Christians and Economics

The other day I was excited to come across an article in my Twitter feed entitled “Why Understanding Economics is So Important for Christians.” The author described it as a special calling. I was excited because it’s something I emphatically believe and it has driven me to pursue a Ph.D. toward that end.

The article starts with the line, “We all think economically, Christians included, whether or not we know it or not.” This much is absolutely true, and the crux of why we must understand what is driving our decisions. Sadly, I was quite disappointed by the rest of the post that applied market-driven economic principles like cost-benefit analysis and comparative advantage to Christian ministry. The article ends this way: “Just like any science (whether “social” or “hard” science), economics explores truths invented by God and profitable for advancing his kingdom.”

This article and its final statement reinforced something much deeper about why Christians should understand economics: the principles and logic of the market are not the same thing as the logic of God’s kingdom. The philosophers that developed the theories containing its logic claimed to be understanding humans as we truly are–to be discovering self-evident, natural principles about the world and how we relate to each other. But it’s just not true.

I won’t deny that there aren’t possible things to learn, or that we need to learn to be stewards of our resources—but we can’t be bound to logic that isn’t God’s and we need to be able to tell the difference.

Take Adam Smith’s now foundational discovery from The Wealth of Nations that humans have a natural propensity to “truck and barter.” What he observed to be the natural state of man was the product of a particular economy at a particular place in time, something that prominent historians have shown was never the case before that. His observations at that time, along with other related theories have been deployed for the purposes of politics, nationalism, and economics ever since then.

Now it’s simply the air we breathe.

So pervasive is the logic and practice of capitalism that philosopher Charles Taylor describes it as the defining social construct of society. It is no longer merely a system of managing resources but “now defines a way in which we are linked together” and as a result, “the most important purpose and agenda of society [is] economic collaboration.”

Theologian Harvey Cox deftly analyzed how the language of the markets as described in the news and throughout the business world, has taken on god-like characteristics including omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. He writes that “The Market is becoming more like the Yahweh of the Old Testament—not just one superior deity contending with others but the Supreme Deity, the only true God, whose reign must be universally accepted and who allows for no pretenders.”

The truth, rationality, and knowledge of The Market is supreme, natural, and self-evident to our modern sensibilities but it was created and propagated by humans, not by God.

Are my daily personal decisions and ministry decisions following the logic of God or the logic of The Market? In the Western world, and especially America, it’s hard to tell the difference unless we get below the surface, learn, and challenge ourselves.