Virtues and the Economy

I wrote not long ago about how a change in values in 18th-century Britain (as a result of a million people coming to Christ) affected their economy. In Indivisible, James Robison and Jay Richards also explore how the Christian worldview intersects with economics.

In order to succeed in a free market (where the rule of law is enforced), you must find a way to serve others—to provide them with something they value enough to purchase from you. This is true, regardless of your reasons for trying to make money, whether noble or not-so-noble. At the very bottom of it all, you must serve others in order to be successful and make money in a free market. In this way, all motivations are channeled in a direction that is outwardly focused on others’ needs, and people are served.

But as Robison and Richards point out, in order to successfully make a living serving in this way, certain virtues are required and rewarded:

Free enterprise, or entrepreneurial capitalism, requires a whole host of virtues. Before entrepreneurs can invest capital, for instance, they must first accumulate it. So unlike gluttons, entrepreneurs must save rather than consume much of their wealth. Unlike misers, they risk rather than hoard what they have saved. Unlike the self-centered, they anticipate the needs of others. Unlike the impulsive, they make prudent choices. Unlike the robot, they freely discover new ways of creating and combining resources. Unlike cynics, they trust their neighbors, their partners, their culture, their employees…. This cluster of virtues is the essence of what Rev. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute calls the "entrepreneurial vocation." Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, but everyone can benefit in a society where entrepreneurs are free to pursue their calling.

Robison and Richards explain how our ability to create wealth in this way—to actually make the size of the wealth pie increase (not just increase one slice at the expense of others)—reflects the truth of the Christian worldview:

New wealth comes not from matter alone, but from how we represent, inform, and transform matter—from mind. This most profound truth of economics is just what Christians should expect, since we know that each of us is created in the image of God…. At the base of the free enterprise system is not greed or consumption, which are everywhere, but intuition, imagination, and creation.

The creation of new wealth actually argues against materialism. The creative minds of human beings, not physical material, are the greatest resource available to us.

Richards wrote a clear and compelling book, Money, Greed, and God, that explores these ideas in more depth, and I recommend it, particularly if these ideas are new to you and/or you disagree with what you’ve read here. Give that book a try, and see what you think.

Comments

[Daron]

Rich people buy themselves out of every trial they can afford.

So do poor people, which is to say, none of the important ones. Jesus guarantees us tribulation, as you say, and nobody is going to make Him a liar by flashing their bank roll.

If you love others as your own self, you cannot be rich.

Yes you can.

You need to take another look at the Sermon on the Mount and Scripture's low estimation of the rich.

You need to study to prove yourself approved if you are going to keep preaching. You have avoided tons of Scripture that shows that God does actually love entrepreneurs and rich men. Jesus also made a memorial of the love of the prodigal son's rich father in His parable. And of the wealthy Samaritan who bound up his neighbor's wounds and paid for his care. Jesus pointed out clearly that wealthy people can be full of love for others and can be their true neighbors - unlike their judgmental Pharisaical counterparts.

[dave]

If you balance James's and others condemnations of the rich, along with the Disciple's amazement that it actually is possible for the rich to go to Heaven, only after great difficulty, why would you seek to promote this position, if not rich yourself? Why would you seek to defend a position that Christ used as an evil contrast to glorify the Widow giving her last two mites????
When is says Christ was buried among the rich, that was not meant to honor your entrepreneurs.

I'm surprised you didn't bring up Job. He's your perfect proof text, but that would hardly happen today to the over insured and armed to the teeth rich people you seek to replace Christ's examples of piety with.

Remember, in Scripture it is the poor that have the Gospel preached to them....

[Daron]

it actually is possible for the rich to go to Heaven, only after great difficulty,

It is with great difficulty that anyone goes to Heaven. It was by the ultimate loving sacrifice and in each case an act of Grace - for rich ad poor alike.

why would you seek to promote this position, if not rich yourself?

Promote what position? That we should deal with actual Scripture and theological truth rather than slick sayings and class warfare? If you are asking if I am rich, you have to be joking. I have spent a good portion of my adult life below the poverty line, drive a 9 year old neon (my best car ever) rent about 300 sq ft of living space and last year made less than an unemployed person on assistance in my country. So yeah, I'm rich. I am the son of the King and have Jesus in my heart. I also have more than most of the people on this planet, so, like you, I am rich in that sense as well.

Why would you seek to defend a position that Christ used as an evil contrast to glorify the Widow giving her last two mites????

Jesus did not use the widow to show that the rich are evil - eo matter how many question marks you can find on your keyboard.

I'm surprised you didn't bring up Job.

I did. I'm not surprised you failed to read it. You have a lot of reading to do. Job had his insurance: land, livestock, servant, etc. God can take it all away.

When God takes away your hedge your insurance doesn't mean a thing.

Remember, in Scripture it is the poor that have the Gospel preached to them....

Everyone has it preached to them ... " For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” In that passage, Jesus went to Zacchaeus' house for dinner and pronounced him saved. Zacchaeus, a very rich man, voluntarily gave only half of what was in his possession to the poor and yet was saved.

[Daron]

To help you in your remembering:

Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, David, Hezekiah, and Josiah were all godly and we are specifically told of their wealth. In the New Testament we have Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus and his sisters, Jesus' women patrons and the follower who let Jesus use his upper room on Passover as examples.
His own Disciples were often entrepreneurs with their own businesses.

Posted by: Daron | April 24, 2012 at 09:41 PM

[dave]

"Don't Lay up treasures on earth" Jesus paraphrased.

[Daron]

""

but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
....
You cannot serve God and money

....
Judge not, that you be not judged.
...
Be not like the hypocrites. """

Jesus continuing and explaining.

[Daron]

The danger of ignoring meaning and context:
"'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:26
"""

[dave]

If Jesus tells you not to do something and you do it anyway, are you sinning?

Lay not up treasure = it is sinful to be rich, albeit you are still atoned for, you just won't enter into the fullness of God.

[Marie]

So much prejudice Dave. And so much self-righteous self-congratulation and a strange inability to read the Bible in context. Your desire for a minimalist giving lifestyle (one I actually admire) would be very beautiful if it weren't for all the bitterness and lack of humbleness and your frankly naive understanding of economics and poor exegesis. Answer me if you understand what is required for employment opportunities in a post-industrial society and how this compares with the society of Biblical times. Can you read the Bible without your class orientated low context mindset?

Several posts back you admitted you've never been unemployed and are in good health. So you are rich and frankly blessed as you've never struggled with unemployment and health issues. Several times it has been pointed out that entrepreneurship creates jobs. Jobs relieve economic pressure and allow those who are poverty stricken to work and attain a decent standard of living. What other system do you propose? Communism, where there are no differences in wealth between individuals? A working class and a welfare class?

I would strongly suggest you read that link I posted that is a Christian perspective on capitalism.

Here's another example of improper exegesis--"it is sinful to be rich". Really. Aside from the fact that is hypocritical (a rich man says "it is sinful to be rich"), explain all the righteous rich in the Bible? Your method of interpretation seems to be taking verses out of context or taking directives given to individuals and applying them universally. And if I had to guess, I would say your doing this because you don't understand that your reading a high-context document with a low-context approach. To apply your method of interpretation to Luke 14:26, I would have to conclude that I need to hate in the modern sense my family and myself. Then I would have to somehow reconcile that with other verses saying to love your neighbor as yourself. Hmm, okay, I am to hate myself, I am to love myself, that is clearly a contradiction. But, embracing cognitive dissonance, I decide to roll with it. Now hatred in the modern sense is "intense dislike or extreme aversion or hostility". So I make sure to be as hostile and angry towards my family as I can be, showing as much hatred and vitriol as I can. My fellow Christians denounce my un-Christlike behaviour but I merely point out that I am simply doing "EXACTLY" what the Bible says. It doesn't matter what verses they pull out or how they explain ancient Hebrew rhetorical styles, I am right and they are wrong.

[Daron]

If Jesus tells you not to do something and you do it anyway, are you sinning?

Lay not up treasure = it is sinful to be rich, albeit you are still atoned for, you just won't enter into the fullness of God. Hate your father and mother = it is sinful to love them.
Right?

[Daron]

John Piper on the prosperity "gospel".
"And I want the cruel, inhumane, unbiblical, Satanic prosperity gospel to go away, forever. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!"
http://theworksofgod.com/2012/04/29/let-us-stand-like-this-man/

[Daron]

How did I miss this ... ?
John 6:27

Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

Said dave:

Lay not up treasure = it is sinful to be rich, albeit you are still atoned for, you just won't enter into the fullness of God.

So then it is also sinful to eat.
Or to earn food or food money, at the least.