Christian Economics

Christian Economics 

by Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Presiding Archbishop, United Catholic Church 

It is accepted as a given, at least in these United States, that Christianity and Free-Market Capitalism are inseparable. To those on the right, it is an article of faith. "That government governs best which governs least." "Godless Communism." "In God’s order there are no schemes of wealth distribution which under the government forces productive citizens to give the fruit of their labors to those who are nonproductive." (Pat Robertson in The New World Order, page 228.) Laissez faire, tax cuts, slash government spending, downsize, balanced budget, welfare reform, tax relief, flat tax, deregulation, capital gains tax cuts, eliminate the income tax, disband the IRS — these make up the economic litany of conservative Christians. Capitalism and family values go hand in hand. Even liberals seldom badmouth capitalism. They just want to make it a little more compassionate, tinker with it at the margins. But abandon it, or make major changes in it, heavens no. Without capitalism, we’d no longer be a Christian country. God gave us the free market for a reason.Continue to Next Page: Brief History of Christianity and Capitalism

In the world we live in, Christianity is empowered by a strong capitalist mentality. What happened to the days when Christians lived a humble life, striving earnestly for the glory of God, and not their own political futures? There seems to be an often misrepresented view of what a Christian should look like, or what they should be moving towards economically.

From Jesus’ socialism to capitalistic Christianity

By Gregory Paul

A truly strange thing has happened to American Christianity. A set of profound contradictions have developed within modern conservative Christianity, big and telling inconsistencies that have long slipped under the radar of public knowledge, and are only now beginning to be explicitly noted by critics of the religious and economic right. 

Here is what is peculiar. Many conservative Christians, mostly Protestant but also a number of Catholics, have come to believe and proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated, union busting, minimal taxes especially for wealthy investors, plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations. And many of these Christian capitalists are ardent followers of Ayn Rand, who was one of - and many of whose followers are -- the most hard-line anti-Christian atheist/s you can get. Meanwhile many Christians who support the capitalist policies associated with social Darwinistic strenuously denounce Darwin’s evolutionary science because it supposedly leads to, well, social Darwinism! 

Meanwhile atheists, secularists and evolutionist are denounced as inventing the egalitarian evils of anti-socially Darwinistic socialism and communism. It’s such a weird stew of incongruities that it sets one’s head spinning. Social researchers like myself ask, how did these internal conflict come about? And why are not liberals and progressives doing the logical thing and taking full advantage of the inconsistencies of right wing libertarianism by loudly exposing the contradictions?  [read more - original post: http://goo.gl/jaOeC]

Truth be told, we have changed what it means to be Christian, in the eyes of the media, the atheists, towards feminist groups, and even to our employers. Christian no longer is synonymous with following the teachings of Jesus Christ. Historically we have allowed Theocracies, and counter-culture to create a monoculture which makes it "un-cool" to do the things that are considered very much Christian. We ostracize those who want to remain virgins, and we rattle off all kinds of negative statements towards those persons who live humble lives. 


We have been told by presidents, and by economists, by our own families that what is valued in this wold is money. The economics of Christianity is the same as it is with the secular world. Lie, cheat and steal to get as much as you can, so that later, when you are sitting in your mansion, you can donate to the poor. This is not the life that Jesus had laid out for us, nor called us to. Jesus was not a man whom any woman would have said was oppressing the females. And if the gays were up against Him, there wouldn't be a barrage of snappy comebacks, or a misrepresented science used as a juggernaut against the Word of God. No, Jesus would have been provocatively reverent. He would have held sacred things sacred.

“We are settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.” ― David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream 

“The modern-day gospel says, 'God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Therefore, follow these steps, and you can be saved.' Meanwhile, the biblical gospel says, 'You are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, & in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life. Therefore, you are radically dependent on God to do something in your life that you could never do.” ― David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream 

We aren't scholars of Biblical passages like we are sposed to be. We don't hunger for the Word of God. We aren't ashamed of our sins. We live our lives as if we deserve a celebrity
 life. We celebrate our over-indulgence; our sin. And when we bring up something that seems to snap someone into reality, bring them into their contradictory behavior - when we try to hold someone accountable, or bring light upon the darkness of sin, the shadows of the people who are living double lives - that's when we are met with vengeance and hateful remarks.


Christian economics doesn't look like a man trying to take his fortune and build an empire. It looks more like this: giving everything you have to the poor and following God. Following Jesus Christ. It means becoming the men and women that He has called us to be. Becoming Salt & Light.

“But then I realize there is never going to be a day when I stand before God and He looks at me and says, 'I wish you would have kept more for yourself.' I'm confident that God will take care of me.” ― David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

Jesus is no free marketeer. Improving one’s earthly financial circumstances is not nearly as critical as preparing for the end times that will arrive at any minute. He does offer substantial encouragement for the poor, and warns the wealthy that they are in grave danger of blowing their prospects of reaching paradise, as per the metaphor of a rich person entering heaven being as difficult as a camel passing through the eye of the needle (a narrow passageway designed to hinder intruders). This caution makes sense: sociological research is confirming that the more securely prosperous individuals and societies are, the more likely they are to lose the faith. A basic point of core Christian doctrine is that the wealthy have no more access to heaven than anyone else (and in fact may have less), offering hope to the impoverished rejected by cults that court the elites. This remains true in Catholicism, in which being poor does not constitute evidence of a personal deficiency, and church authorities decry the excesses of unrestrained capital at the expense of social justice.

But to understand just how non-capitalistic Christianity is supposed to be we turn to the first chapter after the gospels, Acts, which describes the events of the early church. Chapters 2 and 4 state that all “the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need… No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had…. There were no needy persons among them. From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”   

 [read more - original post: http://goo.gl/jaOeC]

“The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith. While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the Gospel remain in the dark” ― David Platt