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The theological scholars are trying to point out that economics is not the last word. There are trade-offs in each situation, McCann said, and a judgment must be made whether sub-optimal economic decisions may be justified because they lead to greater social harmony.

Another area of inquiry for the group has to do with assumptions regarding the meaning of property. That inquiry, he said, is helpful in resolving the question of whether there's anything wrong with paying to cut in lines.

In the chapter on property in John Locke's second treatise on civil liberty, the author confronts the line from Psalms, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."

As a Christian, Locke had to defeat or at least neutralize this concept in order to have his theories on private property heard, said McCann. His resolution was to say that God is the ultimate owner of everything, but that the mixing of one's labor with the goods of the earth creates an entitlement.

This entitlement allows the producer to use what she or he earns for one's self, one's family and possibly for charity. Thus, the common good in a Lockean universe is marginal, said McCann.

By contrast, Thomas Aquinas described "an obligation to charity," in which sharing one's goods is neither optional nor heroic. Instead, it is required of those who confess that God is the creator of all things and that people serve only as stewards.

Yet the Lockean model prevails in most Christian circles.

"How do you get out from under the idea which has actually been fostered in some parts of Christianity—somewhat unwittingly—that this is mine, I can do with it what I want?" McCann asked. "In other words, there are notions of unrestricted free choice that I find profoundly at odds with any Christian worldview because my choice is always contextualized by my relationship with God. Therefore, trying to figure out what to do with my time, my property, all of it, should involve a discernment process."

Theologian James Gustafson asked "What is God in this situation enabling or calling me to do?" said McCann. "If you're involved in the discernment process, you know that the choice here is not simply how it appears to you. God has to be a central partner in the deliberative process as we consider the choices we have to make."

In his own family, McCann said, the discernment process has played out in conversations with God about how much money to contribute to the children's education vs. how much to retain for retirement.

The family of a friend held prayerful conversations with God to determine whether a daughter should accept a full scholarship to a prestigious university or consider other, less-prestigious colleges where she might find it easier to grow in her faith.

Even such matters as paying to use highway lanes that are not available to people with lesser means should raise a question of whether one is being a good steward of money, said McCann.

The large question for Christians, he said, is whether they have a stake in determining whether there is a robust or a weak appreciation of the common good. Should Christians favor public policies that appeal to a narrow construal of self-interest and further erode the common good?

This article originally appeared in Vital Theology, a newsletter published twenty times a year offering timely and concise theological interpretation of the news.

David W. Reid is the editor of Vital Theology.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Eugene McCarraher is the author of Christian Critics: Religion and the Impasse in Modern American Social Thought. His book in progress is The Enchantments of Mammon: Corporate Capitalism and the American Moral Imagination.

Dennis McCann is co-editor of On Moral Business: Classical and Contemporary Resources for Ethics in Economic Life. In Search of the Common Good, edited by McCann and Patrick D. Miller, is scheduled to be published in 2005.

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October (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48