Christianity and Capitalism

I have been away from this blog for quite a while. There is a lot going on. Our church has found a new pastor, a woman who came to Christ fairly late in life like me. She has five grown children so has plenty of life experience to bring to the mission. More importantly, she is faithful to the truth of scripture and gives a terrific sermon.  I could not be more enthusiastic about her and our congregation voted unanimously to install her last Sunday.

On the other hand the broader denomination (PCUSA) seems to get ever more detached from Scripture. It seems to be moving toward allowing the ordination of gay pastors and removing fidelity and chastity as a standard for ordination at all. It seems to be moving to a new form of government that will allow the central body to dictate what each congregation should be doing, and the central body in Louisville, Kentucky is rapidly becoming a liberal lobbying organization, weighing in against Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin and threatening to boycott Indiana because the legislature is considering an Arizona-type immigration law.  Plus, its position in the Middle East is becoming ever more one-sided in favor of the Palestinians and hostile to Israel. It completely ignores the rocket attacks on civilians by Hamas and condemns the Israeli response.

I have also been absorbing a huge amount of information from a wide variety of sources and looking for a way to bring it together into a coherent theme. Let me try to do that here.

Steve Forbes kindly sent me a copy of his new book, “How Capitalism Will Save Us.” Of course I have come to realize that only Jesus can save us, so I take exception to the title, but still Forbes is on to something.  I would guess that most Christians see capitalism as an enemy, but with a very few exceptions (Michael Novak for one) religious people seem to have little understanding of economics.  Those of a liberal bent are more inclined to socialism as a means of achieving social justice. I will get to this later. But even evangelicals are hostile to capitalism for several reasons:

1. They see it as emphasizing materialism over spiritual values. They look at the products of capitalism as expressed by Hollywood and Madison Avenue and are appalled at how it exploits man’s basest instincts – lust, greed, envy – to maximize profits.
2. They are wary of any economic/political system that glorifies itself and controls the population on the backs of the church – “God is on our side.”  Certainly the Nazis did this with great success with the small exception of the confessing churches movement.

I understand these concerns, but they misunderstand the core values of capitalism.  More than anything else, capitalism is a way for individual humans to express themselves. Like all human endeavors it is subject to sin, but it also allows for great creativity and problem solving.

If Christians are called to feed the poor and reduce human suffering, capitalism is by far the best means for achieving those goals. It is also an unparalleled engine for human creativity.

We all admire artists and musicians who use their God-given gifts to create new works of art and music. I once heard that the proof that God exists can be made in one word – Mozart. But often overlooked is that people who start new businesses are driven by the exact same creative spirit. They begin with nothing more than a thought and turn it into a reality. The ability to do that is every bit as much a gift from God as the talent of a great composer.

Some people are “serial entrepreneurs.” They will start one business after another, driven not by a quest for profits, but by their creative impulse.  Very often, once the business is up and running, they will lose interest and turn it over to professional managers. Think of Steve Jobs.  He didn’t create the Ipod and Ipad and Iphone to get rich. He was plenty rich already. He created these things to satisfy a creative need, a compulsion. In the course of doing so he also made an enormous contribution to humanity, possibly including the ability of Middle Eastern youth to demand freedom in repressive cultures.

Now, as I wrote about in one of my blogs about “Girls Like Us,” the biography of Carol King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon, great musicians sometimes (often?) forget that their talents are gifts from God and get consumed with pride. The same thing happens too often with capitalists. But that is not due to the economic system, but to the fallen nature of man.

Which brings us to the next point – the vital importance of combining Christianity with capitalism.  Next time.