the economics of middle class

by Austin Pfeiffer

I was at a meeting of faith leaders in Winston-Salem about a month ago and one man posed the odd claim of the middle class being a Biblical myth. We've been talking about it around our house and we landed on the conclusion that our self-identity in the middle class was a means of withdrawal from the proverbial classifications of the rich and poor.

Proverb 22:2 says that the rich and poor are equals, because God made them both. Of course in our group there is often a particular disdain for the rich, because while many wealthy people can be poor in spirit, their condition is a result of a conscience decision. In other words, no one oppresses a person into wealth, in the most fundamental terms at least, whereas the poor are a condition often of environment, society, or oppressive governments or economies.

We came to a consensus of believing the rich are as much deserving of love as the poor are, even as we young activists might have a wrongful propensity to judge the rich and pity the poor. In reality, the Proverb 22 is saying that in the citizenry of God's people, the rich and the poor are equal. If we believe in the Kingdom of God and we pray for it to come to earth, then we are certainly to be part of the peacemaking effort between the poor and rich, just as the Message translates Proverb 22, "The rich and the poor shake hands as equals — God made them both!"

So how do we do this? We've become increasingly frustrated with a few churches in our city, particularly our downtown, who have fully functioning kitchens which are not used regularly to feed the hungry of our time and place. We realize instead of judging these conditions, we can in love compel these groups to see how wealthy they are in resources to exercise Jesus' most blatant commands. In my experience, the wealthy deal with guilt in intense ways and many churches which seek to reach them instead use expensive and efficient means of connecting with them, be it through buildings, programs, websites, etc. In many ways, these people are looking for direct outlets for their guilt, in other words, grace personified. Grace personified is a difficult thing to experience in a "perfect" setting of performance. Instead, we ought to be helping these wealthy churches give their participants experiences in service, a place to pour out love, alleviate guilt, open their eyes to God and the poor, and in that, the poor and rich will shake hands as equals.

the good gifts

by phiLip pLedger

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17

The power of money in our world has seemingly always been in conflict with many of the principles taught by Jesus. Within Christendom there are a multitude of positions on how money ideally should, and realistically does play in the lives of Christ-followers. There are those who would reference Jesus' exchange with the rich young ruler in Luke 18 as an easy argument against possessing wealth as a whole, while there are others who would argue for the attaining of wealth in order to use it for good in the world; after all, charity organizations, medical research and even hospitals cannot function without a large flow of money going through them. This past Sunday night, our Bible study examined a number of these viewpoints stemming from a discussion of quotations by a French libertarian economist named Charles Gave.

There were many things said, but one of the central themes, at least in my mind was the concept of ownership and property. The way we understand these terms is at the heart of any discussion about money, and therefore important to how Christians should deal with it. Amongst the many scriptures addressing money, a passage of the book of James stands at the forefront in my mind as a truth about the nature of ownership for Christians. If we are to take the Bible seriously, the implications of this verse are drastic, as we are faced with the realization that not some gifts, not most gifts, but every gift is from the Father. It's easy to rationalize our way around this verse by the glorifying the Protestant work ethic, but in it's simplest manner, we need to honestly ask ourselves where our ownership comes from.

I can imagine that if most people went to their workplace on payday and received a check for $0.00 for their two weeks of work, they would be less than pleased. One could argue that by working for an employer we enter into a contract with them to exchange labor for monetary payment, but this isn't the heart issue. The idea of "earning" our wealth, the central concept of the American dream, has been adopted by Christians as gospel in the modern era, yet it is hard to understand why. Given James' statements in verse 1:17 of his book, our possessions are not earned, but given to us by the Creator, the only One with a right to ownership. With this mentality, "earning" wealth takes on a new light, not for everyone, just for the Jesus followers who submit that both the world and God owe us nothing, no matter what kind of work we may do. Perhaps this is yet another way which God's grace is magnified in our lives; He provides without any obligation to do so.

For Christians, we have to ask ourselves if we truly believe every good and perfect gift is from the Father. If yes, it changes the way we view wealth, because it is no longer ours, but God's, and if it is God's, then our sense of entitlement must shrivel. Only without our sense of entitlement can real Christ-like stewardship of God's resources manifest itself in our lives, regardless of how wealthy or needy we may be. With this mentality, rooted in humility, so many questions about money take care of themselves.

Burnt Offerings

Rick Downs, a pastor in Cambridge, Massachusetts offered a really interesting idea a few weeks ago. What if the collection was made during the worship service, taken out to the parking lot, doused with lighter fluid and burned? What would we do if they took our money, the thing we give the Church to have a comfortable building and the best and brightest staff, and they just burned those papers up?

Is it acceptable for money to be valueless? On one hand money is a gift, a resource to do something. On the other, its a narcotic, something Jesus talked about more than sexuality or politics. There is a parable Jesus offers where he talks about "talents", basically monies. The story follows three men who are trusted with their masters talents. Of the men are one who takes five and turns it to ten, one who takes two and turns it to four, and one who straight buries the loot, only to return it no better, no worse. Some basic interpretations of said parable imply the most latter of the fellows is in the wrong because he basically need not exist for the purpose of the talents or the master...both remain the same regardless of his existence. The parable is also used to support the idea of capitalist investment Biblically. The idea here makes it tricky to argue God is not interested in using money, some would argue it implies we are responsible to take money and make more of it for the purposes of God.

The proposition of profiteering for the purpose (insert Jesse Jackson voice) Gospel hinges on a few major contradictions.

1. If Jesus wanted the rich young ruler to sell everything and America is said to consume five times its proportion of world population to resources, then how can we argue we are responsible enough to use the talents for said purpose...in other words, are we taking the burying of talents further to simply spending it and going back to the master with nothing?

2. If God asked his people in multiple writings of the minor prophets to stop the burnt offerings because they were shallow and ultimately motivated by self-preservation and relief of guilt, then could we flip this concept and argue that by burning the tithe in a modern church, we would actually be rebuking our own self-preservation and alleviation of guilt because it would offer us nothing but a pile of ashes and a sentiment of a ruler other than money?

No conclusions, but some interesting propositions to ignite conversations.

my money! my money... my money?

There are two groups of people in the world who are extremely annoying in their inexplicably urgent necessity to share their wealth of knowledge. These two groups share two traits. First, they both are truly learning at huge rates and their world view is constantly expanding because everyday is filled with incessant teaching moments. The second trait, while their lessons are true and valid, these people are completely void of the ability to see the world with any candid experience, because they have little life lived. These people are grad students and newly-weds.

So I am a newly-wed, I have been married 214 days. In my time I have come to recognize a lesson I have yapped about endlessly, but only understand practically now. For centuries the Church has reminded us our money is not our own, oddly enough these reminders apex during fund raising times. My mom joined a church when she moved to a new town and they sent her tithing envelopes before any sort of correspondence from the leadership to welcome her...she left pretty promptly. As a humorous side note, my mom is a terrible person to ride in a car with because she lets everyone pass her and cut in front of her, so traffic is exacerbated when riding with her. This lifestyle translates to her checkbook, so that church made an ironic error.

In our marriage, my wife Erin does the books. She does a lot of things, but especially the books, because I am a writer, so it is for the sake of our future that I am not allowed to touch the money. She is a grad student, I work at a coffee shop while making music and writing for no money, so we have no money. For the first four or five months of marriage, I was so scared of spending our money, that I never ate out once unless Erin was with me and sanctioned it.

So here is the lesson I have learned. I not only have no money, but what money I do have, I do not even feel free to spend on guitar strings or a book, because I know my beautiful accountant will know and understand with more objectivity the priority. I feel a completely new sensation when I hear the phrase "our money is not our own." I understood the practicality of tithing and the idea that God provides for us and therefore he is the ultimate giver of our finances. What I understand now is the complex metaphor marriage is for the body of Christ (the global Church) and its relationship to God. If Jesus' teaching that if we are asked to walk a mile, we should walk two, and his command to love others as we would want to be loved, implies a far greater weight. When I was single, I understood my responsibility to share my income with the less-fortunate, but I understood my savings as mine, funds accounted for as surplus, and therefore free for disposal towards unfrivelous, but recreational things, like guitar strings, CD's, a cup of coffee. Those accounts have died. I may have a few extra dollars in my pocket, that I can use to buy something small, but when I get home I find out what my wife needs, and I realize even the guitar strings need to wait.

My lesson may seem elementary, but I realize now that even if Erin and I had money to spend, we would not, even if we had money in our pockets, we would have to wait until we got home, home to our community, and find out what they need, and realize even the guitar strings can wait. Saying our money is not our own has little do with where it came from and more with where it needs to go.

Money, Ethics, & Love

Money makes the world go 'round. Money is how we achieve our goals, execute our dreams, and facilitate our ideas. Money is everywhere, we wear it, we eat it, it burns the coals to heat our houses, and cleanses us with the fresh water in our pipes...nothing in life is free. That is the truth of America. America is frames welded together of immovable beams, fastened to a concrete foundation with the mortar, bolts, screws and steel of money.

Churches are preaching about it, the news is hyping its crunching power as it dominates the world's decisions, because money (as it has in past generations) was given more and more power. It became the engine and fortress of people's lives and anything given that kind of power can lash back with ferocity, empowered by the worship of its creators.

(us)

We put our trust in exactly what Psalm 20 talks about and the pain of not standing tall is the gravity of our idols grounding us in reality.

"See those people polishing their chariots,
and those others grooming their horses?
But we're making garlands for God our God.
The chariots will rust,
those horses pull up lame—
and we'll be on our feet, standing tall."

In the church, the economic crisis has opened doors for conversations of values, but are we daring enough to start scrutinizing capitalism? Jesus is not a capitalist, nor is he a proponent of democracy. The church has taken capitalism and scrutinized its ethics to draw conclusions of its validity relative to the Bible. It checks out. So does communism, so does socialism, so do monarchies, even dictatorships. The Bible calls its followers to transcend systems of slavery, government, hierarchical societal structures, disregarding their relevance or substance and to live for each other and God. Capitalism, not necessarily at its purest forms, but in simple business, is certainly ethical.

The trouble is, Christians are not supposed to be ethical. Ethics are for nice people who enjoy fairness, but ethics leave the passionate subversives waving the banner of Godly love deeply unsatisfied. Business is ethical, and business can love the world, in fact the power it has to destroy lives and inflict heavy, torturous stress on families can be harnessed for an equally saturating social flood of love. The key pivot is who our master is. The root of American capitalism is not money, but the master which empowered money...the self. Micro-finance is changing third world lifestyles in ways non-profit has struggled to help people. The key is who profits. Christians who evaluate their faith and work should find little comfort in their ethics, and scrutinize their profit margins, because to love another person more than yourself, you will have to work awfully hard to justify chariots and horses. The line was not blurred at ethics, it was blurred when safety and comfort through wealth became a solid rock in our lives.

starbucks and guilt

How often do you think the average street person hear's the gospel? Bryant Simon is a historian who has devoted himself to an "ethnography of Starbucks." He points out how prevalent guilt is in white society and how that motivates vain attempts at social justice.

Starbucks is actually a very responsible company. Starbucks instituted C.A.F.E. practices in the 1970's before Fair Trade was what it is today. They also sell Fair Trade Coffee, donate food to local charities, and have begun an alliance with Magic Johnson to start strategically planting stores in low income neighborhoods to create jobs and offer health care. Simon makes the argument that while well intentioned, these stores, not necessarily for Starbucks itself, but for its customers, can offer a sense of relief from guilt. It allows the patron to indirectly free himself/herself from the burden that the cost of a $5 cup of coffee could possibly contribute to someone's quality of life increasing.

Taking the Starbucks motif in another direction, what must it be like to be a homeless person who hangs out near a Starbucks? If you think of the number of Christians in the world and the number of homeless, you realize homeless people must encounter a lot of Christians in their day. Further, a few Christians would stop and do the proper evangelical thing...stop and pray a 30 second prayer over the person, tell them the story of Jesus through some sort of systematic approach, buy them a small amount of food or give them some cash, and walk away.

Now imagine this scenario from the perspective of the barista. They stand behind the counter all day, watching the street person be approached throughout the day by different middle class people who do the same exact thing. The barista must think to himself/herself, this is an incredibly impotent system.

Lastly, think about when a Christian conference comes to town. People walk by with the zip up Bible cases, their national Christian ministry Nalgenes, and hundreds of them pray for the same people each day and maybe toss some bread at them. But no one ever takes someone home, showers them, feeds them, gets them clean, actually enacts change by spending relentless hours with one individual.

As Christians, we want to buy the figurative latte, support the company that builds the stores, promote the institution that will battle the injustice, go on the one week mission trip that costs $3,000, but no one wants to move to the neighborhood, or bring someone home, because we are motivated by relieving our guilt. Basically, have our cake and eat it to, by keeping our life static and tracking, but free from guilt over our prosperity's expense. We do the minimum we possibly can, motivated out of shame that we live better than others, but we won't kill our day, die to the problems of others, forget the latte.

!!!WARNING!!! you may have entered the marketplace

beware of institutions whose decisions are motivated by a continuing relevance of itself.


paul made tents because he said very explicitly he did not want to have people questioning the motivation of his faith. it seems entirely possible that the idea of selling doves in the marketplace probably was not started by greedy entrepreneurs, but people who could not reconcile service to God with their need for sustaining income. some of them probably said to themselves, "i want to serve God, but cannot sustain security if i neglect my 'responsibilities.'" could much of america be a giant marketplace, whose pastoral desks are in fact the modern dove cage?

so when does professional ministry cross the lines paul and jesus addressed?

when the motivations to sustain the institution takes time away from "going the ends of the earth" (jesus' words)

definitions must be subjective in this case to avoid legalistic outcomes, but there are lenses to look at the idea through...

perhaps jesus was more upset that people in the marketplace were trying to avoid trusting God by finding a sure fire way to make money and serve him. striking a convenient balance between the heavenly and earthly never seemed to be his game and it seems that having to request your profit from doing God's service would be a block to trusting him and a little off of what he told the rich young ruler (which you can think about it by checking out the video at the bottom of the page).