We've begun, at church, to study Ched Myers' Sabbath Economics. It is a great little booklet (~70 pages) - in fact, it's the second time that we've studied it! - that walks you through what the Bible has to say on money matters.
I will probably make a few comments on our study here as we proceed through it. Myers' introduction begins by suggesting that "economic and social justice is woven into the warp and weft of the Bible. Pull this strand, and the fabric unravels."
He describes the consistent biblical themes on economics, "Sabbath Economics," and begins by saying that the Bible's views on economics can be summarized in three axioms:
1. The world as created by God is abundant, with enough for everyone - provided that human communities restrain their appetites and live within limits;
2. Disparities in wealth and power are not "natural" but the result of human sin, and must be mitigated within the community of faith through the regular practice of redistribution;
3. The prophetic message calls people to the practice of such redistribution, and is thus characterized as "good news" to the poor.
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And before anyone gets their knickers twisted, Myers has not said anything in the above about government redistribution of wealth. Just pointing to the reality that in the Sabbath Laws, in the Jubilee laws and in the example of the early church, a sharing and redistribution were all commonalities.
Thoughts?
24 comments:
I wouldn't say so. It's like those dual messages of war and peace in the Bible.
The Bible teaches that redistribution is the solution to disparity and want when greed and oppression are the causes of it.
But it also teaches that disparities in wealth and power are the result of laziness, sloth, gluttony, imprudence, and sorriness. The solution to this disparity is NOT redistribution as that would only make the people more lazy, imprudent, and sorry.
Disparities in wealth and power also come about when we have a class of people who do no real work and instead exist parasitically on the folk. These people LOVE this idea of redistribution because they have a finger in pie. That is, how does our Mr. Ched earn his living? In his bios one reads about "works with" this or that organizaion, or "works on" this or that cause for the past 25 years. But who pays him his salary?
If all such Mr Cheds would pontificate only half the time and get their hands dirty the other half, we'd have far less disparities in the world. And HE'D have a very different view about redistribution.
Eleutheros, since you don't really know how Myers lives, perhaps let's stick to the topic? (And for what it's worth, as I understand it, Myers lives in a way consistent with these teachings).
You are correct, then, that some disparities in wealth and power are resulting from sloth, gluttony and imprudence. The Bible spends a little time talking about those problems and even more time talking about the greed, cheating and oppression sources of disparity.
I'd suggest it would be wise to discourage all of these. I'm sure Myers would agree.
It may help, E, if you could describe further what you consider legitimate, sustainable jobs and what isn't.
For instance, we can be pretty sure that farming is okay with you. Can we assume that those who build computers are doing legitimate work? How about those who write and implement software to run the computer programs? How about those who provide technical support for those programs?
Are these examples of legitimate work?
(Dan, this post may appear twice as did the first one, your blog is routinely returning an error on comments)
Dan, Meyers' means of supporting himself is very germane to the question. Unless someone has a visible means of support and is in the professional pontificator's game, it is a fair posit that they are engaged in parasitism and are sorely contributing to the very conditions they address.
You have repeatedly asked for a list of acceptable "right" "professions" as I have consistently asked of you for a set of criteria whereby we judged which parts of the Bible to follow and which to discard. Neither of us is going to get such an answer.
I am, as you pointed out, concerned with the concept of "right livelihood" to an extent I do not impose on others. But I can draw a line for you that need not be so fuzzy:
You may gain your livelihood by any means that does not involve force or fraud. The world is full of good honest work that can be conducted at arm's length prudently, even shrewdly, and yet fill the bill.
Rather than trying to list every bit of work possible in the world, let's begin by eliminated what is not a right livelihood based on my two simple criteria:
If you spend your effort convincing people that God wants them to give you money to carry on your "work", that is fraud. Even for pontificators a completely anonymous tip jar might be acceptable, but to institutionalize a mindset that God is displeased if you don't make the pontificator's purse jingle is fraud.
Throwing roadblocks in the way of children gaining knowledge of the world and then convincing the public that if it weren't for you, no one could read or write is fraud.
Living by money collected by threatening to throw people out of their homes and selling them (the people, not the homes, but I'm sure such collectors would have no qualms about the former if they could get by with it)to pay your salary is force.
Operating in a "profession" which is a state enforced guild which criminalizes the competition is force.
Playing to the weakest part of the human character to convince people that they are sick, weak, downtrodden, incapable, when in fact they are not in order to earn a salary (or notariety) is fraud.
I could go on, I could talk about the morality of copyright and patent, community volunteerism for police, fire, schools, hospitals rather than "professionals" and a lot of other things. But just what I've listed eliminates a great deal.
If your Mr. Ched is doing honest work that does not involve force or fraud to physically support himself, then very good, he has my admiration. If, on the other hand, he is promoting his Biblical Socialism in hopes of becoming yet a bigger fish in a bigger pond, if he tweaks at the part of the Christian psyche that is overly sensitive due to the unceasing brainwashing that God would be pleased if you gave me some money, then he is committing fraud. And such fraud is the primary cause of the very things he decries.
Dan:"The Bible spends a little time talking about those problems and even more time talking about the greed, cheating and oppression sources of disparity."
Here is where you and Meyers would be gravely mistaken. The NT has an example of communal sharing of wealth (assets) during a time of stress. Who hasn't done this at some time or the other? But there is no general teaching about it.
The OT doesn't teach it at all. God was quite content to have Abraham, Job, Boaz, Solomon, and a score of others be opulently wealthy while they owned slaves in great numbers to do their work for them. No where is there any call for these wealthy people to redistribute their wealth.
The Jubilee laws are misconstrued by modern socialists as a system of redistribution of wealth. They were not, they were in place to thwart usury. No one would consider lending money, long term land leases, or selling real property except with very, very strict caution with the Jubilee laws in effect. While the Jubilee laws had the effect of keeping the poor from squandering their assets, it also worked to keep the wealthy wealthy.
So while there is the tiniest hint at the notion of redistribution of wealth, by far the economic message of the Bible is to be industrious and diligent and take care of your own.
When you Mr. Ched says, "Hey, I want to practice what I preach. I'm going to go down to the grocery store and unload trucks for four hours a day to pay my expenses so I am not a burden to the folk and to keep myself from committing force or fraud." THEN he will have a message. Until then it is very easy to talk about redistributing wealth that you had no sweat nor soiled hands in bringing about.
"Any thoughts?"
Yeah... it's nice to see someone else using "Warp and Weft" in an analogy.
And even Paul "worked" so as not to be a burden on the people who built the churches he founded.
Yeah, we're all in favor of work.
I think it goes without saying that "industrial equipment mechanic" is very high on the list of "acceptable 'right' professions".
And I'm not in favor of work at the moment. I'm in favor of rest.
Eleutheros said;
"Here is where you and Meyers would be gravely mistaken. The NT has an example of communal sharing of wealth (assets) during a time of stress. Who hasn't done this at some time or the other? But there is no general teaching about it."
Are you saying that Acts 2:43 means that acts 2:44-47 should only apply during times of stress.
What I'm saying is that if Acts 2:45 is an prototype for Christian behavior, then have at it! Go sell everything you have, part it to the poor, everyone according to his need. Then come back and tell us how that worked out for you. Don't try to convince us that taxes should go up by 20% or we should make more generous contributions to the offering plate. Do as the verse says FIRST, sell your goods and possessions.
What's that? You don't actually believe it means that literally for every Christian?
"What's that? You don't actually believe it means that literally for every Christian?"
I'm not sure what I believe about that. I know I've read;
"Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
so if I see "few" people living today like the community of believers described in Acts 2 and relatively "few" people throughout history living this life it makes me wonder if this is the "narrow way" but I'm not far enough along to just give all my stuff away(not that I have a lot of stuff anyway). I would certainly never tell anyone else that they had to give their possessions away to be a better christian(or whatever).
All I was saying is that Acts 2:43 seems disjointed to me and when you wrote "during a time of stress" were you referring to "And fear came upon every soul". I don't know, maybe the passage is more fluid in the original language. Maybe I'm just dense. Maybe I should go to the library and check out a new testament commentary but I usually fall asleep three pages into them. These conversations on Dan's blog are much more interesting and are as close to any seminary that this poor mechanic will ever get.
"Don't try to convince us that taxes should go up by 20% or we should make more generous contributions to the offering plate. Do as the verse says FIRST, sell your goods and possessions."
You are preaching to the choir.
Eye:"You are preaching to the choir."
I knew that I was, but you never know what unrepentant soul might have crept in the door during my sermon.
I also understood that you were pointing out that the fact the community was under fear might have been the very 'stress' that drove them to communal living for a time.
This comment might well belong to Dan's previous post, but this thread points it out just as well. Not only do ALL Christians pick and choose among the verses, but they also reserve a right to keep the remote well within their fist and control the volume as well. The present example being that if a verse says the early Christians sold their goods and possessions for the good of the common and good of the poor, that is one of the 'keeper' verses but the volume is too loud. So we tune the volume down so that it doesn't really mean actually selling our things and living communally, it just means give more money and agree to more taxes.
Under this method of interpretation we not only have the flexibility to discard any verses we don't happen to personally like, but even those we do like, we can just attenuate them until they happen to fit the way we've decided to live whether we had the Bible to guide us or not.
Why, sell all my goods? Why, I wouldn't even pretend to be as righteous and holy as the first century Christians! That would be, uh, pride, yeah, that's the ticket. It would be pride. So instead of actually selling all my goods, I can just slip a ten spot in old Ched's pocket and I'm good to go.
By the bye, the same thing works in reverse. If a verse's volume isn't loud enough, you can turn up the volume as loud as you like .... you can become more righteous than the people of the Bible, even more righteous than God if need be.
That's why no one is up to the challenge of defining what criteria they will use to interpret the Bible BEFORE we open it up. If you did that, you'd have to give up the remote control and let the volume lie where it was. And you know what happens when you try to take the remote control away from the timid and the control freak! Sock puppets start springing up everywhere.
E stated:
"Don't try to convince us that taxes should go up by 20% or we should make more generous contributions to the offering plate. Do as the verse says FIRST, sell your goods and possessions."
As I pointed out, no one has, at least yet, even began to talk about suggesting gov't intervention in redistribution of wealth today. Just pointed it out as a reality in the OT.
What Myers has done thus far been to point to the Biblical reality of concern for living justly when it comes to our money. He has pointed out that HE thinks these three principles are an essential gleaned from reading the Bible, front to back.
You disagree, then. Fair enough.
We'll look more into WHY Myers thinks this as the weeks progress.
We'll also address questions of how we should apply that to our lives today. We'll look quite seriously at the questions you raise here.
And before anyone gets their knickers twisted, Myers has not said anything in the above about government redistribution of wealth.
Don't worry! I'm not wearing any.
In class a couple of weeks ago, I said rather casually that wealth is a sin. Some people freaked out, like I had said something blasphemous.
And perhaps from their point of view, I did. Anyway, as John Wesley said "Earn all you can so that you can save all you can so that you can give all you can."
I'm not sure how to ask this, Eleutheros, so please bear with me.
What do you think might make someone (given your remote control metaphor) turn down the volume for things that friends and loved ones and church traditions that nurtured them say are important and turn up the volume for the things so few of these dear folks want to hear?
Why might someone choose to value intentional working for peace during a popular war and face criticism from the secular and church world?
Why might someone choose to value inclusion of people whose orientation is a mystery to them, even when loved ones turn away in disgust and revulsion?
Why might someone choose to value economic justice in a secular and church society that seems to demand the consumption of more of our resources in order to have more money?
It seems to me that people making these choices are in for a lot of grief. Why embrace that when they don't have to?
In you last post you mentioned verses one "liked." Why would some folks choose to like verses that set them cross-ways with everyone they hold dear?
For the record, I love America, my church tradition, my family, my wife's family and most folks at work. Furthermore, my Myers-Briggs personality profile suggests I don't like conflict. I like having money to spend.
Yet here I am with these values that put me at odds with mcuh of it. I don't think I'm deliberately monkeying with the remote, here. If I were I think I'd pick an easier message to listen to.
I don't believe I'm a sociopath or into self-flagellation, deliberately making myself or other miserable.
I believe I'm trying to live out the connections between the real world and the themes of the Bible with integrity. Mostly I fail, but it's a goal I feel is important.
So when I read Ched Myers I'm not "happy" about what he suggests because it's hard/challenging to hear. Things would be easier if I didn't. But I'm not going to turn down the volume to his Biblical interpretation just because I'm uncomfortable.
Roger:"So when I read Ched Myers I'm not "happy" about what he suggests because it's hard/challenging to hear."
But in all likelihood you are, happy, that is.
To answer all your 'whys' I'd say that it is in the human nature that if we can't be happy being happy, we then go for the next best closest thing which is to be happy being unhappy.
What you want to be is unhappy with the situation of (on the one hand) wanting money and such and (on the other hand) seriously considering what Bro. Ched has to say about redistribution of wealth. You wouldn't be happy unless you were unhappy with it.
If you have had opportunity to look into the teachings of Abraham Maslow, you will recall the he describes the pinnacle of human experience "self-actualization." He recognized that within all of us are the two forces of what we want to do (what we think makes us happy) and what we feel we ought to do. The difference between these two is the sum of our unhappiness.
In the self-actualized person, what they WANT to do and what they feel they OUGHT to do are the same thing. Not by some external standard, not even by the Bible, but what they themselves feel they ought to do.
Those not on the road to self-actualization (which, by the bye, Maslow describes as experiences but not necessarily a continuous state of being) find happiness by firmly embracing their unhappiness. Oh, woe is me, poor sinner that I am! And all such. That should go a long way toward explaining your 'why's'.
But those on the road to self-actualization look at what they want to do and what they feel they ought to do and they change the one or the other (or both). So if you feel that you ought to follow Bro Ched's teaching and yet you don't want to let go of your possessions, do it anyway. Sell them and redistribute them and forswear the accumulation and over use of money. After all, Jesus didn't say, "Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also" but rather, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Until then all the admiration for teachings such as that of Meyers is nothing more than spiritual masturbation. It is an attempt to find happiness by seeking out unhappiness. And unlike self-actualization, the more people we can get to wring their hands in consternation with us, the more happy/unhappy we will be.
Eleutheros
I was going to ask that if you could get around to answering Roger's excellent questions about the mysteries, contradictions, and sometimes absurdities of human behavior, could you also explain to me why people drink themselves into cirrhosis, smoke themselves into emphysema, eat themselves into obesity, and entertain themselves(television, professional sports, radio, etc.) into dullness.
Of course you answered my questions in the proccess of answering his.
Eleutheros,
What an excellent answer to my questions! Admiration and concurrence all around!
As another "parasitic" guy (like C. M.) who runs around teaching and telling folks what he thinks, Tony Campolo, said to me once, "We live with as much hypocrisy as we can stand!"
I find your response full of integrity. Thank you.
How would you apply Maslow's self-actualization to your Biblical interpretation metaphor of the remote control. Would it be something like this, "One who is self-actualized turns up and down the volume on different Biblical passages to the degree they match their internal sense of what one ought/wants to do"?
Does Maslow talk about the sources that inform/persuade our inner sense of what we want/ought to do? How do you feel about arguments that suggest through prayer, reading, conversation, etc. ones inner feelings are adjusted/realigned?
Also, I get your distaste for Ched's third point on redistribution and that laziness, sloth, et al are bad and C.M. is a parasite participating in the disparity he decries. It's a little harsh for me, but I understand what you're saying.
How do you feel about his first assertion that there is "enough for everyone"? How does this idea fit into your worldview?
Eleutheros said;
"Not by some external standard, not even by the Bible, but what they themselves feel they ought to do."
Roger said;
"One who is self-actualized turns up and down the volume on different Biblical passages to the degree they match their internal sense of what one ought/wants to do"?
kmoo says;
SELF-actualized. NOT by some EXTERNAL standard. NOT even the bible.
But what does kmoo know.
Roger:"How do you feel about his first assertion that there is "enough for everyone"? How does this idea fit into your worldview?"
He is quite right in that, with proviso. Even with our six and half billion, there's still enough for everyone to have a fulfilled, content life. Enough and to spare, says I.
But several things run interference with us (collectively) realizing that abundance. The first, in the Gospel according to Eleutheros, is that the root of all evil is not love of money, but rather the belief that money is real. That it is a magic wand we can wave and food and clothes and medicine appear out of thin air.
This evil belief leads to the view that the rich are all the time sitting on this great pile of cheeseburgers that they refuse to share with the hungry.
And this leads to parasitic gurus raising the hue and cry to shove those evil rich off the pile of cheeseburgers so they can pass them around, and take a few for themselves too, it's only fair, eh?
Notice, Roger, in all these discussions its ALWAYS how we spend our money, how much goods we consume, how the wealthy ought to be passing around the cheeseburgers, but never any mention of the other side of the coin: How do we (or anyone) come by those cheeseburgers to begin with?
To the socialist and parasite (I'm being redundant, aren't I?) wealth exists as this great static pile of cheeseburgers and our only task is to decide how they are to be divided up, redistributed.
But the stack isn't static. When the enterprising see no reason to produce more than they need (because Meyers and his ilk are forever trying to redistribute it) the stack disappears. Zimbabwe is a good example. It produced enough food and other goods for nearly the whole of south Africa, that is, until there was a redistribution and now it produces nearly nothing.
Sure there's plenty for everyone, but not as long as we allow people to be parasites, and certainly not as long as we praise them for it.
"SELF-actualized. NOT by some EXTERNAL standard. NOT even the bible."
The Eye has it. What Kmoo says.
As long as the Bible is viewed as a mechanical set of instructions on how to live, think, behave, or attain salvation ... as if it were a recipe for baking a cake ... I'm afraid I would not look for the person to experience self-actualization.
A poem begins:
"God within me, God without.
How shall I ever be in doubt?
There is no place I cannot go
And there not see God's face, not know."
Referring to the post previous to this one, there is one explanation for all the who's interpreting what wars. At some point the person really looking for the truth realizes that each of us is making it all up as we go along. That's the genius of the Bible, it is perfectly edited and compiled to allow you to do just that.
When we read, meditate, pray or whatever, we don't discover things that are new and thus change our mind, we only discover what our mind IS, what was there all along.
I might add to this that are no shortages of "prophets of self-actualization" today who will quote Jesus, Siddhartha, Kung fu tzu, and Lao tzu to sell their books.
"this that are no"
Let this be a warning. Stay in school.
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