Bulls, Bears and Golden Calves

Applying Christian Ethics in Economics

John E. Stapleford

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780830897148
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Ética empresarial

Self-interest, economic efficiency and private property rights are among the most basic assumptions of market economics. But can an economic theory built on these assumptions alone provide adequate insight into human nature, motivation and ultimate goals to guide our economic life? John Stapleford says no, along with those economists who recognize the limits of their discipline. He insightfully shows us in detail how ethics are inextricably intertwined with economic life and analysis. Writing from a Christian ethical perspective, he interacts with seven standard introductory economics texts, exploring the moral challenges embedded in various macro-, micro- and international economic theories and outlining a faithful response to them. The third edition includes two new chapters on economics as a science and global poverty plus expanded discussions of entitlements, government debt, healthcare reform and immigration reform. Keyed to seven of the most widely used introductory economics texts—Gwartney, Stroup Sobel; Mankiw; Mansfield Behravesh; McConnell Brue; Miller; Samuelson Nordhaus; and Stiglitz—this book will be especially useful for introductory courses in economics.

PART ONE

Laying the Foundation

1

Grid Work

A Theological and Ethical Framework

Economic life in all its ramifications is of profound ethical significance. This is so because of scarcity which gives rise to conflict, because of interdependence which creates mutual obligations, because of the wide range of values sought through economic activity, and because of the significance for human life of the economic process itself.

HOWARD BOWEN

Where do economists get their ethical systems?
My answer is: wherever they can find them.

GEORGE STIGLER

It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand
that bother me, but those I do.

MARK TWAIN

SYNOPSIS: Beginning with creation and the fall, proceeding through the old and new covenants, this chapter summarizes what God has to say about our economic lives. In addition to the mandate to care for the poor, God provides directives on everything from private property rights to the accumulation of wealth. As Christians, we are to consider these ethical guidelines as we engage in economic affairs, keeping in mind always that it is by grace we are saved.

What does God have to do with economics? As Christians, should we conduct our economic lives in a particular way?

God has provided many avenues for exploring these questions. Through the death and resurrection of Christ we know we have the indwelling and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Through prayer we have access to God where we can ask him to open our minds to his will and to a greater fullness of life in Christ. We have encouragement and insights from our fellowship with believers. And we have church doctrine, the result of prayer, study and meditation over the centuries.

Finally, and most important, we have Scripture, which brings us the words “spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Pet 3:2). Scripture “never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21). In quoting from the Psalms, Jesus tells us that David was “speaking by the Holy Spirit” (Mk 12:36). Paul tells us that the “God-breathed” Scripture is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). That includes economic works.

God makes it quite clear that we are to know his Word and apply it in our lives. In the Old Testament God continually warns the people of Israel of the terrible consequences of not observing his commandments.

But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you . . . abhor my laws . . . I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. (Lev 26:14-17)

If we forsake the Lord, he will forsake us, leaving us exposed and ever fearful. And while he brings us grace, Jesus also did not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill. He warns that whoever breaks even one of the least of the commandments will be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:17-19). “If you love me,” Jesus states, “keep my commands” (Jn 14:15).

But we have promises as well as warnings. Jesus says that “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock” (Mt 7:24-25). Throughout Scripture, the emphasis is not just on revering God’s Word but on obeying it. James calls us to “not merely listen to the word” but to “do what it says” (Jas 1:22).

So it’s clear that Christians should live biblical lives, obeying the teachings of God’s Word. Does this apply only to religious activities? Of course not. The Bible encompasses a broad range of human activities, including economic matters. We are called to seek out and conform to God’s prescriptions on these matters as well.

That’s what this book attempts to do: to explore biblical teaching on a variety of economic issues. Later chapters will discuss specific issues, but this chapter presents a broad framework. Obviously the Bible doesn’t mention smartphones or micromanagement, downsizing, stock options or TV commercials. But it does offer a grid for Christian behavior that can help us evaluate and organize our actions in a host of modern situations the biblical writers never imagined, including the economic decisions we make daily.

As we put together this grid, we’ll be able to understand economic theory in a new way. And we’ll be able to apply our framework of Christian ethics to any economic issue we encounter. It won’t take the place of sound economic analysis, but it will contribute a biblical element to the decisions we make, whether those decisions are for personal conduct, management of a business enterprise or the formulation of government policy.

Ethics is the study of standards of conduct and moral judgment. While it is helpful to apply Christian ethics to particular economic issues where the Bible speaks clearly, our ultimate objective is to develop the capacity to puzzle through the Christian ethical perspective on any economic issue that might arise. This ethical framework becomes a toolkit that we can carry into the workplace, the town council meeting and the church finance committee’s deliberations.

It is essential that we develop this ethical framework to guide our own behavior and thoughts, not to judge others. As theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out, since our estrangement from God, we have only an imperfect grasp of what constitutes good and evil. Thus no person is qualified to judge another. “Jesus Christ’s judgment consisted precisely in His having come not to condemn but to save.”1

So, as we construct our grid of biblical economic ethics, we’ll follow a theological outline. Christian ethics are grounded in Christian theology, the study of God (theos—God; logos—discourse). Since our Christian behavior is inspired by and rooted in our relationship with God, we should be able to determine some elements of Christian ethics from the nature of God as revealed in Scripture. Even when the Bible doesn’t prescribe specific behavior, we can still model our lives after the God it describes. So let’s consider the biblical record of God’s major revelations of himself to us, from creation through the fall to the old and new covenants, and see what we can learn.2

One God

“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is One” (Deut 6:4). Men and women are to worship God, and God alone. Idols are forbidden. We are to obey his commandments. The New Testament confirms this commitment. Christians are invited into a personal relationship with God, acknowledging, worshiping, praising, communicating with and submitting to him. No one can serve two masters, Jesus said. We should rely on God rather than on material possessions; to do otherwise is idolatry. If we seek first the kingdom of God, “all these things”—Jesus was talking about food, drink and clothing—“will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:25-33).

The basic monotheism of the Judeo-Christian tradition has broader implications. Modern humanistic thinking, derived from the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, holds that all truth is relative, changing with the situation and the culture. But if there’s one God, then there are absolute, transcendent values, rooted in his character. There is moral truth. Moreover, God conducts a theocracy, not a democracy. He doesn’t survey public opinion to determine the nature of things. What he says, goes. When we truly hear that “the Lord is one,” we commit ourselves to learn, understand and, within the limitations of our sinful natures and empowered by the Spirit, conduct ourselves according to his absolute values. This encompasses all areas of our lives, including the economic.

Creation and Stewardship

“From him and through him and for him are all things” (Rom 11:36). God breathed life into Adam and gave us free will. Men and women are allowed to make choices and are held accountable for those choices. We are given the intellectual capacity for understanding the order and facts of creation. We are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27). The immense value and dignity of each person is to be upheld and respected in the political, social, cultural and economic spheres, and persons are never to be treated as a means to an end.3 Money is not to be made from the degradation of people (such as child pornography) or from the devaluation of human life (such as abortion, infanticide or euthanasia).

Likewise, God created the earth, saw all that he had made, declared that “it was very good” (Gen 1:31), and gave this creation to the people he had made. Adam and Eve (and presumably their descendants) were “to work [the earth] and take care of it” (Gen 2:15). So we have an ethical responsibility to care for the earth even as we use its resources to meet our needs.

Everything belongs to God. “God is the Creator and Sustainer of all life. He has made all things and He intends them to be used to His glory,” notes John Sleeman.4 While we are given dominion over the created order (Gen 1:28), we must never forget that we are “middle managers.” We are tenants on this property, ultimately accountable to our Landlord. Scripture makes it clear that individual ownership of property is acceptable and generally encourages effective stewardship (see chap. 4). Yet because everything ultimately belongs to God, there are no perpetual rights to property for individuals or institutions.

Through the creation of woman, God recognized humanity’s deep need for community: “It is not good for the man to be alone,” God said (Gen 2:18). This basic call to community indicates that our stewardship of creation should benefit the family, the community and future generations, not just individuals. And we can also see our stewardship responsibility as both individual and collective (e.g., institutions, government). That is, while we can’t assume that our neighbors, bosses or government officials share our view of creation, we believe God holds them accountable too, and so we should do all we can to influence them to act with proper stewardship.

The Fall and the Judgment

Even when most of our needs are met, we humans are restless and subject to temptations, the most basic of which is a desire to be like God—to exist forever and to have complete knowledge. That is what got Adam and Eve into trouble. As a result of their free choice to sin in the Garden of Eden, all men and women now live in a fallen world filled with self-centeredness, greed, lust, fear, injustice, disease and natural disasters. The Bible tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). We find that sin poisons our relationships with others and our fellowship with God. We tend to search for security in material possessions, control of nature and power over others.

But not only do we struggle with our own sinful tendencies, we also have to deal with a fallen world. Adam worked in the Garden, so work itself is not bad, but after the fall human work “now involves an element of struggle and domination.”5 As a result, we should look for and expect sin in economic relationships. Some businesses will try to charge the highest price possible regardless of production costs or the ability of people to pay. The desire for money will lead some politicians to sell regulatory advantages for bribes. Special-interest groups may feather their own nests while disadvantaging the majority of the public. Some employees will shirk and still accept a complete paycheck. Wise Christians will seek to structure their lives and their institutions in ways that recognize and minimize the impact of that sin.6

How do we understand the lessons of creation in light of the fall? While we are responsible to care for the resources of God’s creation, we also know we have to use those resources to survive. We are accountable to God for the stewardship of those resources—but also for the stewardship of the individual talents and ingenuity he has given us. People need to be “inventive, prudent, farseeing, hardworking—in order to realize by their obedience to God’s call the building up and perfecting of God’s kingdom on earth . . . to labor for human progress.”7

Technological progress from human initiative can be used for both good and evil—and sure enough, it has been. It has emancipated millions from the back-breaking toil that until the last three hundred years barely permitted the majority of humans to live on a subsistence diet in minimal shelter with illness and death hovering ever at the threshold. Technology has also facilitated philanthropy, reduced physical suffering and allowed the gospel to be taken to more people more ways than ever imagined. On the other hand, technology has also abused the environment, broken down community, developed weapons of mass destruction and served as an instrument for social domination.

A fundamental assumption of economics is the existence of scarcity, the limited supply of resources in creation relative to our unlimited wants due to our fallen human natures. As David Colander states in his introductory text, “The goods available are too few to satisfy individuals’ desires,” and we cannot “eliminate scarcity entirely since new wants are constantly developing.”8 Nevertheless, if the righteousness of God is present, there is not scarcity. God promises that if his decrees are followed and his commands obeyed, there will be “rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. . . . You will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land” (Lev 26:3-5). Scarcity is not a supply-side problem. From the manna in the wilderness to the feeding of the multitudes to the sharing of the church immediately after Pentecost, if human hearts are right with the Lord through the Holy Spirit, through hospitality, charity and the grace of God, there will always be sufficiency.

Neither is scarcity intended to be a demand-side problem, a result of “unlimited wants.” Consumerism and material envy are the sin of the rich and the poor, a potential ensnarement to both. Jesus calls us to set constraints on our human impulse for acquisition and its concomitant cea...