The Good of Affluence
In a year of Enron, Worldcom and other corporate scandals, a new book by Calvin professor John Schneider on Christianity and wealth, called The Good of Affluence: Seeking God in a Culture of Wealth, is timely.
But as the title suggests, his approach is provocative, to say the least.
"The focus of most Christian theologians who write about modern capitalism and wealth is quite negative," says Schneider. "So some people raise eyebrows when they see that I describe affluence as something basically good."
Schneider says he used to have a negative view of wealth, something he believes is "part of the standard Christian academic culture." But over the years he has become convinced that Christian intellectuals generally misunderstand both the economics of wealth in capitalism and the place that material affluence has in the biblical story.
That misunderstanding, he says, is harmful.
"With few exceptions," he says, "the educational leaders of the church are failing to give the right kind of direction to the people who desperately need it most-leaders in business, corporations and the professions."
Enron and other scandals don't help matters.
"There is a kind of knee-jerk tendency," he says, "to assume that the abuses that occur in capitalism are inevitable and system wide and that the entire way of life is about selfishness, exploitation and greed."
Instead, he says, the way wealth occurs in advanced societies is by people creating it, not robbing it from others.
So what about Enron?
"These guys are criminals, no doubt," he says, "and they should be punished under the law. But the beauty of a generally free system is that the markets will get their revenge. Capitalism is a system that can only work where trust exists, and when businesspeople lose trust, they usually lose their business. Contrary to what many people assume the corporate character of modern capitalism almost forces people to behave better than they otherwise would."
Schneider does not claim that capitalism is a Christian system, but only that Christians should not buy into the standard party line of criticism on the inherent evil of capitalism. Christians, he says, need a constructive vision of what it means to live in conditions of affluence and at the same time be a faithful Christian. If, he says, there is no such vision then there is no way to be a Christian and a modern businessperson with integrity and separation from the culture is the only option.
The Old Testament, Schneider says, gives an integrated teaching on the nature and proper role of material affluence among God's people. The condition of material affluence, he concludes, is not just good in the Old Testament, it is presented as part of the order of creation, as essential to the way God in the most primary sense wants things to be for people. But second, he concludes, rich and powerful people have to understand that the source of their wealth is God and that it only has real meaning when they look to God as a model for how to use power To be rich in the right way, people must represent the God of creation, delight and liberation. What made the ruling classes of Israel evil, according to the prophets, was not that they enjoyed wealth but that they did so in ways that destroyed and oppressed the very people they were supposed to protect from those things.
"I assume," he says, "that Amos and Jeremiah would not be very happy with Ken Lay."
Perhaps the most controversial section of the book is Schneider's treatment of the life and teachings of Jesus. Schneider is convinced that Jesus recast the divine vision of affluence, and remade it in a very radical way for Judaism, but that he also reaffirmed it in ways that almost everyone seems to miss. Schneider argues that Jesus did not grow up in literal poverty, that some of his disciples were relatively well off and that as a group during his ministry they did not adopt a lifestyle of material poverty.
Jesus' life, says Schneider, was marked by celebration and enough material delight to make his enemies think of him as a drunkard and a glutton.
"Jesus," he says, "was the expected 'Christ of delight.' When he opposed the rich people of his day he did not do so by condemning affluence as such but by 'eating and drinking' in a godly way. Jesus gave rich people a vision for integrating affluence into a faithful Christian life."
Schneider hopes his book will get people thinking theologically and in fresh terms about affluence.
"My conclusion is that there are no good reasons for believing that the Christian life cannot be expressed in and through active involvement in the culture of capitalism," he says, "and that the Bible gives us the resources we need for doing so."