Wealth and Power

 If you are a church going person, you may have been exposed to an offertory prayer that goes something like this: Everything comes from God. Everything belongs to God. Perhaps you chuckle a little when you realize that the implication is that you should probably put a little more into the offering plate. Nevertheless, you just give the usual amount in a well sealed envelope with your name on it ignoring the hypocrisy you just committed by not giving everything as Jesus suggested to the rich young ruler (Mark 10:21). Then you recover a little bit when you remember Jesus said “give to the poor;” nothing about giving it to the church.

Private property rights have become a lucrative source of income for lots of lawyers. The concept of private property is incredibly complex no matter how you look at it legally, economically, sociologically, philosophically, etc. and it has changed over time. The early Bible writers describe how Abraham’s and Lot’s herdsmen squabbled over grazing land for their herds (Genesis 13:7-9). Maybe, at the beginning, it was over hunting grounds for the first hunter-gatherers, but definitely by the time people began to cultivate land. Other milestones like the emergence of large-scale commerce, the industrial revolution, etc. have shaped how we look at property beyond hunting bows, spears, toothbrushes and underwear.

To complicate matters even further, great wealth can buy you all kinds of power. It can be as far reaching as power over the leadership of a country to the hungry person who will do whatever you want for a meal or possibly even more likely for a fix of drugs. Either way, when you claim something as your own, you simultaneously deny that very same right to everyone else. You might even say that your act is not very different from robbery and some people actually say that.

There is little doubt that the toxic combination of power and wealth is the source of a great deal of suffering and inequality in the world today. The tragedy is that we know what to do about it. We just don’t.

Christian Nationalism

No doubt, you have heard it many times: This country was built on Christian values and therefore you must vote for so and so or such and such. My question is: Was it, though?

The number may be shrinking, but if you ask Americans about their religious affiliation, the vast majority will identify as Christians. They believe in God, they say. 

I think there is wide acceptance that the Bible identifies the core values of Christianity and the Constitution identifies the core values of the United States of America. Traditionally, Presidents, politicians and public officials are sworn to uphold the Constitution when they take office.

Let’s take a look at some of the core values promoted in the Constitution:

Foremost among these are “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It protects the individual’s right to pursue their own path in life. At the same time, the Constitution also asks us to surrender that right by making representative democracy the form of government and that we agree to submit to its authority which it exercises through violence (law enforcement and military) and deceit (swearing on the Bible that tells you not to).

Let us take a look at some of the core values of Christianity:

First, Love God. Ideas about who God is vary wildly among the thousands of Christian factions. Similarly, ideas about what we are supposed to be doing also vary. 

Second, Love One Another. That is in direct opposition to the Constitution’s right to pursue our own path to happiness. Jesus does not ask us to be concerned with ourselves first. He asks us to care for our neighbors, everyone else first. The Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount provide some details about how we can go about doing that, but the overarching principle that guides it all is Love, love for God and love for one another. All these other details only help us be good neighbors like Christ. They are not laws. Laws enslave us. Love sets us free and that is the principal difference between Christians and the state. No, the United States of America was not founded on Christian values, quite on the contrary.

By Our Love They Will Know Us

Even the earliest Bible writers knew about the dual nature of human beings and modern day scientists continue to confirm it. On the one hand we have an irresistible urge to care for one another. On the other, an equally irresistible urge to survive. These days, somehow, something appears to continually  trigger the defensive instincts more than the nurturing ones. It looks like people increasingly see the world as hostile. They are constantly in survival mode reacting to the world instead of enjoying life. They are concerned about jobs, grocery bills, war and the cost of housing. Many have lost faith that the government is capable of providing solutions, lost as it is in internal power struggles. And so it was in the time of Jesus.

Jesus saw that the state of affairs back then would only lead to more destruction and suffering. He didn’t get that out of thin air, though. No, he got it from the ancient scriptures. He understood that love, not power and dominance, is the secret ingredient for abundant life.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 13:34-35

Clearly, the disciples struggled to understand what he was saying, but somehow, for a brief moment, the early church managed to create a place where a small group of people could live without fear, free from domination and power. “There was not a needy person among them,” writes Luke in (Acts 4:34).  

But that did not last long. Soon the church found itself mixed up with both internal and external power struggles. Some of the early church leaders withdrew to the desert and formed new communities there. While their voices were weak and small, their impact has been profound. Some of these early monastic orders are still around to this day. 

Today, we talk about them in terms of intentional communities, small groups of people trying to live the Way of Jesus. They think personal possessions, hierarchical governance and personal independence are obstacles, not the way, to abundant life. Our words may not be able to convince the world, but we hope our actions can. We hope intentional Christian communities make sense to an increasingly lost and rootless generation of young people.

In our new world, we realize that cooperation is better than competition. We can do more together than we can apart. We depend on each other so we care for each other. We do not claim our possessions as our own. Everything belongs to God. Our leaders are servants, not rulers.