we teach them to look both ways when crossing the street. We teach them to eat vegetables so they will be healthy. We teach them to be responsible with their belongings. We are teaching them to be “self-interested.” We want them to grow up to be adults that can “take care of themselves.” Taking care of ourselves can’t be done without being self-interested. Our person is the most valuable “resource” God has given us for stewardship. Barring serious mental or moral deficiencies, we are usually the ones in the best position to assess what we need. Failure to act as good stewards of ourselves both deprives the world of the contributions we could make and draws resources from others toward us that could be put to other uses.

Jesus repeatedly appeals to our self-interest as the justification for many of his teachings. When James and John come asking to sit on the Jesus right and left hand when Jesus comes into power, Jesus does not discourage them from seeking those positions. Rather he explains how they might achieve this status:

"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:42b-45 (NIV)

Jesus explains that by becoming the best servant of others we achieve the highest status. In this one brief teaching, Jesus upends the disciples notion of what is in their self-interest and teaches them to accomplish what actually is in their self-interest.

In Matthew 7, Jesus said:

“Do not Judge …” Why? “… so that you may not be judged.  For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

It is not in our self-interest to judge others. In Matthew 16:25-26, Jesus teaches:

"For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?"

Jesus places this teaching in the form of an economic equation. He tells us to invest wisely.

To catalog all the instances of appeals to self-interest used by Jesus and New Testament writers is beyond our scope. What is pervasive in these teachings is that our understanding of our self-interest is completely shaped by what narrative we believe we are living in. A narrative that defines us as stewards of God, living in community with him and others as we seek to advance what God values, will lead us to one definition of self-interest. A narrative that defines us purely as material beings that receive our identity from our work or from the quantity of goods we can possess or consume, leads us to another definition. It leads us away from genuine self-interest into selfish delusion.

When a community consists of people who responsibly manage their own person, minimal resources are required to keep order. Economic efficiency emerges as people responsibly invest their energies in what they can most productively contribute to society. Then they openly trade with others who’ve done likewise. As we saw earlier, this trading game leads to enormous expansions of wealth even with zero innovation in production. This same advantage evidences itself in relational and spiritual facets of human existence as well. Paul captures this with his “one body, many parts” analogy. The body can’t be healthy without the individual parts being healthy but the parts can’t be healthy without being in relationship to the body. But I’m getting ahead of myself a little here.

From an eschatological perspective, God’s narrative creates two very important freedoms for us as we think about our self-interest and abundance. First, we are free from wealth. Wealth can’t define us. Wealth has zero claim on our identity and wealth can have no more control over us than we surrender to it. Second, precisely because wealth can’t define us, we are free to wealth. We can consume it or we can save it. We can hold it or we can let it go. Our identity is not riding on our choices. Wealth is something entrusted to us that we manage for the one who truly is the source of our identity. And this points us back to my first observation. What narrative are we in? Do we know who we are and whose we are? Without singleness of focus on these realities (i.e., simplicity), all other attempts to reflect on wealth and abundance are pointless.

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Living Simply in Abundance (15)

Is expansion of material abundance destroying environment? That is an extremely loaded question. By definition, accessing resources, processing resources, and human activity in general has an impact on the environment. Yet human beings are material beings (i.e., part of nature and the natural order) whose flourishing is a sign of a healthy environment. Nature isn’t just that which is non-human. Thus, an environment where humans flourish is a healthy environment. As I’ve noted before, the biblical narrative begins in a garden and ends in a garden-city. Human culture, government, art, and cities are a human contribution to the created order. They are part of the New Creation at the end of the narrative.

Darrel Cosden notes that the natural world is both our habitat and the object of our work (see the stewardship commission in Genesis 1 and 2.) Humans were not placed on the earth as preservationists. We are to be stewards, bringing the created order to fulfillment. But the created order isn’t mere fodder for our every whim and desire. God created the earth and it is good. It is worthy of our conservation. The problem is when human flourishing becomes destructive to the habitat God placed in our stewardship.

Of course, the hot environmental topic today (pun intended) is anthropogenic (human caused) climate change. The leading theory is that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels are causing a greenhouse gas effect that is causing global warming. Those of you who read this blog know that I’m deeply skeptical about the degree of significance CO2 has on the warming trend we’ve been experiencing but I wish to set that aside for the moment. Along with environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, we will assume that CO2 is the driving cause. CO2 emissions must be reduced. That leaves us with options of reducing our CO2 by switching to alternative power options and/or contracting the global economy.

The United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) estimates that global temperatures will rise by about 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. Lomborg has looked at the IPCC reports and other research to get some idea of the impact of such warming will have. There will be problems but nothing approaching the hyperbolic apocalypse portrayed in Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth and similar media. The following is just a sampling of the exaggerated problems placed in perspective by Lomborg. (I’m drawing heavily on Lomborg’s book Cool It with some supplemental additions. I highly recommend the book for the full story.)

Extreme Hurricanes and Cyclones

Al Gore claims that warming will lead to dramatic increases in hurricane activity. The UN World Meteorological Organization (parent organization to the IPCC) published a report in 2007 that says that no conclusion can be drawn from science that conclusively links hurricane activity and global warming. (Lomborg 73) The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association released an updated report of hurricane statistics last year that concluded that, “These records reflect the existence of cycles of hurricane activity, rather than trends toward more frequent or stronger hurricanes.” The reason the most recent cycle of hurricanes appears more intense is because so many more people now live in their potential path of these storms. Therefore, we take greater notice of the events. Had the Miami hurricane of 1926 occurred with today’s population where it is today it what have been twice as destructive as Katrina. The 1900 Galveston hurricane would have been greater than Katrina as well.

Heat Related Deaths

Al Gore gives us images of people dropping dead from extreme heat. The fact is that cold climates are much greater (by magnitudes) human killers than heat. Since the nature of the warming we are now experiencing is driven by more moderate temperatures in the winter, warming will lead to fewer net deaths. A 2006 survey of the world estimates that the net result of warming by 2050 would be 1.4 million lives saved each year. Only Africa showed a net loss per year of 50,000 people. The study further reported that this trend would continue until at least 2200. (Lomborg 38-39) Rising temperatures will create problems for some people in specific areas but those are problems that can be addressed on a localized basis.

Melting Ice Caps and Rising Sea Levels

In Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore shows what happens if the ice cover on Greenland or half the ice in Antarctic were to melt. Sea levels woud rise 20 feet. But no scientific body suggests that anything remotely near this level of melting will occur. Melting polar ice does not raise the sea level any more than ice cubes in your glass increases the liquid level in your glass of ice water. Sea level increase come from glacier’s melting and running to the sea, as well as rises in temperature that cause water to expand. The UN estimates a one foot increase over the next century. (Lomborg 60) How serious is that? The IPCC estimates that a three foot rise (triple the estimate) would cause less than $6 billion dollars damage over the century. Consider that sea levels have risen by about one foot over the previous 100-150 years. People gradually adapt to these changes. The fact that I had to inform you that we have just experienced the same level of change over the past century should tell you how threatening this is.

It is also worth noting that ice is forming in some places in the world while receding in others. For instance, much has been made of the melting of the Larsen B ice shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula in recent years. Yet ice core samples show that the area was likely open water 6,000 years ago and reached its maximum ice accumulation over the last two hundred years. It is now contracting from this maximum expansion. Ice accumulation and thawing is constantly in transition at the poles.

New Ice Age in Europe

A year or two ago you may have seen the movie The Day After Tomorrow, where climate change leads to a tipping point that results in a reversal the Gulf Stream ocean current, ushering in a cataclysmic ice age over most of North America and Europe. The Gulf Stream last shut down about 8,200 years. Yet scientists estimate that the resulting net temperature drop was about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Virtually all of the ice on Greenland would need to melt to repeat the events of the 8,200 years ago. The IPCC expects the melting over the next century to achieve one one-thousandth of the effect necessary to cause such an event. (Lomborg 87-92.)

Polar Bears and Species Impact

One of Al Gore’s most heart tugging presentations is polar bears drowning to due to melting ice. Over the past forty years the population of polar bears has expanded from 5,000 to 25,000. Eighteen of the twenty or so subpopulations are stable are growing. Only two have experienced some decline and that is largely due to hunting. It is also the case that the two declining populations are located where the climate has been getting colder, while the two populations that are growing the fastest are in areas where the climate is getting warmer. (Lomborg 5-6) While warming well likely have a negative impact on some species it will cause others to flourish. The threat to various species is far more related to encroachments of humans on habitats rather than changes in climate.

Lomborg addresses a host of other cataclysmic claims (malaria, food production, water shortages) and the fact is that the impacts of global warming over the next century are mixed. The most problematic ones are not that challenging to address provided that people across the globe have the resources to address them. Still, if CO2 truly is the driver in warming the planet then we must eventually find a way to reverse the CO2 problem.

Strategies like the Kyoto Accord’s plan to reduce emissions back to 1990 levels will cost about $5 trillion over the next century. The net result will be that the warming will have been reduced by 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit for 4.7 degrees to 4.4 degrees. It would postpone the 4.7 degree rise five years from 2100 to 2105. (Lomborg 22. He insists that this is “scientifically entirely uncontroversial.”) The net savings from this $5 trillion investment? $2 trillion dollars. (Lomborg 33) Kyoto, and similar emission reduction strategies for existing technologies, are exorbitantly wasteful.

Lomborg argues (and I strongly concur) that the solution to reducing CO2 is implementation of new energy technologies. The money being poured into emission reduction would be far better spent in technology development. In the meantime, we should be taking some of the money wasted on Kyoto schemes and doing our best to expand material abundance around the globe. That will enable people to better address whatever future challenges they may encounter. We are better off investing our resources in preventing HIV/AIDS, addressing malnutrition, expanding free markets (particularly the elimination of trade barriers in Europe and the US), and in wiping out diseases like malaria. For relatively small investments we can make an enormous improvement in the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the globe.

As people become more economically prosperous, and as they experience greater economic and political freedom, they become more and more concerned about their environment. Pollution per capita, as well as CO2 per capita, has been dropping in the United States for years. According to an EPA as of 2001, between 1970 and 2001 the population grew 39%, energy consumption rose 42%, vehicle miles traveled rose 149% and GDP rose 161%, while pollution dropped 25%. While there was an overall increase in US CO2 emissions from 1997-2003 of 4.7%, there was a per capita reduction of 1.5% (better than most Western European nations.) The areas that have suffered the greatest pollution and environmental degradation are the former Soviet bloc nations and poor nations.

There are challenges to the expansion of material abundance around the world. But as we saw in the previous post, exhaustion of resources is not one of them. Furthermore, climate change, to the degree it is caused by human factors, can’t effectively be addressed by living more simply (read ascetically) or by buying carbon offsets. We need new technologies.

Therefore, while there may be sound reasons for living with material limits, preventing the exhaustion of resources or fighting climate change are not compelling reasons. Are there other reasons we should think about limits to our abundance? I think there are, as we will soon see.

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Living Simply in Abundance (14)

“Material abundance is (A) rapidly depleting our resources and (B) destroying our environment.” This has become the refrain of a new generation neo-Malthusian environmentalists in our day. It’s widespread in Mainline (National Council of Churches denominations) and is the dominant view point among influential emerging church notables (Brian McLaren’s “Everything Must Change” being a prime example.”)

Thomas Malthus was an early nineteenth century British minister who analyzed parish records spanning many years. He published his research in An Essay on the Principle of Population, in 1798. At the core of Malthus’ observations was the relationship between population and resources. He observed that while resources tend to grow arithmetically (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…), population tends to grow geometrically (i.e., 1, 2, 4, 8, 16…). Population always outgrows the ability of resources to support the population.

Aside from the normal causes of death like accidents and old age, factors like war, pestilence, and famine also served as a check. These would reduce the population to manageable levels. Population would increase again and repeat the cycle all over again. Being opposed to contraception and abortion, the only solution Malthus saw was late marriage and abstinence. (I suspect that Dicken’s Ebenezer Scrooge was a Malthusian because of his quip “If they [the poor] are to die, better that they do it and decrease the surplus population.”) His outlook for humanity in the century ahead was one of catastrophic economic disaster. He was wrong.

Malthus believed that increasing wages would lead to increasing birth-rates and declining death-rates, thus mushrooming the population into disaster. Instead, we experienced what has been called the Demographic Transition in the period from 1750 to 1950 in the Western world. Malthus was correct that death rates fell but not long after they began to fall birth-rates began to fall as well. For nearly 200 years birth-rates were always higher than death-rates but both were declining. Thus, the population grew. But by the middle of the twentieth century, death-rates leveled out and birth-rates followed suit shortly thereafter. Western nations leveled out at the replacement rate. In fact, the problem most Western nations are facing today is that they are slowly dying out because they are not replacing themselves.

The boom in post-World War II assistance to the developing world led to dramatic declines in the death-rates that took the West decades to experience. Birth-rates are more culturally sensitive and take longer to change. Consequently, for decades developing nations have been experiencing very high population growth. The decline toward replacement rates is well underway and it is expected that the world population will stabilize at around ten billion in the second half of the twenty-first century. Affluence leads to lower fertility, not more, as Malthus believed.

The other eventuality that Malthus did not see was the astounding contributions of the Industrial Revolution, communication, transportation, and market exchange. These developments improved productivity beyond what anyone in his day could hope to imagine. Everything from food, to clothing, to housing, to a host of basic goods became exponentially more abundant and less expensive in real terms. This process is still underway and bringing greater abundance to ever greater portions of the globe.

Malthus’ views had considerable influence in many circles throughout the nineteenth century but the astonishing abundance delivered over the many decades after his death in 1834, caused a general abandonment of his outlook. However, apocalyptic pessimists over the years have continued to latch onto the seemingly obvious formula that resources are limited and we will one day use them up. Every few decades this outlook reappears in some new version.

There really are only two solutions if you work from the Malthusian premise. One solution is population control, which in its soft form includes delayed marriage, contraception, education, and abstinence. In its hard form it leads to abortion, sterilization, and genocide. The other solution is reduced resource use, which in its soft form might include “simple living” movements, conservation, and recycling. The hard version is state control of markets to “fairly” ration the limited resources.

Those old enough to remember the 1960s and 1970s will remember the last full-blown neo-Malthusian wave with people like Paul Ehrlich, the Club of Rome, and Jimmy Carter and his Global 2000 Report. These folks predicted exhaustion of most major commodities, famines, and unprecedented global unrest from shortages and economic collapse by 2000. The very opposite has happened. In the past decade or so we’ve seen a neo-Malthusian resurgence that is married to apocalyptic climate change scenarios (which I will address next) and a deep suspicion of people acting with economic freedom (i.e, markets). This new wave is generally grouped under the moniker “sustainable growth” although not every expression of sustainable growth has to do with neo-Malthusian thinking.

How should we evaluate the claim that we are running out of resources? We can start by looking at commodity prices over an extended period to see what they tell us. If the supply of a commodity is becoming scarcer relative to the demand for the commodity, then the commodity’s price will climb. Commodity prices factor in anticipated growth in present and future demand, estimated quantities of natural resources, and the capacity to extract resources for productive use. What has happened to commodity prices over the years? A 2001 study that looked at commodity prices over the previous 140 years concluded:

“…while there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of 1.3 percent per year over the last 140 years, little support is found for a break in the long-run trend decline in commodity prices. …”

When a commodity starts to become scarcer, several things happen. Suppliers are motivated to search harder for more of the commodity and ways to renew supplies of it (i.e. the lumber industry). Entrepreneurs enter the markets. They begin offering substitute commodities, they recycle the existing commodity, and they begin to find ways to use the commodity more efficiently. Users of the commodity will likely decrease use and look for alternatives as prices go higher. In other words, there is a dynamic feedback loop that prohibits an abrupt exhaustion resources. The market will inhibit the total depletion of resources because people will abandon the commodity when the price is too high, long before its exhaustion.

The reality is that we are not running out of resources. Resources are becoming more abundant! Based on estimates of population growth and what is know of existing resources the planet can sustain worldwide material abundance into the foreseeable future. Just as Malthus could not see the impact of the Industrial Revolution on resource availability, I think many neo-Malthusians are blind to the evolution of renewable, reusable, and synthetic fabrication (from renewable resources) that is taking place in our lifetimes. Had Malthus’ perspective won out in the early nineteenth century, it is hard to imagine the devastating impact it would had on generations down to this day. The same caution needs to be sounded about neo-Malthusians today.

Neo-Malthusians believe we should constrain economies until we can clearly see the way ahead and we have solutions for the future. I view this as an expression of Modernist hubris. It imagines that human beings, through rational analysis, are capable of ascertaining what all their options are much less able to have sufficient wisdom to choose among them. Highly decentralized actors and institutions, making daily decisions in an organic feedback loop, are far more likely to emerge solutions to pressing problems than an expertocracy planning the future.

Life is full of risks. We are to be prudent and weigh risks. But do we wed only when we can see the solution to every eventuality? Do we take a job only when we discern we will have no troubles? Do we wait for a guarantee of perfect safety before we get behind the wheel of a car? Of course not. Prudence is one thing but the argument that all challenges must be resolved in advance is deeply destructive to human flourishing and expression of hubris.

As I close out this installment, I want to be certain I’m not being misunderstood. I’ve not said that we should not be restrained in our personal consumption or that Christian simplicity (focusing solely on God) will not require us to limit our consumption. What I have said is that there is no shortage of material resources. I’m saying that our call to limit our consumption is not tied to a zero-sum game where our use of resources denies use to others. Our motivation for limits lies elsewhere. But before we get there, I want to quickly look at the second issue I mentioned at the beginning of the post. What about environmental degradation and climate change?

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Living Simply in Abundance (13)

The recurring economic theme throughout the Bible is that God is owner of all that exists. We were created to be stewards (corporately and individually) of God’s resources and God intends for his stewards to live in community-wide abundance. Human rebellion entered the equation and that intention has been terribly marred. Part of the Good News of the coming shalom of the Kingdom of God is the realization community-wide abundance. It seems reasonable to conclude that the foreshadowing of the coming Kingdom in this age would also include improved material abundance in the world. 

Yet the scripture is very clear about the perils of wealth and abundance. There is the ever present danger of finding our identity in our wealth and placing our trust in our abundance instead being in relationship with God. Our simplicity of focus is lost and our priorities drift out of alignment. We begin to distort justice in favor of preserving our abundance and we become callous to the needs of the poor, when we should be seeking justice and looking for ways to expand abundant living to others.

Exactly how this temptation to idolize wealth evidences itself has varied across time and culture. Throughout most of history, only a small minority of human people could expect to amass much wealth. The events of the last 300 years have led to an unprecedented expansion in both the quantity and distribution of wealth in the world. I noted in an earlier post the worldwide real per capita annual income doubled between 12,000 BCE and 1750 CE, from $90 to $180. Since then it has risen to more than $6,600. The percentage of people living on $1 a day has shrunk from about 84% in 1820 to about 15% today and is still falling. This expansion in material abundance is a good thing but how it has come about has sown some problems. A brief history review.

Some will argue that technological innovation (particularly the harnessing of steam, petroleum, and electrical power) were key to the rise of Western capitalism. There can be little doubt that such innovations were essential but they were not sufficient in themselves. In retrospect we can see that two profound cultural changes were necessary for modern capitalism to emerge from Medieval Europe: The flattening of hierarchies and moves away from notions of fate and providence.

Medieval European society had a highly stratified and rigidly maintaine hierarchy. God was at the top of the hierarchy with everything neatly arranged in a status pyramid down to the peasant. It was very similar to the highly stratified Greco-Roman world. Each person had a responsibility to care for those under him in the pyramid and total allegiance was expected to those above him. This arrangement effectively dampened the development of horizontally oriented relationships like voluntary associations and economic trade.

The notion of fate and providence also presented a barrier. The modern idea of risk and risk management really did not begin to emerge until around the fifteenth century. Until that time, good or bad “fortune” encountered on a trade journey would simply be attributed to fate, the will of the god’s, the work of sorcerers, or providence. In one sense of the word “risk,” you could say that risk has always been around because people have always known the travel involves uncertainties. This is not what I’m referring to.

By risk I’m referring to making studious evaluations of trade journey’s that have been taken. We learn that merchants traveling route A often far exceed what merchants on route B and C earn but merchants traveling route A are more frequently robbed. We learn merchants with certain types of character and track records perform better than others. We learn that traveling at certain times of the year has greater trade advantages but a higher likelihood of weather related problems. We take all of these considerations (and more) into account and assign a statistical probability of success for any given trade adventure. Then we set about finding ways to allocate our resources to maximize return while minimizing loses.

As long as events are in the hands of fate and providence, our experience is one of things happening to us that we can not control. What emerged in the Middle Ages was the idea of a rational God who created an orderly universe. By discerning the order God had created we could effectively manage future outcomes. This simple concept that is so ubiquitous to us today is really only a few centuries old. It has its roots in the Judeo-Christian heritage.

I maintain that this leveling of hierarchies into more horizontally based orientations and the abandonment of excessive ideas of fate and providence in favor of reasoned risk assessment, were good and needed developments. The rigid status hierarchies of the Greco-Roman world and Medieval Europe were contrary to the fictive-family notion of being brothers and sisters in Christ. The growing realization about the orderliness of the universe, and the attempts to learn about God and his world through applications of reason and observation, seem to me to be wonderful expressions of the image of God at work in humanity. However, the emerging forces that brought about these changes, from the Renaissance on through the Enlightenment and Modernist eras, ushered in new set problems concerning economic life.

By the time of the Enlightenment, the agenda had become one of creating human autonomy over the created order through application of reason. Progress via reason would render God useless and material abundance (among other things) would be the reward for shaking off past religious superstitions. An equality of humanity as God’s image bearers, lovingly seeking to understand the world in faithful response to our mission as household managers over the earth, was supplanted by a vision that cast God out of the picture and elevated humanity as masters of their own destiny. Reason and science (of which the modern academic field of economics is just one expression) would save us.

The Enlightenment and Modernism, with much of the Judeo-Christian heritage employed by them, have had great success in achieving material abundance. But in doing so, they have made materialism and consumerism idols. With God effectively (even if not formally) removed from the equation, Westerners have been taught to define themselves by their material progress; to find their very identity in their material quality of life. We have exchanged falsely finding our identity within a rigid hierarchy of Medieval social order with falsely finding it our material status.

Unfortunately, many who correctly sense the idolatry at work here, have mistakenly turned against the economic freedom that creates the abundance at precisely the time when billions around the world could most benefit from experiencing economic freedom and exchange for themselves. The challenge is not to halt the production of abundance. The challenge is to involve everyone possible in the abundance while reorienting the values we feed into the economic system by simplifying our focus to be totally upon God.

But what about the environmental impact of pursing abundance?

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The apostle Paul gives an interesting discourse about giving in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. The church at Corinth had committed themselves to raising an offering for the church at Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 16:1-4). The collection of this offering was apparently jeopardized by divisions that had arisen at Corinth. Paul was exhorting the Corinthians to follow through on their original commitment. I won’t post the whole passage here but I did want to reflect on a few portions of this passage.

First, we need to recognize that there were more than financial issues at stake here. Paul wants the various churches to see themselves as integrally connected to each other. Even more likely, Paul intends to unite Jew and Gentile together. This passage is not primarily about poverty and wealth distribution. If it were, then why was no appeal made to relieve the poverty of the Macedonians who he also mentions in this passage? Why not a gift to poor people living in Corinth? This gift was apparently made for a very specific purpose.

Second, in the first few verses of Chapter 8 Paul reports the sacrificial gift of the poor Macedonians to spur the Corinthians on in their giving. Then Paul writes:

2 Corinthians 8:7-9

7 Now as you excel in everything -- in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you -- so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. 8 I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. 9 For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. (NRSV)

Paul makes clear that he is not commanding an offering. Rather than seeing the offering as a tax or duty, Paul wants the Corinthians to see the connection between financial giving in this matter and the gift Christ has poured out to them. Also notice that in verse 8 Paul explicitly says this offering is a test of their love, which would seem to indicate that this offering was something out of the ordinary.

Third, Paul continues:

2 Corinthians 8:13-15

13 I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between 14 your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. 15 As it is written, "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little."

Paul is not asking the Corinthians to euphemistically “give a kidney” here. The church in Jerusalem is in need and by “need” we are not talking about being a little short on expenses. We are talking about people in destitution that need to get back on their feet so they can care for themselves.

Verse 15 is a reference to Exodus 16:18 when manna was sent to the Israelites as they wondered in the wilderness. The people went out to collect the manna. People collected varying amounts but the manna was to be shared in such a way that everyone had enough to eat. It is important to remember that the daily collection of manna was a provisional, not normative, expression of God's provision. It was to test the Israelites faithfulness in a unique circumstance. Later the Israelites were brought into "a land flowing with milk and honey" where abundance was to be the reality. As God was testing the faithfulness of the Israelites, so was Paul testing the faithfulness of the Corinthians with this offering.

Moving into chapter 9, Paul reminds the Corinthians that he has been bragging about them. Should they falter now, they will bring shame upon Paul and upon themselves. Then Paul writes:

2 Corinthians 9:6-9

6 The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. 9 As it is written, "He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever."

Again, we have an emphasis on the voluntary nature of the gift the Corinthians are giving. They are to weigh what their gift will mean versus what benefit they will have by keeping resources for themselves. Do they want to reap much? Then they must sow much. Paul reminds them that God has provided abundance to them so that they may be able to share in the work God is doing.

Finally, there is something missional in Paul’s teaching here. He is not teaching about a need for general wealth redistribution in society. I mentioned 1 John 3:17. John talks of seeing another “brother” in need. From what I’ve been able to learn, fictive family always referred to fellow Christians and was not used in the sense of general fraternity that we might use it today. Other New Testament passages (not all necessarily) seem to be targeted toward wealth issues within the church community. In fact, caring for those within the community seems to be the main theme.

I've already noted that no fund-raising was done on behalf of the poor Macedonians of the poor in general. Nor do we see evidence of this kind of offering as normative among the first century churches. But there is further evidence that Paul was not teaching about normative economic redistribution.

It is widely noted that Luke tended to highlight the issues of the poor in his works. Paul notes in Galatians 2:10 that  the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15) had asked Paul and Barnabas to keep the poor in mind in their missionary efforts. This appears to be a driving force in Paul's attempts to collect this offering, which he mentions in multiple letters. Why does Luke make no mention of this aspect of the sharing with regard to the Council at Jerusalem or to this practice occurring between various churches in his Acts of the Apostles? This seems like precisely the sort of thing Luke would have seized upon, much like is reference to "holding things in common" in Acts 2 through 5.

While there are some important principles in these two chapters I would be cautious about building an economic ethic based primarily on this text.

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When it comes to explicit instruction about wealth the two major themes seem to dominate the non-gospel portion of the New Testament:

1. Losing focus on God and making wealth an idol.
2. Exhortations to share with poor and commendations for doing so.

In 1 Timothy 6:6-10 we read:

6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. (NRSV)

Also 1 Timothy 6:17-19:

17 As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, 19 thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

There are also warnings earlier in 1 Timothy that church leaders must not be “lovers of money” (3:3, 8). Love of money is listed among other sinful behaviors in 2 Timothy 3:2. The author of Hebrews warns:

Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." (13:5)

James offers similar sentiments in 2:9-11. James also has condemnation for those who have amassed their wealth by depriving others of justice:

James 5:1-6

1 Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. 2 Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. 4 Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

Speaking to the church at Laodicea, Jesus says:

Revelation 3:17-18

17 For you say, 'I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.' You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

Luke notes that Cornelius was singled out by God because of his generosity to the poor (Acts 10:4). 1 John 3:17 asks:

How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

James 1:27 makes service to the poor the test of “religion that is pure”:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Again, the themes seem to focus on avoiding the love of money and generosity to the poor. Yet there is little extended discourse on wealth and giving in most of the books of the New Testament. The one exception is 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 as the Corinthians are exhorted to give to another fellowship. We turn there next.

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What does the non-gospel portion of the New Testament have to say about wealth and abundance? In most ways it is consistent with what we have seen in the rest of scripture. But we need go no further than the Chapter 2 in Acts before we come across one of the more controversial passages concerning wealth. Following Pentecost we read:

Acts 2:44-45

44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

Acts 4:34

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.

It simply isn’t clear what this entailed. Acts chapter 5 speaks of Ananias and Sapphira who apparently were a part of the community and still owned land. They appear to have sold a portion (not all?) of their land and brought the money for distribution to the needy. Their sin was apparently dishonesty about how much they were giving, not that they had retained a portion of the money. “Holding things in common” appears to have meant that each retained control of their own property but as needs arose folks made their property available to address the needs of others.

This appears to have been a response to the large numbers of conversions. No doubt many were ostracized from their families and lost their livelihoods. The early chapters of Acts give a descriptive, not a prescriptive, presentation of how these problems were handled. What is instructive is that an economic response was seen as a natural outflow of becoming a Christian and the needs of the poor were addressed.

We find no teaching in the New Testament that prescribes radical society-wide redistribution or communal ownership. In fact, we find explicit instruction like:

1 Corinthians 16:1-2

1 Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia. 2 On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come.

Ephesians 4:28

Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.

2 Thessalonians  3:10-13

10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11 For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Passages such as these presume private ownership of goods. Furthermore, passages such a 1 Corinthians 11:17-22 chastise the wealthy for eating the Lord’s Supper before the poor have a chance to arrive. This presumes, as happens in several other places, that there are wealth differences among the believers. Private ownership has not been eliminated and if we refer back to the jubilee code we see that communal ownership of all property would directly contradict God’s decree that each Israelite have a private ownership stake in the land.

So what of the New Testament passages that speak specifically to wealth, abundance, and giving?

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What was Jesus view of wealth? I want begin in what may not seem to be the most obvious place for discussion: The discourse on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24-25), especially the stories of the talents and the story of the sheep and goats in chapter 25.

Matthew presents Mount of Olives discourse as Jesus final teaching before the Passion Week. Jesus talks about what the end of time will be like. In 24:36-44, Jesus calls for watchfulness where the evil ones will be “swept away” and the righteous “left behind” as in the day of Noah. He then turns to the story of the unfaithful steward in 45-51.

The story of the unfaithful steward draws on the image of the large landholder who would often leave for months at a time to deal with various matters. Households in the ancient world were businesses and in this case the image of large villa is in mind. He had a household manager (usually a free member of the household but sometimes a trusted slave) who was to run the household exactly as the owner would have run it had he been there. The manager was called the oikonomos in Greek and it is the word from which we get “economics.” This manager was responsible for running the business well but also for taking care of the needs of the household members. In this story Jesus has the master return only to discover that his oikonomos has not managed the estate according to the master’s heart and mind and he exercises judgment on the unfaithful steward.

After a story about ten bridesmaids and the need for watchfulness (25:1-23), Jesus gives another story set within the context of household management. Three servants are given talents by their master: Five to one servant, two to another, and one to yet another. He tells them to invest them in his absence. The master leaves for a long time and then returns to settle accounts. The first two servants doubled their holdings but the third hid his talent and presented it when the master returned. We are so familiar with this story that we fail to pay close attention to the dialog between the master and this last servant.

The servant clearly knows that he is in trouble. Why does he insult his master?:

Matthew  25:24-25

24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' (NRSV)

Kenneth Bailey points out that in Palestinian culture there were two types of men that become wealthy. One was the great nobleman of the plans. The other was the chieftain of the hill country marauders. These tribes prided themselves on their ruthless ability to live off the land; to steal grain and livestock from the people of the valley. The words of the servant in verse 24 would be high praise to one of these marauder chieftains. The problem is that the master in the story is clearly a nobleman of the plains. This servant has totally misjudged the character, heart, and mind of his master. This has led him to act contrary to his master’s wishes. He did not have the heart and mind of his master. Jesus warns us not to make the same mistake.

The final story is the separation of the sheep and the goats. The Son of Man commends the sheep:

Matthew 25:35-36

… 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'

This list of works was used by the Jews to symbolize all good works. These were the things that the Son of Man wanted done. The sheep did them. They had the heart and mind of the Son of Man without even knowing who the Son of Man was. It was instinctive. When it comes to the goats, we get the distinct impression that had they known it was the Son of Man they were ignoring that they would have behaved differently. That is to say, had they known something was in it for them they would have behaved differently. But in either case, they did not have the heart and mind of the Son of Man. The key to Jesus final instruction appears to be simplicity: We are to have our minds singularly focused on his return and to have his very heart and mind in all we do.

As I look through the gospels and read where Jesus talks about the poor, I’m unaware of any where Jesus attributes the poverty of some to the wealth of others. Nor does Jesus advocate closing the gap between the rich and the poor. Jesus does draw on the imagery of the jubilee in Luke 4 when he announces his ministry at Nazareth, but as we have seen, the jubilee was primarily about insuring that everyone received and kept an ownership stake in God’s Israel project.

When it comes to wealth, Jesus usually expresses his concern in terms of the impact that wealth has on those who own it. In the parable of the Rich Young Man in Matthew 19, Jesus tells the Young Ruler he can inherit eternal life by doing the following:

You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (19:18-19)

These are the “horizontal” commands (human relationships) of the Ten Commandments and if you look closely you will find one is missing: You shall not covet. When the man says he has kept all of these, Jesus says all the man lacks is to sell all he has and give to the poor. The issue is not that the poor need his money so much as this man is trapped in covetousness.

Jesus tells the story of the man who tears down his barns to build bigger barns in Luke 12. Kenneth Bailey notes the man in deliberating to himself instead of with others. This man has cut himself off from others and has become obsessed with his wealth to the point of his own destruction.

Negatively, Jesus warns that we can’t serve both God and mammon and that it is difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Positively, he tells us not to worry for as God takes care of the flowers, so will he take care of us. There is the story about the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16, which many use as a condemnation of wealth. Yet the Rich Man calls out to Abraham in heaven to relieve him. Abraham had extravagant wealth in his lifetime. One rich man is calling out to another. Is this a condemnation of wealth or of the rich man’s devotion to his wealth apart from other priorities?

The common theme in so much of Jesus teaching is rectifying misaligned priorities. Simplicity (singleness of focus) has been lost. The call is to simply focus on God and seek his heart and mind. That will reshape every aspect of our lives including how we use our wealth. The poor have less problem keeping this focus because they have no other choice. It is the wealthy who are in peril.

Next we will take a quick look at what the rest of the New Testament has to say about wealth.

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What did the prophets have to say about wealth and justice? It is frequently preached today that the prophets condemned economic inequities and proclaimed God’s desire for an equalization of wealth. Is this true?

First, we need to recognize that there are there aspects to economic justice.Li

1. Distributive Justice – Addresses how capital and goods are distributed throughout the society.
2. Commutative Justice – Addresses the truthfulness of parties to an economic exchange.
3. Remedial Justice – Addresses just compensation and punitive action when there has been malicious or careless damage done to life, liberty or property.

If you go to the prophets and read what they are crying out against it is overwhelming commutative and remedial justice, combined with disregard for the poor. The poor are denied remedial justice in the appropriation of their land. There is callousness toward the plight of the poor. It is not addressing wealth distribution per se.

Look at the specific indictments that led up to Amos’ famous “let justice role down” prophecy in Amos 5:18-24.

Amos 5:10-12, 15

10 They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. 11 Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. 12 For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins– you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. …

15 Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; …

The “city gate” was the place where disputes where heard and settled. The poor were being denied remedial justice. In verse 12 we see bribes mentioned, which is commutative justice. In other passages we read about dishonest scales and measures (Micah 6:11) I’m not aware of any passages that call upon Israel to redistribute the wealth so all will be of approximately of the same economic status. The prophets are damning the callousness to the plight of the poor and the perversion of commutative and remedial justice.

There are condemnations like this one from Isaiah:

Isaiah 5:8

Ah, you who join house to house,
who add field to field,
until there is room for no one but you,
and you are left to live alone
in the midst of the land!

Joining land to land contravenes the jubilee code. The poor have not received justice and the powerful have driven them off the land. There needs to be redistribution. But it is a redistribution of “stolen property” back to its rightful owner, not an attempt to create social equality in wealth distribution. The latter is an anachronistic reading of communitarian Modernist agendas back into the text. Remedial justice has been denied the powerless and needs to be restored.

Some theologians today, many using a Marxist and liberationist hermeneutics, use Old Testament prophecy to condemn the accumulation of wealth because it violates an equal distribution of property principle they project back into jubilee and into the message of the prophets. In fact, the prophets railed against the abrogation of property rights, unjust means of exchange, lack of remedial justice, and callousness toward the poor. In other words, precisely the conditions we find today in nearly every developing nation today! The presence of these realities prevented prosperity from emerging then every bit as much as it does now.

It is beyond the scope of this series to delve deeply into why this state of affairs exists in so many countries and to examine the complicity of the developed nations with these injustices. The larger point is that with justice in place, sufficient freedom is created for people to become productive and prosperous. They have the resources to extend mercy to those in need around them. Developed nations can extend relief but commutative justice and remedial justice are essential if aid is to have a lasting impact. Distributive justice can then emerge in each culture’s struggle to balance how they care for the indigent while respecting personal property and the fruits of employing that property productively.

In short, the prophets were crying out for justice against people who had turned their focus from God. The prophets’ endless refrain was a call to simplicity; it was a call to singleness of focus on God and living by his covenant. When that singleness of focus was realized, matters of economic justice and mercy fall into proper order.

We turn now to Jesus and the topic of wealth.

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I wrote earlier in this series that wealth and prosperity was one of the promised outcomes for faithfulness to the Mosaic covenant. But within that covenant we find this warning:

Deuteronomy 8:17-20

17 Do not say to yourself, "My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth." 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. 19 If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the LORD is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. (NRSV)

The covenant promised material abundance. Material asceticism is foreign to the biblical image of shalom. But the Old Testament also makes starkly clear that the pursuit of wealth apart from the covenant and acknowledgement of God will bring about terrible consequences. That covenant included private property laws but it also included provisions for the poor like gleaning and regular collections for the poor. Private property was integrated into the larger covenantal relationship.

At the center of acknowledging God were the sabbath-jubilee provisions within the Mosaic code. The jubilee code is widely misperceived as a process for wealth redistribution. Closer inspection reveals something different.

The Israelites were instructed to take a sabbath year every seven years. The land would lie fallow and labor would cease. Every fifty years there would be a jubilee. (Depending on how you read the text it may actually have been every forty-nine years.) Each family returned to their ancestral land, bonded labor come to an end, debts expired, and the people celebrated and worshiped God.

Historically, there is no evidence that the jubilee was ever observed. However, we need to see how the jubilee would have worked had it been observed. Here are the provisions of the jubilee for land transactions:

Leviticus 25:13-17

13 In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. 14 When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not cheat one another. 15 When you buy from your neighbor, you shall pay only for the number of years since the jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop years. 16 If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price; for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you. 17 You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God.

The one who holds title to the land holds it permanently. If jubilee is followed, then what we have is a lease agreement based on “a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you” between the time of the transaction and the jubilee. Come jubilee, the lease expires. Keep in mind that this was only agricultural land. The jubilee did not apply to property in the cities. There is no redistribution. There is prevention of exploitation.

Leviticus 25:39-40

39 If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves. 40 They shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee.

If jubilee is followed there are no slaves to set free because “you shall not make them serve as slaves.”

Leviticus 25:47-52

47 If resident aliens among you prosper, and if any of your kin fall into difficulty with one of them and sell themselves to an alien, or to a branch of the alien’s family, 48 after they have sold themselves they shall have the right of redemption; one of their brothers may redeem them, 49 or their uncle or their uncle’s son may redeem them, or anyone of their family who is of their own flesh may redeem them; or if they prosper they may redeem themselves. 50 They shall compute with the purchaser the total from the year when they sold themselves to the alien until the jubilee year; the price of the sale shall be applied to the number of years: the time they were with the owner shall be rated as the time of a hired laborer. 51 If many years remain, they shall pay for their redemption in proportion to the purchase price; 52 and if few years remain until the jubilee year, they shall compute thus: according to the years involved they shall make payment for their redemption.

Again, there is no slavery and people are bound until redeemed or based on the number of harvests between their sale and the next jubilee. It is leased labor.

The jubilee prevented people from being permanently alienated from their land or labor, (the means of economic production in ancient societies). It did not curtail or redistribute the amassed herds, urban real estate, gold, or other measures of wealth. It ensured that everyone had an ownership-stewardship stake in God’s unfolding plans. The sabbath and jubilee observances also demonstrated acknowledgement of God as the source of their wealth by trusting in him for the years that land lie fallow.

In short, we see people living in a covenantal relationship, where abundance is shared with the poor, where each family has an ownership stake in God’s unfolding plan through private ownership of property, and God as the ultimate provider of all their wealth is acknowledged. There is simplicity. There is singleness of focus upon God and what he has provided.

But what about the prophets? Did they not regularly call for redistribution and condemn wealth?

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Living Simply in Abundance (6)

We have seen in previous posts that communal abundance is a characteristic of the larger vision of shalom presented in the Bible. It is part of what a redeemed society looks like. We’ve also reviewed the extraordinary changes that have led to astronomical increases in economic abundance over the last three hundred years, presenting us for the first time with the possibility of material abundance shared on a worldwide basis. What does all this mean for our Christian discipleship? What response does this call forth from us? I suggest it calls forth from us the same response God has always called forth from us: Simplicity.

Unfortunately, simplicity has become synonymous with living a scaled down material lifestyle. It is seen as a response to the idolatry of materialism, the effort to find meaning and happiness through our relationship to our possessions. But simplicity, as understood here, can become every bit as idolatrous. Inordinate focus (and often pride) is placed on ascetic standards of living. Recently this idea of simplicity has become wedded to a populist worldview that foresees an imminent apocalypse from pollution and exhaustion of natural resources. Material restraint is an exercise of personal piety in an effort to save the world from the Beast of material abundance that is ushering in the apocalypse. Conspicuous consumption is traded for conspicuous non-consumption. Both are actually expressions of materialism.

Several years ago Richard Foster wrote a book called Freedom of Simplicity. Contrary to the ascetic approach to simplicity, Foster shows that simplicity is best understood as singleness of focus. When our focus is singularly upon God, other priorities in our lives fall into their proper order. Simplicity requires us to enter into the spiritual disciplines, liturgies, and daily practices that keep our singleness of focus on God as he deepens our relationship with him. Undo focus on either the acquisition or the denial of material goods takes us away from God. I believe this singularity of focus on God is at the core of the gospel, not a “health and wealth” prosperity gospel, nor a material minimalism.

What does the Bible, and in particular Jesus, have to say?

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Living Simply in Abundance (5)

The biblical narrative was revealed into specific historical-cultural contexts. If we go back into the world of the Old Testament we find a distinctly agricultural society. Unlike our Enlightenment/Modernist influenced culture, “rights” did not begin with the individual or with the state. The emphasis was on relatedness. God owned all that is and humanity was made stewards of his world. God was responsible for the people’s prosperity. (Deut. 8:17-18)

Land was divided among all the people and via the provisions of the Jubilee Code, no one was to be permanently alienated from there land. There as no strong central governmental arrangement but neither were individuals viewed as free agents unencumbered by obligations and responsibilities to others. The family and the clan were the primary loci for addressing economic issues and resolving disputes. Family members were responsible for each other. The larger community’s involvement in the lives of families and individuals was circumscribed. Private property is assumed in the Old Testament law but community provision for the poor (ex. not harvesting to the edges of the field or regular offerings) were also woven into the fabric of life.

Economic abundance in this context was usually in terms of agricultural excess. While there were certainly differences in wealth status, most folks would have lived fairly similar lives by our standards, assuming the Jubilee laws about not permanently alienating people from their land had been followed (which we have no evidence they ever were.) The Jubilee was not wealth redistribution but rather a lease agreement where an owner could lease out his land for a price equal to the amount of crops between the date of an agreement and the next Jubilee. The lease expired at the Jubilee and land reverted back to the owner. This seems to indicate, among other things, that God values each of us serving him in a stewardship capacity.

Jesus was also speaking into a context very different from our own. The Mosaic law concerning economic issues had to contend with the cultural realities of the Greco-Roman world. The following held true in Jesus day concerning economic matters:

• Wealth consisted primarily of land, a very fixed quantity.
• Status mobility between social stratum in society was extremely limited.
• Households were businesses producing most of what they consumed.
• The only sources of significant power were human beings aided by animals.

Instead of agricultural land being widely distributed throughout society, by Jesus day large land holders tended to dominate. Society was vertically (hierarchically) oriented with intricate delineations in status. The patronage system dominated. Patrons had responsibility to provide for clients (some of whom were lesser patrons with their own clients) and clients were beholden to patrons (and the patron’s patron.)

This pattern of relationships tended to prevail in the West up until about the seventeenth century. The aristocracy, clergy, military men, guilds, and serfs were highly stratified within in a tight web of relationships that allowed for little change in status but also legitimized the existence of each status, according certain rights and obligations to each group (not the least of which was the right to food and shelter.)

By contrast, what we have seen in the West is a flattening of the status structure. We are inclined to view each other as equals who differ only according to merit, not ascribed status. Economic interaction has been removed from a rigid covenant between an elaborate array of life stations and has become a contractual arrangement between free agents. This has left individuals without the security of a patron who watches over their lives but it has also given people freedom to move up (or down) in status based on the consequences of their own choices.

But possibly even more profound is the idea of economic growth. It is hard for twenty-first century westerners to appreciate just how utterly our foreign our idea of saving and investing according to weighed risks is to the ancient mind. Sociologist Anthony Giddens points out that until about the early Middle Ages, the very idea of risk, as we know it, did not exist. If I set out on a journey and trouble befalls me, then that is just the way the fates or the gods ordained it. Or maybe some evil sorcerer intervened. In any case, the future can not be anticipated or controlled.

However, with the rise of reason in Europe during the Middle Ages came the idea that certain actions lead to certain consequences which can be assigned probabilities. God is in control, not the fates, the gods, or sorcerers. God has organized the world in an orderly and predictable fashion and because of that we can evaluate the risk of one alternative versus another. This way of thinking emerged as Europe began to undertake ever more complex and dangerous ocean exploration that required large amounts of funds to be invested. In the process, the very concept of risk was discovered.

This calculation of risk, combined with emerging awareness of the benefits of specialized of labor and the importance of trade set the stage for a total reorientation in thinking about our material existence. The advent of steam and combustion power in the late eighteenth century initiated a revolution, the Industrial Revolution to be precise.

This raises a host of difficult issues for Christians, most of which go beyond the scope of this short series. Few would question that lifting of material living standards to levels beyond mere subsistence for entire populations is a good thing, yet Western society has often erred in making improvement of material living standards the measure of all things. Christian ethics and economics have to wrestle with this idolatry.

For our purposes, I merely wish to point out what an alien world we live in compared to the ancient world of the Bible. Land ownership and agriculture is no longer the central factor in wealth. Capital and prudent of investment of capital is now at the heart of wealth. The zero-sum game perception is now one of an expanding pie created through specializing labor, trade, and technological applications. Covenants based on patronage or feudalism no longer apply. While we have strata there is unimaginable fluidity of movement up and down, even with the very highest and lowest strata. That means individuals and families are more vulnerable but with unimaginable opportunities compared to ancient society.

The most egalitarian of ancient societies were limited to thinking only in terms of making sure everyone had a subsistence level existence plus a little beyond. The developments of the last three centuries suggest it is possible to create a widespread abundance beyond the wildest dreams of the ancients but it is accomplished by economic arrangements that are foreign to the biblical contexts. It is important to acknowledge this challenge and not overlook the contextual divergence as wrestle with biblical teaching.

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Living Simply in Abundance (4)

How do we use wealth? There are three ways we use our wealth:

1. Consume to satisfy personal needs, wants, and desires. Reasonable personal consumption is not limited to basic subsistence living. God did not create us as cattle needing only food, water, and shelter. We are creative image-bearers of God. We were meant for stewardship of resources. As we have discussed already, human flourishing is about more than subsistence.
2. Invest in productive enterprises (which might include placing funds on deposit at a lending institution, purchasing debt instruments, purchasing equity shares in businesses, starting your own business, or by owning appreciating assets.) Investment is critical for at least two major reasons. First, at a personal level, it helps to provide for us in our economic down times and limits the chances that we will need to draw from other’s resources to support us. Second, at a societal level, it builds the amount of societal wealth for investment in business enterprises, fueling the creation of jobs and economic growth.
3. Distribute resources to others. We need to distribute a portion of our resources, if for no other reason than to act as a restraint on our own covetousness and delusions of self-reliance. I don’t think that tithing is taught in the New Testament but I do think that a tithe (as a minimum) is one contemporary way to live out Sabbath in our lives. It frees us from relying on our toil to trust God. Giving is a way we celebrate and remember God’s provision for us.

Our challenge is to find the balance between these three uses of wealth. To think about this let’s imagine a woman named Sally Worker at age 22. We have foreknowledge that Sally can be earning $200,000 a year by age 42 if she works to her maximum economic potential. We fast forward twenty years. Here are three possible scenarios (among countless possibilities) of how Sally’s life unfolds.

1) Sally lives well beyond her means. She is making $200,000 but her debts are greater than her assets. She has saved nothing and given nothing over her lifetime. She has no wealth.

2) Sally is making $200,000 and living within her means. Through saving 10% of what she earns and investing it, she has amassed a portfolio of $1,500,000. She has given nothing away.

3) Sally opts to live a relatively simple sustainable lifestyle. Because of this, she has made career decisions that have resulted in her making $25,000 a year. She has lived at just above the poverty level, saving 10% and giving all she can afford to help the poor. She has an investment portfolio of $75,000.

Now extrapolate each of these out as the average behavior for society (for ease I’ll ignore the tax implications.)

First scenario - While there would be plenty of consumption going on, production would collapse. With no one saving or investing there would be no capital for businesses to draw on for production. The poor would receive nothing. Actually, the economy would have collapsed long before Sally’s 42nd birthday.

Second scenario - There would be significant consumption stimulating economic demand and substantial capital would be created through saving and investment. But anyone who falls into hard times is out of luck. There would be few, if any, civic and volunteer organizations. It would be a cold heartless “survival of the fittest” world. It would be a dark place in which to live.

Third scenario - There would be much less business demand because of earning only 1/8 of what could have been otherwise earned. Capital to operate businesses would be magnitudes less ($75,000 versus $1.5 million) but, of course, so would demand. The poor would end up with a little more resources to consume but overall consumption (which means revenue for business) would be magnitudes lower. Job creation and earnings would be far less.

How about a fourth scenario?:

4) Sally chooses not to orient her life to get her maximum earning potential. Other values affect her decisions. She is now making $150,000 a year. She is saving 15% and now has a portfolio worth $1,500,000. She has given away 15% of what she makes, helping out others in need and creating opportunities for those who have not yet made it into the abundance she now lives. She is living on $105,000 a year (remember, no taxes) net her savings and distributions. (Imagine if she invested or gave more.)

What is the impact of the fourth scenario relative to the other three?

• Consumption in #4 will create a more robust demand for goods and services than #3 through Sally’s consumption, but less so than with #1 or #2.
• Sally’s savings in #4 far exceed #3 and #1, and she invests $2,250 more annually than in #2.
• Meanwhile, scenario #4 generates more than any of the other three to be given to the poor, even though possibly a higher percentage of income is distributed in scenario #3.

Choosing to make far less than one’s potential earnings (like #3) can come from any of a number of valid reasons. Whether someone chooses to make a modest income, or a modest income is the best one can earn, does not make them a lesser contributor to society (there are other contributions to society besides economic ones.) My point is that from a purely economic perspective it is not true that earning and consuming less necessarily creates greater economic benefit for the poor.

The problem is that we too often look at the problem only through the lens of consumption and distribution. We make up for someone’s need over there by doing with less over here. My abundance is reciprocal to someone else’s need. Production and capital (our investments) are missing from the equation, yet that is the key ingredient to growing a prosperous economic eco-system. Destroying capital through massive redistribution schemes and failing to aid in capital formation for recipients is a disaster for everyone. We need:

1. An appropriate level of consumption that creates human flourishing.
2. An appropriate level of investment that creates and preserves capital for economic enterprise.
3. An appropriate level of willful distribution that frees from covetousness and brings others into abundance.

The understanding of where wealth comes from (previous post) and how the uses of wealth interrelate (this post) is something that we have learned in just the last few centuries. What does this mean as we look back to the ancient biblical context?

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Living Simply in Abundance (3)

Where does economic wealth and abundance come from? I think there are two primary sources: Production and trade.

Production is quite obvious to most folks. The earth furnishes us with an abundance of raw materials but through human labor, the resources are transformed into something useful. The most ancient form of wealth creation goes back to cultivating and herding. Learning how to cultivate crops and breed animals led to greater quantities of food. Eventually there was an excess over the population’s needs. This freed some of the population to pursue cultic religious rituals, organize armies, create art and music, to become artisans, and to build cities. Even so, agriculture was the foundation of societal wealth and agriculture requires land. Therefore, throughout most of recorded history, land has been the primary measure of wealth.

In the ancient world, if you wanted more wealth, then you had to annex more land. That generally meant taking it from someone else. Land is a fixed quantity. It is a zero-sum game. If we are unequal in our distribution of wealth, then my surplus matches your deficit. Certainly the Greeks, the Romans, and other ancient empires engaged in trade but that trade was limited to a slim minority at the top of the social pyramid. Wealth was considered illegitimate in the Greco-Roman world unless it was amassed through agriculture.

About 300 years age humanity stumbled upon the idea of labor specialization combined with trade; a tipping point if you will. This idea was not invented by Adam Smith. He just observed what was already happening and described it well.

Awhile back I heard Dr. Jay Richards use his example of “The Trading Game.” Richards describes his experience playing the game in the sixth grade. Each student was randomly distributed an item of approximately the same economic value (About $1). Each student was instructed to rate how much they valued what they had received from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest value. Richards received Barbie trading cards, which he ranked as a 1. Then the students were placed in groups of five and allowed to trade with each other. Richards found a girl with a paddle-ball and they traded to each other’s satisfaction. The students recorded their values again. Finally, they were allowed to trade with anyone else in the room. When the trading was finished, the students wrote down the value of the item now in their possession.

If you added up the students’ ratings at the start of the game and compared them to the sum of the students’ ratings at the end of the first trade, you would find that the sum for the class was higher than it was at the beginning. The sum would be higher still after the second round of trade. Furthermore, no one would have an item of lesser value at the end of the game than the one they started with. There were rules to these exchanges. There was no theft or intimidation allowed so there was no way to go lower than the value of the starting item. Often in these games, everyone’s value goes at least a little higher. “Societal wealth” is expanded purely through trade.

Specialization of labor accelerated the importance of wealth generated through in trade in a couple ways. First, specialization led to improved product quality. Second, it led to much higher productivity by any given worker, lowering the price of goods. High quality and low price in one area fueled a cycle of others specializing labor in their industries, thus driving productivity higher and prices lower. Trade became evermore profitable because it became so much cheaper to exchange with others than to produce everything yourself. Of course, what sent this process into the stratosphere of productivity was the advent of combustion powered machines. They expanded per capita productivity exponentially. The infrastructure and transportation innovations this made possible (and later information technologies) expanded the importance of trade by even greater magnitudes.

To give some sense of the magnitude of change, economist Brad DeLong estimates that the average worldwide per capita income in real dollars rose from $90 in 12,000 BCE to $180 in 1750 CE. Between 1750 and 2000, per capita income rose from $180 to $6,600. This was during a time when the world population grew from less than one billion to more than six billion. The percentage of the world population estimated to be living on less than $1 per day was 84% in 1820, but it is now between 15-20% and falling.

Economics is no longer a zero-sum game. Land in fixed quantities is no longer the driving issue. Worldwide abundance beyond the wildest dreams of the ancients’ is now possible. Many fret over global economic growth, worrying that we will exhaust global resources. However, commodity prices have been declining steadily from 1862 (when reliable records were first kept) to the present and economists see no end to the decline in sight. Declining prices means the supply is sufficient for the foreseeable future. Recycling and renewable resources should eventually make global abundance permanently sustainable.

We need to think of economics more in the sense that we think of relationships. I see someone who is alone and overlooked. I have an abundance of friendships and social networks. What is my response? Feel guilty about my abundance and then try to distribute my friends to the lonely so that I live only a bare level of relational subsistence? No. I extend hospitality. I invite the lonely person into my network of relational exchange where he comes into abundance. My wealth of relationships increases as well. Yet when it comes to economic wealth we often default to zero-sum thinking, believing that if we live on just enough to survive and give away the rest we are doing God’s will. We end up viewing the poor purely as units of consumption rather than seeing them as people called into abundance and relationship who can increase the abundance of others through production and exchange.

Next we will look at the three primary ways we use wealth and how they interrelate.

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Living Simply in Abundance (2)

As we leap into this discussion, I think we need to ask what wealth is? What is the role of wealth and abundance in the biblical narrative?

I tend to think of wealth as both abundance beyond what is needed for basic subsistence and as anything we possess that can be used for economic exchange. (Do you agree? How else might we describe it?) Community-wide wealth and abundance is the normal condition of the created order but it has been corrupted by human rebellion.

According to the biblical narrative, God places the first couple in the garden and gives them a mission. Fill the earth with his eikons and have dominion over the earth as co-creative stewards with God, bringing creation to its fullness. Human rebellion has frustrated that mission. God seeks restoration of shalom through at-one-ment in Christ. We are restored in relationship to God, to each other, within ourselves, and with nature. That restoration will be completed only at the last day.

The narrative gives us important insights about wealth and abundance. The biblical story begins in a garden and ends in an opulent garden-city. Cities were the ancient world’s symbol for human community, commerce, government and art. In the end, God redeems not only human beings but their contributions to the world. Abraham was given great wealth as a sign of God’s covenant. The Pentateuch refers repeatedly to entering “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Passages like Deut. 8:6-10 speak of the abundance Israel will have if they keep God’s covenant. There will be such abundance that the entire nation can rest from toil every seven years to celebrate Sabbath with God. Isaiah 25 features the great lavish eschatological banquet, which becomes a key theme of Jesus teaching about the end of time. The description of the New Jerusalem is one of opulence.

Jesus also uses the idea of his people as the oikonomos, the household manager, the one who manages the estate in the householder’s absence. It is the word from which we get “economics.” God is the owner of all that is but we are the household managers working the estate and bringing to fruition according to God’s purposes. God brings about wealth but we are participants with God in the process.

Human beings were not made for bare subsistence. God did not create us as cattle needing only food, water, and shelter. We are creative image-bearers of God. We were meant for stewardship of resources. Certainly our employment is one way exhibit these qualities but resources beyond subsistence make it possible for us to create, recreate, and celebrate in other ways. These resources may be put toward learning for learning’s sake, for development of recreational skills, for traveling and experiencing new places, for offering hospitality, or for the enjoyment of creating and maintaining a well appointed home, to name just a few. God takes great delight in seeing the unique package of proclivities and passions he has developed in us evidenced. It gives glory to God. Abundance allows that to happen.

Having said all this I feel compelled to make an explicit distinction. What I have just described is not a “name-it-and-claim-it” wealth and prosperity gospel where we manipulate God into providing us with goodies. The prosperity in the Bible is a broadly shared communal wealth that comes from a social eco-system of covenantal relationships. It is part of the biblical vision of shalom. I just want to be clear here.

Now I’ve made my case that mere subsistence is not the biblical vision,we are still left with the dilemma that some people live in abundance while many do not. We will come to that issue but first I want to ask from where does wealth come?

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Living Simply in Abundance (1)

A topic I’ve wanted to explore at this blog for sometime is the idea of living simply. I expected I would do that next month. Plans change. This weekend I got into a discussion at Jesus Creed about wealth and poverty that went straight to these issues. It is the first time I’ve tried to articulate some thinking I’ve been giving to the subject and since my mind is already with this topic I think I will just stumble my way through it here. To begin the discussion:

Two moral stances regarding wealth:

A) I’m responsible for no one else. What I earn is mine and no one else has any claim on my wealth.

B) I’m entitled only to the minimal amount resources that sustain my existence. As long as there is one person elsewhere on the face of the planet without minimal resources my use beyond the minimal makes me a murderer.

I presume as Christians we do not embrace A. What is the justification for not embracing B? Why should we own and use anything beyond our basic subsistence needs, much less live at even the lifestyle levels of the poor in the United States?

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