Is Christianity compatible with capitalism?
Tim Stephenson
- 19 minutes read - 4008 words8. Choose a key section of the biblical narrative (such as creation, Torah, or the teaching of Jesus or Paul), and explain in the light of it whether you think Christianity is compatible with capitalism or not.
Outline
Intro, what I’m going to tell you
Characteristics of Late Capitalism
Inequality between the haves and have nots
Distortions arising from the finance industry
Impacts and opportunities of climate change
Characteristics of God’s economy
Rebuttal of Christian Capitalism apologists
Conclusion, what I told you
Talk
I am surely not alone in receiving the advice to 'not discuss politics or religion' in polite company. But, really, what else is there that’s worth talking about? So tonight, for one night only, and without disrespect to present company, let’s dive in.
In a whistle-stop tour I will first look at the divine economy as revealed by Scripture, then at the nature of capitalism in our present society before comparing and contrasting.
The divine economy
When people think of God the economist, if indeed they do, I would suggest there are three things that come to mind. The weight attached to each is heavily influenced by personal experience so I will present them in chronological order.
In the Old Testament, under Moses' leadership, we have the concept of Jubilee, which I think is best identified with forgiving or writing-off debts.
In Jesus' ministry we see a strong focus on caring for the poor and outsiders
In Acts we see Jesus' followers living in close-knit communities and a degree of sharing that some have called 'proto-communism'
Jubilee
It’s worth stating that the very beginning summary of 'The Law' in Exodus 20 recognises property is and established and Godly concept by the prohibition of stealing or even coveting what belongs to others. The rules about Jubilee come in the finer details of 'The Law'. That is, the details covering all aspects of the way God told Moses the new people of Israel were to live after their escape from Egypt. The main texts are:
The key points are:
A fallow year for the land to recover every seventh year
A Jubilee year in the fiftieth year, that is after 7 cycles of 7 years. In this year:
each Israelite’s inheritance was to be returned to them, and
anyone impoverished—by whatever means—who consequently became a bonded servant to survive was to be released.
Deuteronomy is particularly interesting in this regard because it expressly states two extra details:
that the freed servant is to be provided for on their release, seed capital if you like to get them back on their feet, and
that if for whatever reason the servant prefers not to be freed, one might think of someone who is old or inform, them they may choose to remain as part of the household that took them in.
If the hard times are not so great then loans of money or food are expected to be provided.
Leviticus expressly prohibits profiting from such support, not merely profiteering, but profiting
In our parlance: zero percent interest on money loans and not-for-profit supermarkets.
Once again, Deuteronomy’s emphasis is different, both more flexible yet in some ways setting a higher bar, when it says Israel should not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted but willingly meet whatever need there is. Deuteronomy 15:7-8.
Finally, there is a clear separation of the rules for interacting with foreign nations or with non-believers within Israel and the rules that apply within the nation of believers.
This is the inheritance that was God’s blessing to the people when they entered Canaan. For each and every member of eleven tribes it was land, for the Levites, set aside to serve as priests, it was homes within the city. In both cases, God’s provision enabled everyone to earn a living. And a good living. This was the land flowing with milk and honey not scratching out a meagre existence on porridge! Equally though, it was earned, working more diligently than others surely provided a greater harvest from the land.
How does that change in the light of the New Testament?
But, I hear you say, that was a long time ago and very specific to the people of Israel, not least because on this side of Jesus life, death and resurrection we have grace not merely the law. Well, of course, that is true, but to quote another well known saying of Jesus is that 'I have not come to abolish the law… but to fulfil' Matthew 5:17
So what can we say about the Law in light of Jesus?
First and foremost we understand that what was true for the Israelites in the Old Testament is now extended to all people in the New. Jesus praised the faith of the Cannanite woman who boldly asked that non-Israelites like herself be shown grace as well with the hunble phrase that 'even dogs eat the crumbs from the masters table'. Matthew 15:25-28 Faced with the centurion’s faith that Jesus could heal his servant without even going near him, he declares that many 'from the east and the west' will join the patriarchs at the heavenly feast. Matthew 8:11 And of course he expressly instructs the disciples to go and make disciples of all nations at the end of Matthew’s gospel. Matthew 28:19 At the least, this must indicate that the rules for God’s nation are expanded to include more people and perhaps even universally.
Yet we cannot avoid the fact that some of the Old Testament Law is not continued in the New. Peter’s dream of all food being clean, Paul’s argument in Damascus and upheld by the apostles at the Council of Jerusalem that non-Hebrew believers did not need to be circumcised both confirm this.
A helpful test to apply, suggested by Longman Tremper III, is to distinguish moral law from civic law from case law. By this he means morality like 'have no other God than YAWH' and 'do not murder' are applicable for all people and all time. Civic law like travelling to Jerusalem three times a year for festivals does not applyany longer because as we have seen God’s people is no longer restricted to the twelve tribes of Israel. Case law is interesting. Longman cites a rule requiring the Israelites to place a fence around their roof. Now undberpining this is three thousand year old, Canaanite housing design. The roof would be flat and used as an additional room. In this setting a fence is eminently sensible whereas for us used to pitched roofs with no access it makes no sense at all. But, and this is what makes it interesting, underpining that case law is a duty of care that Longman suggests does translate to today. Perhaps it might mean that we should have fences around swimming pools to prevent toddlers accidentally falling in and drowning. Now, I don’t suppose too many of us have swimming pools to worry about this but I hope it makes the point.
So where does this leave property, endentured servitude, interest and Jubilee? One cannot avoid the fact that we do not have a nationally defined family inheritance that provided everyone the means to make a living as Israel did. But we do have property rights, loans of money and perhaps even more wage slavery than we’d like to admit. Let me leave you with that thought for a moment while I tackle our other topic of capitalism for a few minutes.
Capitalism
At its most fundamental, what is capitalism? Let’s say a bakery can sell a loaf of bread for £2. And let’s imagine that the ingredients cost 50p, the baker earns £14 an hour and divided across all the loaves she bakes lets say that works out to 75p per loaf. Add another 50p for a share of the electricity, rent on the shop and so forth.
So all in the loaf has cost £1.75. Who keeps the 25p profit?
Capitalism says that the person who had the capital to secure the lease on the shop, buy the oven, hire the baker etc.gets it. And to be honest witth you 25p a loaf for the stress of all that paperwork probably seems like a pretty poor deal when the baker showed up care-free at opening time and took away 75p.
In fact it’s rather lovely isn’t it? Do you have a picture of an artisan plying her trade day after day, probably in a lovely little town like Corsham, secure in the knowledge that people will always need bread and she can take pride in meeting their needs and in a job well done. This is the sort of picture that capitalists want you to have. But it is not the system that we live under in 21st century Britain.
That picture is a very static one, where everything stays the same. More or less. But capitalism is dynamic, it is this dynamism that its advocates praise as being so much more efficient than the stodgy, bureaucratic public sector. All discussion of capitalism traces its roots to the 'unseen hand' of the market identified in Adam Smith’s seminal work 'The wealth of Nations'. This unseen hand is continuously, and allegedly impartially, balancing numerous forces, principally supply and demand but also capital, labour, risk and reward to optimise the 'market'.
In the almost two hundred and fifty years since Adam Smith was writing capitalism has taken many forms. Although the foundations may be the same across all that time the structure above ground has been radically redeveloped. Today’s version has been portentously dubbed 'late stage' capitalism because it requires ever more extreme measures to keep it alive.
Because it’s both topical and provides a simple example of the financial trickery inherent in late stage capitalism let’s look at the state of privitised water utilities.
In the 1980s the government wanted to privitise many nationalised industries. When it was the turn of the water industry the government wrote off all the existing debts and even sweetened the deal with what it called a 'green dowry'. The ten new companies were given the best possible launch: debt-free.
On the 28 June this year we woke up to hear that just one of those companies—Thames Water—had racked up such debts that it was on the verge of collapse. What on earth happened to get from debt free to near bankruptsy?
Actually, nothing particularly unusual. Perhaps on a larger scale than elsewhere, but the same practices are routine in many industries.
You see, late stage capitalism has very little to do with our fictional baker producing goods and making a profit in doing so and everything to do with the financial engineering of leverage, securitisation and compound interest.
In fact our system is so broken that if someone tries to focus on the so called 'real economy' there are multiple ways in which the financal markets can force them back into line.
This is why we have spent so much of the last year talking about growth. Capitalism demands growth. Because capitalism demands interest payments. Debt can feed demand for a while, masking the problem but leverage ratchets the system up demanding more interest, which must be paid for by more growth. Round and round.
Conclusion
So to sum up:
The Old Testament provides:
an endowment for God’s people that they can live well off
it values prudence and hard work and is comfortable with those who make the effort having a better standard of living
it does not allow for any one part of society to exploit any other, in fact quite the opposite
it provides a safety net at all times and a periodic rest to prevent inequalities building up limitlessly.
The New Testament extends the people of Israel to include all believers and affirms the previous principles if anything strengthening them.
On the other hand, late stage capitalism has no such scruples. In fact, I believe it is quite fair to say that capitalism actively seeks to undermine any social fabric government might otherwise seek to reinforce.
So here we have two very different systems, both quite alien to our lived experience, what am I to make of this as a Christian?
It would be easy to become hopeless in this situation but we are called to be a people of hope, providing salt and light to the world around us. So here are three practical suggestions available to all of us in whatever economic situation we find ourselves:
Acknowledge scriptures like Psalm 37 that speaks of the wicked oppressing and 'towering like a cedar of Lebanon' as their schemes succeed (v35) 'Be still before the Lord, waiting patiently for him' (v7) because in a while the evil will 'vanish like smoke' (v20). We shouldn’t be happy about it but the Bible tells us this us to expect it — for now.
We can seek to live as God’s people in whatever workplace we find ourselves, no matter how hard-hearted or tight fisted.
It’s easy to think of health, education, social care as 'caring professions' but every workplace needs salt and light
We can work diligently, pulling our weight, but resisting pressure to get on by being workaholics
We can treat all our colleagues as human beings in the image of God—even the ones that really get under our skin
That type of thing…
I realise this could sound like a platitude—it’s not—I know how hard it can be to even find the opportunities to speak about faith at all in the offices I’ve worked.
Yet there are opportunities, especially when I pray for them, and people are watching even if they don’t say anything.
We can give generously to those in need.
Now I know that some people, more than usual, are really struggling in the current cost of living crisis. To those I would say that generous is not the same as large absolute amounts.
I encourage you, not just to give grudgingly to the latest tv, newspaper or school charity campaign but look at where you can intentionally choose to give and make a real difference.
So, I’m well and truly out of time but I hope I’ve given you some food for thought on the challenges posed by capitalism and how to live faithful to the scriptures within this system.
Let’s end in prayer:
Heavenly Father,
Help us to be a people showing your hope to all nations
Help us to acknowledge and use wisely all the things you’ve blessed us with, financial and otherwise,
Help us to stand against injustice wherever we encounter it and be a voice for the poor
Help us, daily, to look towards your ways and eagerily anticipate your coming in glory.
Amen
Commentary
Why you approched the talk the way you did;
In this talk I give the focus to the Law and particularly the rules for Jubilee. Although there was an increased awareness of Jubilee around the turn of the century, probably prompted by the 'debt forgiveness' campaign of Jubilee 2000, I think the Old Testament ideas are less frequently taught than that of the New Testament in this as in other areas. Personally, I long for a more equitable financial system that I see tantalising glimpses of in the OT.
In comparing this to capitalism, I have focused on the current incarnation of capitalism to manage the scope and since that is of most immediate importance. Although one might expect this to be far more relatable, I wanted to highlight that it too is a very alien world to most of us.
Finally, I was very aware that this could become a depressing and disempowering talk whereas I feel it should build up and encourage as advised by 1 Thessalonians 5. I sought to deliver this with the suggestions for practical response.
Why you reached the conclusions that you reached i.e. the underlying theology which shaped your perspective; - NB this is the most important and you should always look at this.
The heart of the Mosaic Law is of course the ten commandments in Exodus 20. I found it important to mention the support there for private property in view of the fact I was going on to criticise late stage capitalism. Abolition of private property being the central feature of the communist manifesto. [1]
By its central location and the number of words devoted to it, one may see the fourth (Sabbath) commandment as pivotal between matters of God (Exod. 20:1-7) and humanity (Exod. 20:12-18).
Edward J. Woods highlights the application of this commandment to the society envisaged by Deuteronomy 15 is an elaboration of Sabbath law in three distinct ways: footnote:[Edward Woods, Deuteronomy, (IVP, 2015), iii. The rhythms of life and Sabbath observance (14:22 – 16:17; cf. 5:12–15).https:
The 'release' of the land from growing crops is paralleled with the release of the poor from debt (vv1-6)
Where Leviticus calls for scrupulous accounting of the years until jubilee to set the price of a lease, Deuteronomy places the need first. The covenant relationship between Yaweh and Israel can leave no room for the neglect of those in need whatever the rules (vv7-12, particularly 9)
The release of indentured servants 'to their own family … and ancestral property' (Lev 25:41) is extended to providing them generous gifts reminiscent of the provision of Egyptian silver and gold when God rescued Israel from Egypt (vv12-18)
Each time the scope of the original law is expanded to cover humanitarian implications as well. I find this a very helpful bridge to the focus on heart-attitude over the letter of the Law that is found in Jesus' teaching (e.g. Matt 5:27-28, 43-45).
One problem with looking at the Old Testament is showing that any conclusions still have applicability under the new covenant. This meant drawing on the teachings of Jesus and the early church but space (and the title) did not permit to cover all of these areas. Therefore I ought only to validate the continued relevance of the arguments and have not looked at teaching about money such as the parables of the talents or minas, nor about the encounters with the ‘rich young ruler’ (Luke 18:18-30) or Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10, especially v8). PG Nelson [2] and Justin Welby [3] provide helpful interpretations of Jesus' teaching regarding money, but they had to be left out.
Alternative theological perspectives which you disagreed with.
Christians supportive of capitalism, such as Wayne Grudem, tend to focus on very simple models such as the one of the baker that I paraphrased in the talk. [4] In that form, capitalism is very compatible with Scripture, where effort, initiative and shared risk are rewarded. Furthermore, whilst those benefits are material, whether money or goods, they are also social in terms of community bonds and interdependence. However this is not at all the same as the instant and global flows of capital that currently dwarf the so-called 'real' economy where things are made and services performed for actual people.
Why you covered the points the you covered (and perhaps why you chose not to look at certain others);
For me the point that needs to be made is about the distortion of society resulting from the over-emphasis of the financial sector, not only in the UK, but throughout the global economy. Simon Glynn’s ‘The Economic Logic of Late Capitalism and the Inevitable Triumph of Socialism’, [5] provides ample explanation of this as the fundamental brokenness of our system from both economic and political perspectives. He clearly highlights the inherent instability of capitalism and its inevitable descent into financial engineering that remains alive and well even after the global financial crisis of 2008. Ultimately I decided that the audience and brevity did not allow even a glancing analysis of leverage, securitisation etc. that make up this system. Even the details of the Thames Water case study had to be dropped but I hope it does provide a contrasting illustration to portray the system in an approachable way.
I believe Glynn is too ready to overlook the oppressive and humanity-denying aspects of Chinese socialism and in clear need of a theological understanding of humanity. Kathryn Tanner seeks to fill this theological hole suggesting it is time for a ‘Protestant anti-work ethic’. [6] She defines this as breaking the link between work and well-being and the identification of self with productivity. In their place she emphasises dependence on God and interdependence of society. This is interesting at the level of individual and community but does not address the societal level in the way Torah and capitalism do.
The writings of Paul Mills [7] [8] [9] do provide a number of creative ways to seek to apply aspects of divine economy to the modern world. But, in the end, respecting my audience was not whitehall mandarins like Mills, I chose to take Tanner’s route, seeking to share my own attempts to live within the current boundaries of society.
Bibliography
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