History

Money in Christian History (I): A Gallery of Church Fathers

DIDACHE

The Didache, or “The Teaching of the Twelve,” dates back to the second century. It is thus, apart from the New Testament, one of the earliest church documents extant. It was probably composed by a scribe in Alexandria, incorporating some material from other church documents of the time.

Do not be one who holds his hand out to take, but shuts it when it comes to giving. If your labor has brought you earnings, pay a ransom for your sins. Do not hesitate to give and do not give with a bad grace, for you will discover who He is that pays you back a reward with a good grace. Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. For if you have what is eternal in common, how much more should you have what is transient!…

Now about the apostles and prophets: Act in line with the gospel precept. Welcome every apostle on arriving, as if he were the Lord. But he must not stay beyond one day. In case of necessity, however, the next day too. If he stays three days, he is a false prophet. On departing, an apostle must not accept anything save sufficient food to carry him till his next lodging. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet….

Everyone who comes to you “in the name of the Lord” must be welcomed. Afterward, when you have tested him, you will find out about him, for you have insight into right and wrong. If it is a traveler who arrives, help him all you can. But he must not stay with you more than two days, or, if necessary three. If he wants to settle with you and is an artisan, he must work for his living. If, however, he has no trade, use your judgment in taking steps for him to live with you as a Christian without being idle. If he refuses to do this, he is trading on Christ. You must be on your guard against such people.

Irenaeus (130–202)

Bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus served the church when it was battling both persecution and heresies. He is one of the first church fathers to freely quote the New Testament, in his masterwork, Against Heresies. That book, from which the following is quoted, was written about 185 and aimed primarily at the Gnostics.

Therefore the offering of the Church, which the Lord directed to be offered in the whole world, is accounted a pure sacrifice with God, and is acceptable to Him, not that He needs a sacrifice from us, but because he who offers is himself honoured in his offering if his gift be accepted. By his offering, both honour and affection is shown to the King. And our Lord taught us to offer this in all simplicity and innocence (Matt. 5:23, 24). Therefore we must offer to God the firstfruits of His creation, as Moses said. Offerings are no longer offered by bondsmen, but by free men…. They [O.T. saints] offered their tithes; but those who have received liberty set apart everything they have for the Lord’s use, cheerfully and freely giving them (2 Cor. 9:7), not as small things in the hope of greater, but like that poor widow, who put her whole livelihood into the treasury of God (Luke 21:4).

Tertullian (c. 160–c.220)

Born in Carthage, Tertullian lived a permissive life until he became a Christian in his thirties. Then he devoted his life to the defense of the Christian faith against heresy and immorality. His solid education in Greek and Latin and the practice of law prepared him to be one of the church’s leading apologists. The work excerpted here, Octavius, sets up a dialogue between a pagan and a Christian. It is one of the oldest church documents we have that was originally written in Latin.

Octavius (the pagan) charges:

Look: some of you, the greater half (the better half, you say), go in need, suffer from cold, from hunger and toil. And yet your god allows it, he connives at it; he will not or he cannot assist his own followers. This proves how weak he is—or wicked.

Minucius Felix (the Christian) answers:

I now come to the accusation that most of us are said to be poor; that is not to our shame, it is to our great credit. Men’s characters are strengthened by stringent circumstances, just as they are dissipated by luxurious living. Besides, can a man be poor if he is free from want, if he does not covet the belongings of others, if he is rich in the possession of God? Rather, he is poor who possesses much but still craves for more.

And so it is that when a man walks along a road, the lighter he travels, the happier he is; equally, on this journey of life, a man is more blessed if he does not pant beneath a burden of riches but lightens his load by poverty. Nevertheless, we would ask God for material goods if we considered them to be of use; without a doubt, He to whom the whole belongs would be able to concede us a portion. But we prefer to hold possessions in contempt than to hoard them: it is rather innocence that is our aspiration, it is rather patience that is our entreaty; our preference is goodness, not extravagance.

Cyprian (195–258)

Bishop of Carthage, Cyprian was a leader with great intellectual and administrative ability. He became a Christian in middle age, largely through Tertullian’s writings and immediately sold his estate and gave the proceeds to the poor. Becoming bishop over North Africa in 247, he was soon to encounter strong Roman persecution. After it passed, the church faced the question of what to do with those who had denied the faith during the hard times. Cyprian’s De Lapsis criticizes the behavior of those who had lapsed, but ultimately offers them pardon.

The selection quoted here explores the roots of the defection of believers.

Each one was intent on adding to his inheritance. Forgetting what the faithful used to do under the Apostles and what they should always be doing, each one with insatiable greed was absorbed in adding to his wealth. Gone was the devotion of bishops to the service of God, gone was the clergy’s faithful integrity, gone the generous compassion for the needy, gone all discipline in our behavior. Men had their beards plucked, women their faces painted: their eyes must needs be daubed otherwise than God made them, their hair stained a colour not their own. What subtle tricks to deceive the hearts of the simple, what sly maneuvers to entrap the brethren!… Too many bishops, instead of giving encouragement and example to others, made no account of the ministration which God had entrusted to them, and took up the administration of secular business: they left their sees, abandoned their people, and toured the markets in other territories on the look-out for profitable deals. If that is what we have become, what do we not deserve for such sins…?

Basil (329–379)

Basil the Great was bishop of the church at Caesarea and archbishop of all Cappadocia. He personally ministered to lepers even after he became a bishop. Basil was probably the first in Christian history to found a hospital.

From a commentary on Luke 12:18:

“Whom do I injure,” [the rich person] says, “when I retain and conserve my own?” Which things, tell me, are yours? Whence have you brought them into being? You are like one occupying a place in a theatre, who should prohibit others from entering, treating that as one’s own which was designed for the common use of all.

Such are the rich. Because they were first to occupy common goods, they take these goods as their own. If each one would take that which is sufficient for one’s needs, leaving what is in excess to those in distress, no one would be rich, no one poor.

Did you not come naked from the womb? Will you not return naked into the earth? (Job 1:21). Whence then did you have your present possessions? If you say, “By chance,” you are godless, because you do not acknowledge the Creator, nor give thanks to the Giver. If you admit they are from God, tell us why you have received them.

Is God unjust to distribute the necessaries of life to us unequally? Why are you rich, why is that one poor? Is it not that you may receive the reward of beneficence and faithful distribution…?

Ambrose (340–397)

Ambrose, the son of a high ranking official in the Roman Empire, also entered public life, becoming a civil governor in Milan. When he tried to settle a dispute between Arians and Catholics at the church in Milan, he himself was nominated as bishop, though he was not yet baptized. He took on these duties humbly and seriously, studying the Bible and theology, and teaching it almost as soon as he learned it. He served for 23 years as Bishop of Milan, during which time Augustine was converted through his preaching. Orthodox in doctrine, a foe of Arianism, Ambrose was also known as a composer of hymns.

From De Nabuthe Jezraelite, his exposition of 1 Kings 21:

The earth was made in common for all…. Why do you arrogate to yourselves, ye rich, exclusive right to the soil? Nature, which begets all poor, does not know the rich. For we are neither born with raiment nor are we begotten with gold and silver. Naked it brings people into the light, wanting food, clothing, and drink; naked the earth receives whom it has brought forth; it knows not how to include the boundaries of an estate in tomb…. Nature, therefore, knows not how to discriminate when we are born, it knows not how when we die….

The poor man seeks money and has it not; a man asks for bread, and your horse champs gold under his teeth. And precious ornaments delight you, although others do not have grain…. The people are starving, and you close your barns; the people weep bitterly, and you toy with jewelled ring…. The jewel in your ring could preserve the lives of the whole people….

A possession ought to belong to the possessor, not the possessor to the possession. Whosoever, therefore, does not use his patrimony as a possession, who does not know how to give and distribute to the poor, he is the servant of his wealth, not its master; because like a servant he watches over the wealth of another and not like a master does he use it of his own. Hence, in a disposition of this kind we say that the man belongs to his riches, not the riches to the man.

Augustine (354–430)

Augustine is probably the best-known of the later church fathers. His most renowned works are his Confessions and The City of God.

From his commentary on Psalm 131:

Those who wish to make room for the Lord must find pleasure not in private, but in common property…. Redouble your charity. For, on account of the things which each one of us possesses singly, wars exist, hatreds, discords, strifes among human beings, tumults, dissensions, scandals, sins, injustices, and murders. On what account? On account of those things which each of us possesses singly. Do we fight over the things we possess in common? We inhale this air in common with others, we all see the sun in common. Blessed therefore are those who make room for the Lord, so as not to take pleasure in private property. Let us therefore abstain from the possessions of private property—or from the love of it, if we cannot abstain from possession—and let us make room for the Lord.

From a sermon to the rich:

That bread which you keep, belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your possession, to the shoeless; that gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you were able to help others, and refused, so often did you do them wrong.

Chrysostom (347–407)

John Chrysostom gave up a legal career for the ascetic life. He served the church at Antioch of Syria as deacon, then elder and chief preacher. His homiletical skills earned him the moniker Chrysostom, “golden-mouthed.” He also wrote commentaries on Scripture. He was chosen Archbishop of strategic Constantinople in 397, but his strong preaching against sin offended the queen, who maneuvered to have John banished in 403.

From a homily on Romans:

If you wish to leave much wealth to your children, leave them in God’s care. For he who without your having done anything, gave you a soul, and formed you a body, and granted you the gift of life, when he sees you displaying such munificence, and distributing your goods, must surely open to them all kinds of riches…. Do not leave them riches, but virtue and skill. For if they have the confidence of riches, they will not mind anything besides, for they shall have the means of screening the wickedness of their ways in their abundant riches.

From a sermon on the poor:

“Anyone who would not work should not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) …. But the laws of Saint Paul are not merely for the poor. They are for the rich as well…. We accuse the poor of laziness. This laziness is often excusable. We ourselves are often guilty of worse idleness.

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Luther on the Use of Money

Carter Lindberg

Two famous Reformation woodcuts depict Luther as the “German Hercules” and as a “Wild Man.” The former depicts Luther larger than life, the pope hanging from his nose, laying waste with a huge club the personifications of monasticism and scholasticism. The “Wild Man” depiction is what contemporary scholars refer to as the iconography of “the reversible world,” the world turned upside-down. The Reformation overturned the late medieval world, including its views of money.

Luther was a “Wild Man” with respect to money because he attacked every contemporary expression of the counterfeit gospel that a person’s worth depends on his or her accomplishments. His club was the good news that human worth is totally independent of success, be it measured in terms of renunciation or acquisition of the world. Thus Luther fought a two-sided battle against both monastic asceticism and emerging capitalism (“usury”). The first battle is well-known, but the second has frequently been obscured by the common association of the “Protestant ethic” with the “spirit of capitalism.” But to Luther both sides really belonged to the same coin, salvation by works.

Luther’s Attack on Monastic Asceticism

Medieval monasticism narrowed the spiritual asceticism of the early church to renunciation of the world. Poverty was idealized into a kind of spiritual capitalism for poor and rich alike. The poor were on the preferred path of salvation, and the rich earned merit for salvation by almsgiving. The foremost figure in the medieval poverty movement was certainly Francis of Assisi, whose rejection of money served to radicalize discipleship and to alleviate anxiety about the corrupting effect of money and business.

Luther’s response was unequivocal: “Many people, of both low and high estate, yes, all the world, were deceived by this pretense. They were taken in by it, thinking: ‘Ah, this is something extraordinary! The dear fathers lead such an ascetic life;…’ Indeed, if you want to dupe people, you must play the eccentric” (“Sermons on the Gospel of St. John”).

On Francis, Luther commented: “I do not think that Francis was an evil man; but the facts prove that he was naive or, to state it more truthfully, foolish.” His foolishness was in supposing that money was evil in itself, and in displacing the free forgiveness of sins through Christ by a new law of renunciation. “If silver and gold are things evil in themselves, then those who keep away from them deserve to be praised. But if they are good creatures of God, which we can use both for the needs of our neighbor and for the glory of God, is not a person silly, yes, even unthankful to God, if he refrains from them as though they were evil? For they are not evil, even though they have been subjected to vanity and evil. …If God has given you wealth, give thanks to God, and see that you make right use of it…” (“Lectures on Genesis”). The problem is not money but its use. The greedy misuse the world by striving to acquire it; the monastics, by struggling to renounce it. The end result for both is personal insecurity because trust is placed in self-achievement rather than in God. Meanwhile, the neighbor is neglected.

Luther’s Attack on Early Capitalism

The medieval ideology of poverty had been entrenched for centuries, but the acceptance of the idea that money can make money was relatively new in Luther’s day. This usury was condemned by the medieval church as late as the Fifth Lateran Council in 1515. But by all accounts, the entrepreneur was well-established by this time.

Luther found the calculating entrepreneur extremely distasteful. He was convinced that the capitalist spirit divorced money from use for human needs and necessitated an economy of acquisition. From his brief “Sermon on Usury” (1519) to his “Admonition to the Clergy that they Preach against Usury” (1540), Luther consistently preached and wrote against the expanding money and credit economy as a great sin. “After the devil there is no greater human enemy on earth than a miser and usurer, for he desires to be above everyone. Turks, soldiers, and tyrants are also evil men, yet they must allow the people to live…; indeed, they must now and then be somewhat merciful. But a usurer and miser-belly desires that the entire world be ruined in order that there be hunger, thirst, misery, and need so that he can have everything and so that everyone must depend upon him and be his slave as if he were God.” “Daily the poor are defrauded. New burdens and high prices are imposed. Everyone misuses the market in his own willful, conceited, arrogant way, as if it were his right and privilege to sell his goods as dearly as he pleases without a word of criticism.”

This “lust for profits,” Luther observed, had many clever expressions: selling on time and credit, manipulating the market by withholding or dumping goods, developing cartels and monopolies, falsifying bankruptcies, trading in futures, and just plain misrepresenting goods. Such usury, Luther argued, affects everyone. “The usury which occurs in Leipzig, Augsburg, Frankfurt, and other comparable cities is felt in our market and our kitchen. The usurers are eating our food and drinking our drink.” Even worse, however, is that by manipulating prices “usury lives off the bodies of the poor.” In his own inimitable style, Luther exploded, “The world is one big whorehouse, completely submerged in greed,” where the “big thieves hang the little thieves.” Thus he exhorted pastors to condemn usury as stealing and murder, and to refuse absolution and the sacrament to usurers unless they repent.

It is important to note that Luther’s concern was not merely about an individual’s use of money, but also the structural social damage inherent in the idolatry of the “laws” of the market. Ideas of an “impersonal market” and “autonomous laws of economics” were abhorrent to Luther because he saw them as both idolatrous and socially destructive. He saw the entire community endangered by the financial power of a few great economic centers. The rising world economy was already beginning to suck up urban and local economics, and to threaten an as yet unheard of opposition between rich and poor. He saw an economic coercion immune to normal jurisdiction which would destroy the ethos of the community. This is why Luther considered early capitalism to constitute a status confessionis for the church, in spite of the fact that many of his contemporaries thought he was tilting at windmills.

Luther believed that not only was the church called to publicly and unequivocally reject these economic developments, but also to develop a constructive social ethic in response to them. This social ethic developed social welfare policies and legislation, and called for public accountability of large business through government regulation.

Social Welfare Policies and Legislation

The widespread poverty, vagrancy, and underemployment of the late medieval period was legitimated by the church’s ideology of poverty and exacerbated by the new economic developments. The schema of salvation which presented poverty as the ideal Christian life and anchored it in society through the promises of earthly and heavenly rewards due the almsgiver kept people from recognizing and alleviating the social distress of poverty.

Luther’s doctrine of justification cut the nerve of this medieval ideology of poverty. Since salvation is purely a gift of God apart from human works, both poverty and almsgiving lose saving significance. By de-spiritualizing poverty, the Reformers could recognize poverty in every form as a personal and social evil to be combatted. Under the rubrics of justice and love to the neighbor, Luther and his colleagues quickly moved in alliance with local governments to establish new social welfare policies and legislation.

The first major effort was the Wittenberg Church Order of 1522 which established a “common chest” for welfare work. Initially funded by medieval ecclesiastical endowments and later supplemented by taxes, the Wittenberg Order prohibited begging; provided interest-free loans to artisans, who were to repay them whenever possible; provided for poor orphans, the children of poor people, and poor maidens who needed an appropriate dowry for marriage; provided refinancing of high-interest loans at 4% annual interest for burdened citizens; and supported the education or vocational training of poor children. To the objection that this was open to abuse, Luther replied, “He who has nothing to live should be aided. If he deceives us, what then? He must be aided again.” Other communities quickly picked up these ideas. By 1523 there were common chest provisions for social welfare in the church orders of Leisnig, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Altenburg, Kitzingen, Strasbourg, Breslau, and Regensburg.

These ordinances for poor relief were efforts to implement Luther’s conviction that social welfare policies designed to prevent as well as remedy poverty are a Christian social responsibility. Under the motto “there should be no beggars among Christians,” the early Reformation movement set about implementing concern for personal dignity and public alleviation of suffering.

Civic Control of Capitalism

While Luther’s efforts to develop welfare legislation were well-received in the cities and territories which accepted the Reformation, his efforts to encourage civic control of capitalism gained little support. Of course, it is hardly surprising that, when interest rates could soar to 50%, bankers turned a deaf ear to his call for a 5% ceiling on interest. Also, Luther’s criticism of capitalism included far more than exorbitant interest rates. Social need always stood above personal gain. “… In a well-arranged commonwealth the debts of the poor who are in need ought to be cancelled, and they ought to be helped; hence the action of collecting has its place only against the lazy and the ne’er-do-well” (“Lectures on Deuteronomy”).

Luther found that it is easier to motivate assistance to individuals than it is to curb the economic practices which create their poverty. Poverty’s squalor calls out for redress, whereas the attractive trappings of business muffle criticism. Yet the effects of early capitalism could be felt. In Wittenberg between 1520 and 1538, prices doubled but wages remained the same. Luther called this murder and robbery in disguise. “… How skillfully Sir Greed can dress up to look like a pious man if that seems to be what the occasion requires, while he is actually a double scoundrel and a liar” (“Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount”). “God opposes usury and greed, yet no one realizes this because it is not simple murder and robbery. Rather usury is a more diverse, insatiable murder and robbery. …Thus everyone should see to his worldly and spiritual office as commanded to punish the wicked and protect the pious” (An die Pfarrherrn).

In his 1525 advice to the Town Council of Danzig, Luther stated that government regulation of interest should be according to the principle of equity. For example, a mortgage of 5% would be equitable, but it should be reduced if it does not yield this return. At the same time, one should consider persons. The well-to-do could be induced to waive a part of his interest, whereas an old person without means should retain it. But these views were of minimal influence. Legislation was introduced in Dresden in 1529 which prohibited 15–20% interest in favor of a 5% rate. This in turn influenced the reform of the Zwickau city laws in 1539. Yet it was also noted then how often the Dresden legislation was violated.

That these examples may indicate more failure than success is confirmed by the 1564–1565 controversy in Rudolfstadt. The Lutheran pastor there refused to commune two parishioners who lived by “usury.” The theological faculties of Wittenberg, Leipzig, and Jena were requested to give their opinions. They concluded against the pastor, who then had to leave town; and they did not recognize Luther as an authority on this issue.

After this, there was never again a serious effort to acknowledge Luther’s position on usury. Luther’s followers first ignored and then forgot his position against early capitalism. On the question of money, even Luther’s followers thought he was too wild to follow.

Conclusion

Luther’s efforts to turn the early capitalist world upside-down by insisting on government regulation of business and the remission of burdensome debts was countered by the powerful of his day. But it was not only Luther who was powerless. When Emperor Charles V made motions in the direction of stricter business controls, the Fugger banking house reminded him of his outstanding debts to them, and the mining monopolies claimed the right to act as they pleased. Luther was not utopian in these matters. He commented that the world cannot be without usury anymore than it can be without sin, but woe to the person by whom it comes.

Nevertheless, throughout his career, Luther fought against what he saw as the two-sided coin of mammonism: ascetic flight from money and the acquisitive drive for it. His foundation for this battle was the great reversal of the gospel that a person’s worth is not determined by what he or she does or does not possess, but rather by God’s promise in Christ. Thus money is not the lord of life, but the gift of God for serving the neighbor and building up the community.

Carter Lindberg is Professor of Church History at Boston University School of Theology. He is the author of A Third Reformation?

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

From the Archives: Instructions to Young Converts

Charles Finney (1792-1875)

A pivotal figure in American Christianity, Finney led revivals that deeply affected the country in the hears of the 19th century. He was quite concerned with the discipling of those who became Christians through his preaching. This is excerpted from his Lectures on Revivals (1835).

Young converts should be taught that they have renounced the ownership of all their possessions and of themselves, or if they have not done this they are not Christians. They should not be left to think that any thing is their own, their time, property, influence, faculties, bodies or souls. “Ye are not your own;” all belongs to God; and when they submitted to God they made a free surrender of all to him, to be ruled and disposed of at his pleasure. They have no right to spend one hour as if their time was their own. No right to go any where, or do any thing, for themselves, but should hold all at the disposal of God, and employ all for the glory of God. If they do not, they ought not to call themselves Christians, for the very idea of being a Christian is to renounce self and become entirely consecrated to God. A man has no more right to withhold any thing from God, than he has to rob or steal. It is robbery in the highest sense of the term. It is an infinitely higher crime than it would be for a clerk in a store to go and take the money of his employer, and spend it on his own lusts and pleasures. I mean, that for a man to withhold from God, is a higher crime against Him, than a man can commit against his fellow man, inasmuch as God is the owner of all things in an infinitely higher sense than man can be the owner of any thing. If God calls on them to employ any thing they have, their money, or their time, or to give their children, or to dedicate themselves in advancing his kingdom, and they refuse, because they want to use them in their own way, or prefer to do something else, it is vastly more blamable than for a clerk or an agent to go and embezzle the money that is intrusted him by his employer, and spend it for his family, or lay it out in bank stock or in speculation for himself.

God is, in an infinitely higher sense, the owner of all, than any employer can be said to be the owner of what he has. And the church of Christ never will take high ground, never will be disentangled from the world, never will be able to go forward without these continual declensions and backslidings, until Christians, and the churches generally, take the ground, and hold to it, that it is just as much a matter of discipline for a church member practically to deny his stewardship as to deny the divinity of Christ, and that covetousness fairly proved shall just as certainly exclude a man from communion as adultery.

The church is mighty orthodox in notions, but very heretical in practice, but the time must come when the church will be just as vigilant in guarding orthodoxy in practice as orthodoxy in doctrine, and just as prompt to turn out heretics in practice as heretics that corrupt the doctrines of the gospel. In fact, it is vastly more important. The only design of doctrine is to produce practice, and it does not seem to be understood by the church, that true faith “works by love and purifies the heart,” that heresy in practice, is proof conclusive of heresy in sentiment. The church is very sticklish for correct doctrine and very careless about correct living. This is preposterous. Has it come to this, that the church of Jesus Christ is to be satisfied with correct notions on some abstract points, and never reduce her orthodoxy to practice? Let it be so no longer.

It is high time these matters were set right. And the only way to set them right, is to begin right with those who are just entering upon religion. Young converts must be told that they are just as worthy of damnation, and that the church cannot and will not hold fellowship with them, if they show a covetous spirit, and turn a deaf ear when the whole world is calling for help, as if they were living in adultery, or in the daily worship of idols.

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Quick Quotes on Money

"He who bestows his goods upon the poor shall have as much again and ten times more."
—John Bunyan

"If any prophet, speaking in a trance, says, 'Give me your money (or anything else),' do not listen to him."
—the Didache

"Shun, as you would the plague, a cleric who from being poor has become wealthy, or who, from being nobody has become a celebrity."
—Jerome

"Do you know why God wants you rich? So you can do more. The wealthier you become, the more responsible you are to God."
—Jerry Savelle

"He that serves God for money will serve the Devil for better wages."
—Sir Roger L'Estrange

"I continually find it necessary to guard against that natural love of wealth and grandeur which prompts us always, when we come to apply our general doctrine to our own case, to claim an exception."
—William Wilberforce

"Perhaps the moral ambiguity of money is most plainly evidenced in the popular belief that money itself has value and that the worth of other things or of men is somehow measured in monetary terms, rather than the other way around."
—William Stringfellow

"It is more blessed to give than to receive, and therefore less blessed to receive than to give."
—Thomas Chalmers

"Put God to work for you and maximize your potential in our divinely ordered capitalist system."
—Norman Vincent Peale

"Money degrades all the gods of man and converts them into commodities."
—Karl Marx

"No one can earn a million dollars honestly."
—William Jennings Bryan

"Even if we were not sinful by nature, the sin of having private property would suffice to condemn us before God; for that which he gives us freely, we appropriate to ourselves."
—Ulrich Zwingli

"Evangelical agencies with ready funding may have too little depth and vision to cope with the current conflict. God's kingdom is built not on perpetual motion, one-liners, and flashbulbs but on Christ."
—Carl. F. Henry

"There is no such thing as Success. … That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey."
—G.K. Chesterton

"Money is God in action."
—Reverend Ike

"Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money"
—Tertullian

"Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected … . Hoarding is idolotry."
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

From the Archives: Selling and Lending

Thomas Aquinas (1227–1274)

Thomas Aquinas is acclaimed as the father of Roman Catholic theology. A student of Aristotle’s philosophy, he applied logic and moral discernment to the complex realities of medieval life. Here we excerpt from his master work, Summa Theologica, parts of his treatises on “Cheating” and “The Sin of Usury.”

Whether, in Trading, It Is Lawful to Sell a Thing at a Higher Price Than What Was Paid for It?

The greedy tradesman blasphemes over his losses; he lies and perjures himself over the price of his wares. But these are vices of the man, not of the craft, which can be exercised without these vices. Therefore trading is not in itself unlawful.

I answer that. A tradesman is one whose business consists in the exchange of things. According to the Philosopher, exchange of things is twofold; one, natural as it were, and necessary, whereby one commodity is exchanged for another, or money taken in exchange for a commodity, in order to satisfy the needs of life. Suchlike trading, properly speaking, does not belong to the tradesmen, but rather to housekeepers or civil servants who have to provide the household or the state with the necessaries of life. The other kind of exchange is either that of money for money, or of any commodity for money, not on account of the necessities of life, but for profit, and this kind of exchange, properly speaking, regards tradesmen, according to the Philosopher. The former kind of exchange is commendable because it supplies a natural need: but the latter is justly deserving of blame, because, considered in itself, it satisfies the greed for gain, which knows no limit and tends to infinity. Hence trading, considered in itself, has a certain debasement attaching thereto, in so far as, by its very nature, it does not imply a virtuous or necessary end. Nevertheless gain which is the end of trading, though not implying, by its nature, anything virtuous or necessary, does not, in itself, connote anything sinful or contrary to virtue: wherefore nothing prevents gain from being directed to some necessary or even virtuous end, and thus trading becomes lawful. Thus, for instance, a man may intend the moderate gain which he seeks to acquire by trading for the upkeep of his household, or for the assistance of the needy: or again, a man may take to trade for some public advantage, for instance, lest his country lack the necessaries of life, and seek gain, not as an end, but as payment for his labour.

Whether It Is a Sin to Take Usury for Money Lent?

To take usury for money lent is unjust in itself, because this is to sell what does not exist, and this evidently leads to inequality which is contrary to justice.

In order to make this evident, we must observe that there are certain things the use of which consists in their consumption: thus we consume wine when we use it for drink, and we consume wheat when we use it for food. Wherefore in suchlike things the use of the thing must not be reckoned apart from the thing itself, and whoever is granted the use of the thing, is granted the thing itself; and for this reason, to lend things of this kind is to transfer the ownership. Accordingly if a man wanted to sell wine separately from the use of the wine, he would be selling the same thing twice, or he would be selling what does not exist, wherefore he would evidently commit a sin of injustice. In like manner he commits an injustice who lends wine or wheat, and asks for double payment, viz. one, the return of the thing in equal measure, the other, the price of the use, which is called usury.

On the other hand there are things the use of which does not consist in their consumption: thus to use a house is to dwell in it, not to destroy it. Wherefore in such things both may be granted: for instance, one man may hand over to another the ownership of his house while reserving to himself the use of it for a time, or vice versa, he may grant the use of the house, while retaining the ownership. For this reason a man may lawfully make a charge for the use of his house, and, besides this, revendicate the house from the person to whom he has granted its use, as happens in renting and letting a house.

Now money, according to the Philosopher was invented chiefly for the purpose of exchange: and consequently the proper and principal use of money is its consumption or alienation whereby it is sunk in exchange. Hence it is by its very nature unlawful to take payment for the use of money lent, which payment is known as usury: and just as a man is bound to restore other ill-gotten goods, so is he bound to restore the money which he has taken in usury.

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Clement of Alexandria: What Kind of Rich Person Can Be Saved?

Charles White

A Paraphrase of Quis Dives Salvandus

During the first hundred years after the death of the apostles no important Christian writer wrestled with the question of how the followers of Jesus should use their money. The Lord had told his disciples not to worry about it, but to give it away freely. The Jerusalem believers obeyed this injunction by selling their excess property and sharing their goods. Later, Paul’s converts retained private ownership but systematically provided for the needy. Near the end of his life Paul warned Christians against the love of money and instructed wealthy believers to use their money for good deeds.

As Christianity spread through all classes of society thoughtful believers must have sensed the apparent tension between Jesus’ injunctions and Paul’s instructions about money. Clement was a late second-century thinker who set himself the task of clarifying the church’s understanding of wealth. His position as the tread of the famous catechetical school in Alexandria made him the most important theologian of his day. He addressed the problem in a sermon on the rich young ruler from Mark 10:17–31, usually known by its Latin title Quis Dives Salvetur? The original is available in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca and appears in English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Because Clement’s sermon is long and his style verbose, we will present his work in a paraphrased version.

The usual way to begin such an essay is with a dedication to a rich patron, but because praise belongs to God alone, and because the rich already have enough temptations to pride, I will forbear. Instead I will tell the rich how to be saved.

There are two different mistakes rich people can make about being saved. One is to remember that Jesus said it was easier for a camel to get through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to get into heaven, and then to give up. “Because there is no hope of getting a camel through the needle’s eye,” they say, “I might as well enjoy this life. I have no hope of going to heaven.” The other mistake is to think that it is easy to get into heaven, and thus not to work toward it.

Those of us who have true love for rich people will neither insult them nor cringe before them. The wealthy need to know that salvation is neither out of reach nor attained without effort. They should not make the mistake of the athlete who wanted to enter the games, but gave up when he saw the competition. Nor should they make the mistake of the athlete who signed up but did not train properly or eat correctly, so he also lost. To continue the athletic imagery, if one wants to win the crown of immortality, he should let the Word be his trainer, and the New Testament his diet. He must train by keeping the commandments, and remember that Jesus is the referee. If he does this he may be confident that God will crown him with the crown of life.

The Rich Young Ruler

The key to understanding how rich people can be saved is in the story of the rich young ruler. It may seem that this story means that no rich person can be saved. Not necessarily. Let us look at the story once again, but this time let us put aside childish misconceptions. A young man came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to live forever?”

“You know the commandments,” Jesus replied. “Keep them.”

“I have,” the man replied.

“Just one more thing,” said Jesus. “If you want to be perfect, sell everything you have, give the money to the poor, and then come, follow me.” Hearing this, the young man went away grieved, because he was very rich.

Because Jesus taught with divine and mystic wisdom, it takes diligence and intelligence to find the hidden meaning in his words. In telling the young man to sell his possessions the Savior is not bidding him to abandon his property, but to banish from his soul the wrong ideas he has about wealth—his love of it and his worry about it. Obviously Jesus was not saying that to have no property is to have eternal life. If that were true, then the beggars in the streets, who do not even claim to know God, would be the best Christians.

Another reason we know that Jesus did not mean his words literally is that even before Christ came some pagans gave up their wealth, and they certainly were not saved. No, Jesus here is not talking about some simple outward action. Instead, he is speaking of something greater, more God-like, and more perfect: the stripping off of the passions from the soul, and the cutting up by the roots and the casting out of what is alien to the mind. Yes, the pagans could give away their possessions, but they could not free themselves from their passions. I believe that those who did give away all that they had actually intensified the pride they felt in themselves and the contempt they felt for the rest of mankind.

If God really wanted Christians to give everything away, why would he have commanded us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked? No, God wants us to use wealth wisely, not to abandon it. Money in itself is neither good nor bad, but we may put it to good or bad uses. If we are to use money wisely, we must get rid of evil desires which cloud our judgment. So let no man destroy wealth; destroy rather the passions of the soul, which are incompatible with the better use of wealth. Become good, and thus make a good use of riches. Hence it is clear that when Jesus spoke of selling all one’s possessions, he meant the renunciation of the passions of the soul.

Take It or Leave It

What God wants is a “take it or leave it” attitude about money. Money must not be the master; rather it must be the slave. If one has money, it is for the sake of his brethren; if he does not have money, he is as cheerful as if he had. That is what it means to be poor in spirit.

Another way to see that Jesus was speaking metaphorically when he spoke of the difficulty of a rich man getting into heaven is to look at the disciples’ astonished response to his words. “Who then can be saved?” they cry in consternation. Why are they dismayed? Is it because they are rich? No, certainly not. They have left all to follow him. They are amazed because they understand the hidden meaning in the Lord’s words. They have been counting on being saved because they have renounced their possessions, but now they understand that until their souls are cleansed of passions they have no more hope than a rich man who clings to his possessions. Salvation is the privilege only of pure and passionless souls.

But the Lord replies, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” No man can free himself from his passions and desires, but God conspires with willing souls. Peter shows himself willing by saying, “We have left all to follow you.” Here he cannot be boasting of leaving the few dollars worth of property he owned, but he means he has left the old mental possessions and diseases of the soul. By doing this he will be saved.

Watch Out for Wealth

Having shown that it is possible for a rich person to be saved, I will now turn to the one who sees no trouble in riches. You say: “Certainly Christ does not debar me from property. The Lord does not envy.” True enough, but are you overcome and overthrown by your money? Leave it, throw it away, hate, renounce, flee! If you are able to have wealth but to turn from its power, to entertain only modest thoughts about yourself, to exercise self-control, and to seek God alone, well and good. But if not, get rid of it. To you money is an enemy. It vexes your soul with ungodly lusts, strange pleasures, base hopes, and destructive dreams. It makes you grasp for more and more, flogs you on with animal desires, and leads you inexorably to death. A camel has more chance of getting through a needle’s eye than you have of getting into heaven.

So instead of thinking the rich have no hope or that they have no problem, learn how to use wealth in order to gain eternal life. First, love God. That means we should treasure him more highly than anything else. Second, love your neighbor, your Christian neighbor. That means give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, lodging to the stranger, clothes to the naked, medicine to the sick, and company to the imprisoned. The wealth in your power is not your own, therefore do not wait for Christians in need to ask you for help. Seek them out! As eagerly as a merchant looks for a new market, so should you seek out the needy. And do not ask which Christian is worthy and which is not. You may be wrong in your judgment and thereby deprive someone who needs your help. It is better to take the risk of giving to the undeserving than to take the risk of neglecting the deserving. In giving to these penniless, ragged, ugly, and feeble brothers you are hiring warriors and guards for your soul. One of them can obtain your pardon from God, another can comfort you when sick, a third can pray for you. One of them can teach you about salvation, another can admonish you with confidence, and a third can counsel you with kindness. All can love truly.

Brotherly Love

As a further motivation to give, remember that Jesus gave his all to save us. For each of us he gave his life. Because he gave up his life for us, he demands we give our lives for each other. If we owe our very lives to our brothers, shall we hoard our wealth, and keep it away from them? Shall we keep things away from each other only to have those things burn at the end of the world? No, no! If we do not love our brothers, we are children of the devil and heading for the flames ourselves.

But the true Christian loves his brothers! Love seeks not her own, but is diffused on the brother. About the brother love is fluttered, about him she is soberly insane! And, as Paul tells us, love is the only thing that lasts.

So you rich one, do not give up hope. God grants forgiveness when we turn to him in repentance. But to make sure your repentance is sincere, submit yourself to some godly Christian who will be your trainer and governor. Let him speak freely to you about your faults, and obey his words. Do not give up. Repentance is always possible.

In order to drive the point home that repentance is always possible, let me tell you a true story about the Apostle John. While visiting outside Ephesus one time, John committed a youth to the local bishop to be discipled, and then returned home. The bishop trained the youth well for a while, and then relaxed his discipline. The youth fell in with evil friends, one thing led to another, and the youth finally became the captain of a band of robbers. John returned to the city and asked about the boy. Upon hearing the story he journeyed to the robbers’ hideout and confronted the former disciple. “Come back with me and give yourself up,” John said. “If you are sentenced to death, I will die for you.” Overcome by this great love the man surrendered and was restored to the church, a forgiven brother.

So you may choose: repentance and life or earthly pleasures and death. But if you choose death, blame neither God nor riches for your choice.

Charles Edward White is Assistant Professor of Christian Thought and History at Spring Arbor College in Michigan. He is the author of The Beauty of Holiness.

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Money and the Bible

John R. Muether

A Survey of the History of Biblical Interpretation on Money and Wealth

For the Christian, all of life falls under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This includes money matters. The Christian life has implications for the believer’s attitude toward wealth and poverty. It is not surprising, then, that economic matters are prominent in the teachings of the Bible and the social ethics of the Christian church.

Turning to the Bible, we find a fundamental ambivalence regarding money. In some contexts, especially in the Old Testament, money is portrayed very positively. Abraham is described as “very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold” (Gen. 13:2). Job was a man of great wealth, and Solomon was granted riches and honor unparalleled among the kings of his day (1 Ki. 3:13). Proverbs tells us that “the blessing of the Lord brings wealth” (10:22), and describes a simple work ethic: “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (10:4).

Of course, the Old Testament is not without its warnings about wealth. We must not forget the source of our wealth: “Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deut. 8:18). We must not put ultimate trust in them. The Psalmist says that God will bring to ultimate destruction “the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth” (Ps. 52:7). Further, the possession of wealth comes with the obligation to care for the needy: “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord” (Prov. 19:17). The O.T. institutions of the tithe, the Sabbath, and the Jubilee served in part to remind the Israelites that their wealth was ultimately the Lord’s and that they were to use it to his glory.

The picture of money changes slightly in the New Testament, which emphasizes the breakthrough of the kingdom of God in the coming of Jesus Christ. Here the negative side of money receives greater emphasis. Jesus spoke often about money. In the parable of the rich fool (Lk. 12:19) he showed the folly of being materially rich but poor with God. He condemned the idolatrous attitude of treating money as a deity (Mammon): “No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Lk.16:13). Jesus reminds us that money is God’s creation and is not to take God’s role of ruler of our lives; we must seek first the kingdom of God, and material things will be provided for us (Lk. 12:31). The possession of wealth too easily tempts us to a devotion for the things of this world, and away from Christ and his kingdom. Riches can choke the word and render it unfruitful in the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:22). For this reason, it is difficult for the rich to come to faith (Matt. 19:23–24). The poor have an advantage, not simply because they are poor, but because they are unable to rely on their own resources and thus are more prepared to submit to Christ’s Lordship. For this reason Jesus blessed the poor (Matt. 5:3).

These teachings of Jesus are reflected in the rest of the N.T. where we are warned (in what is perhaps the most well-known statement of Scripture on the subject) that “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10). For Paul, the opposite of covetousness is contentment, and this is the foundation of his Christian life (Phil. 4:12).

Finally, true wealth is to be found in our salvation in Jesus Christ, which is described often in Scripture in economic terms. The poor of this world have been chosen to be “rich in faith,” “inheriting God’s kingdom” (Jas. 2:5). Paul describes his ministry as “poor, yet making many rich, having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Cor. 6:10). Using zero-sum logic, he says that we are rich because Jesus became poor (2 Cor. 8:9). The biblical teaching on money is thus two-fold: money is a gift from God, a sign of his blessing. But it is not to be a god in itself. The Bible is not ascetic; poverty is not inherently virtuous, nor is wealth sinful. But true wealth, the Bible teaches us, is spiritual, not material.

How the Early Church Saw It

How has the biblical teaching on money been interpreted in the history of the church? The early church was generally poor itself. It taught a stoic indifference to the things of this world, in part because of its eschatological expectation of an imminent consummation of the kingdom. Gradually it developed a distrust of wealth and a glorification of poverty.

But the early church was not communistic. The fathers recognized the tension between the affirmation of private property in Scripture and the radical demands of Christian love. They permitted private property and commercial activity, although they viewed both as post-Fall institutions and accommodations to man’s sinfulness, and so both were forbidden to the clergy. And they warned constantly about the dangers of wealth, instructing the rich to relieve the suffering of the poor through almsgiving. Private property was to be used for the good of others. Said Polycarp of Smyrna: “When it is in your power to do good, withhold not, because alms deliver from death.”

But they did not see the Bible as absolutely opposed to wealth. It was not the quantity of wealth that the Bible condemned but the wrongful attitude toward wealth. Augustine wrote in his commentary on Psalm 72 of how covetousness is a sin that tempted the poor no less than the rich: “It is not a matter of income but of desire. Look at the rich man standing beside you; perhaps he has a lot of money on him but no avarice in him; while you, who have no money, have a lot of avarice.” This idea is echoed in Clement of Alexandria’s sermon, “Who is the Rich Man that Shall Be Saved?” He argued that in Jesus’ parable, the rich man, who does not worry about his livelihood, may be less greedy, and thus closer to salvation, than the poor! We do not have to agree with his exegesis to affirm that the biblical warning against the love of money applies to both the poor and the rich.

Generally, the church fathers concentrated on individual money matters, and did not address larger questions of economic justice. The notable exception to this was their very extensive condemnation of usury. The fathers were universally opposed to any interest-taking in the lending of money. The Old Testament prohibitions were regarded as binding (Deut. 23:19), and the New Testament teaching on love was seen as incompatible with usury (“lend… without expecting to get anything back” [Lk. 6:35]). Athanasius taught that usury was a grave sin, commitment of which lost one his salvation. Ambrose agreed when he wrote: “If anyone commits usury, he commits robbery and no longer has life.”

In prohibiting usury the fathers especially sought to protect the poor. The poor were particularly inclined to borrow money, and greedy lenders often drove them to slavery or suicide. The fathers did not deal with the morality of interest in cases when the borrower himself profited from the loan.

The medieval church further developed and institutionalized the Christian thinking about money. The ascetic movement of the ancient church found support in the nature-grace dualism in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Money was viewed as unspiritual, the product of a fallen world. Wealth beyond the minimum for survival was subversive to true (anti-material) spirituality, and material poverty was necessary for spiritual perfection. Aquinas reflected the fathers’ antipathy toward commercial activity, finding “something base” in it, especially the practice of usury.

In the middle ages we begin to see legislative attempts by the church to alleviate the problem of poverty. The practice of almsgiving was extended by medieval church councils into a quasi-income tax. Members of the church were required to pay a tenth of their income to the bishop, specifically to provide relief for the poor.

The Reformers’ Doctrine of Money

The Reformation rediscovery of the doctrine of justification by faith had an important impact on its interpretation of economic matters. The Reformers rejected the glorification of poverty. Monastic movements that began as works of charity had become means of seeking salvation. Justification by faith taught that salvation is the foundation, not the goal of the Christian life. There was therefore no salvific value in being poor or in giving alms. The Reformers did not deny the biblical warnings about wealth (Luther saw three conversions necessary for the believer: conversion of the heart, the mind, and the purse). But neither did they recommend material poverty. Calvin wrote that poverty is as dangerous to spirituality as wealth: “From the right are, for example, riches, powers, honors, which often dull men’s keenness of sight by the glitter and seeming goodness they display, and allure with their blandishments, so that, captivated by such tricks and drunk with such sweetness, men forget their God. From the left are, for example, poverty, disgrace, contempt, afflictions, and the like. Thwarted by hardship and difficulty of these, they become despondent in mind, cast away assurance and hope, and are at last completely estranged from God.”

The Reformers also rejected the Thomistic anti-materialism that lay behind the medieval rejection of wealth. Aquinas taught that money was a post-Fall institution, but Calvin regarded money more positively as an institution of creation. It was part of the “order of nature,” a vehicle to enhance human communication. Wrongful use of money, therefore, was a corruption of the order of nature.

Calvin is the first theologian to question the scholastic teaching on usury. He found the absolute prohibition against interest to have more affinity with an Aristotelian view of money than with the biblical witness. Money was not a static unit of exchange (as Aristotle held), but a dynamic tool for the creation of wealth. Because borrowers could profit from loans, the rationale against usury weakened. But Calvin fell short of full endorsement of usury. He distinguished lawful and unlawful usury. Unlawful was the practice of the professional usurer, who invariably oppressed the poor. Such should be banned from the church, urged Calvin; “We should not grow rich at the loss of others.” But usury was lawful, indeed necessary, in commercial contexts. The Reformers saw no incompatibility between commercial activity and the Christian life. Calvin simply insisted that the Golden Rule govern such activity. Wesley urged believers to practice business to the glory of God: “Make as much as you can, save as much as you can, and give as much as you can.”

Anabaptist Dissent

Although there was a general consensus emerging from the Reformation that was positive about money, the Anabaptists were an important voice of dissent. In economic as in other matters, Anabaptists felt the Reformers had not carried the Reformation far enough. Menno Simons criticized the Reformers for inadequately caring for the poor, which made their gospel “easygoing” and their sacrament “barren bread breaking”:

Is it not sad and intolerable hypocrisy that these poor people boast of having the Word of God, of being the true, Christian church, never remembering that they have entirely lost their sign of true Christianity? For although many of them have plenty of everything, go about in silk and velvet, gold and silver, and in all manner of pomp and splendor, ornament their houses with all manner of costly furniture; have their coffers filled, and live in luxury and splendor, yet they stuffer many of their own poor, afflicted members to ask alms; and poor, hungry suffering, old, lame, blind, and sick people to beg their bread at their doors.

For Simons, the gospel carried a radical obligation for the care of the poor; “Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion for him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 Jn. 3:17) .

Most Anabaptists permitted private ownership, but some Anabaptist sects went so far as to renounce private property. A Christian communism was institutionalized by the Hutterites in their practice of a “community of goods.” The words of Ulrich Stadler reveal how destructive possessions were to the Christian life in the eyes of these Christians: “one, common builds the Lord’s house and is pure; but mine, thine, his, own divides the Lord’s house and is impure. Therefore, where there is ownership and one has it, and it is his, and one does not wish to be one with Christ and his own in living and dying, he is outside of Christ and his communion and has no Father in heaven.”

The Puritan Ethic

But the Anabaptists were a persecuted minority, and their influence was limited. Meanwhile, the economic legacy of the Reformation was carried to the new world by the Puritans. The Puritans pursued an ethic of industry, moderation, and simple living. Ironically, this ethic tended to produce great wealth. The similarities between the Puritan work ethic and the business ethics of capitalism prompted sociologist Max Weber to forward the thesis that the theology of the Reformation, especially Calvinism, gave rise to capitalism. In his famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism he argued that the Calvinist virtues of frugality, honesty, and thrift produced a “this-worldly asceticism,” replacing the medieval “other-worldly asceticism,” and generated an accumulation of wealth.

Weber’s thesis is compelling, but Calvin himself warned against seeing wealth as an automatic sign of God’s election. We ought not to probe into the mysteries of God’s providence. After all, by his common grace God does grant riches to the heathen. The Puritans likewise saw nothing inherently meritorious in wealth; it was often viewed with great suspicion. Richard Baxter warned that “where the world hath got possessions in the heart, it makes us false to God, and false to man, it makes us unfaithful in our callings, and false to religion itself.” The Puritans were keenly aware that riches could turn one from God. Commenting on the materialism of his day, Cotton Mather wrote: “Religion begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother.”

Critics of Weber are thus uneasy about finding a legitimization of capitalism in Calvinism; some see an opposite correlation between the rise of capitalism and the decline of Calvinism. In the Post-Reformation era capitalism secularized Calvinistic ethics. Protestantism became synonymous with middle-class respectability, and Christian virtues with bourgeois values. The Post-Reformation era abandoned the social revolutionary thought of the Reformers. Rather than seek the structural solutions to poverty that characterized the Reformation, Protestantism returned to the early church model of personal charity. Protestant mission efforts to ameliorate the economic victims of industrialization generally did not aim at structural change in society.

Christian Economics in America

For American evangelicals, the problem of poverty is tied to the question of relating evangelism and social action. In the 19th century, the evangelical benevolent empire in America saw no conflict in the church engaging in both activities. Historian Timothy Smith argues that reform-minded evangelicals successfully united spiritual and social concerns: “The soul-winning impulse drove Christians into systematic efforts to relieve the miseries of the urban poor.” By the turn of the century, however, pessimistic premillenialism saw social reform as a lost cause. Charity again became privatized, and the emphasis in the churches returned to evangelism. Dwight L. Moody, for example, saw individual conversions as the greatest hope for social change. Since the middle of this century, evangelicalism has shed the indifference to social action characteristic of fundamentalism, but debates continue on how the church best addresses poverty and other social issues.

In contemporary Christian discussions on economic issues, much attention is focused on the structural roots of wealth and poverty. Some contemporary writers, renouncing the traditional concern for the attitude toward wealth, find the mere quantity of wealth to be sinful in a world of growing disparity between rich and poor. The dislocating effects of industrialization, the impoverishment of the third world, and the coarse hedonism of Western consumerism have led those to seek solutions to poverty in redistribution. Walter Rauschenbusch and his Social Gospel movement attempted to reform laissez-faire capitalism of 19th-century America by placing economic structures under the “law of Christ” rather than the “law of Mammon.” His vision was to usher in an era of economic justice marked by just wages, lower unemployment, and redistributed wealth.

More recently and more radically, liberation theology has located the source of third-world poverty in Western affluence. Liberation theology does not regard money neutrally. It holds that money can take on demonic character, and is one of the “principalities and powers” of darkness at war with God’s kingdom. Thus the rich are the world’s oppressors, and the biblical episodes of the Exodus and the Incarnation (Lk. 4) provide models for revolutionary action: God acting decisively in dislocating the powerful and liberating the poor. Many liberation theologians condemn private property, and they are generally utopian in their visions of a society where the ethics of the kingdom overcome human selfishness.

While the social gospel and liberation theology would recommend socialistic economic arrangements, another stream of current thought advocates an “alternative liberation theology” in democratic capitalism. It finds flaws in a negative attitude toward money and in the zero-sum presuppositions of redistributionism (the poor are poor because the rich are rich) It cites the virtues of productivity and the success of capitalist societies in raising standards of living, and it finds hope for the poor in the creation of new wealth. Thus this school of thought prefers models of development rather than liberation. And it regards the vision of liberation theology as unrealistic: the best Christians can hope for in this world is not the eradication of selfishness but the control of selfishness.

The current debate and the tensions in the history of interpretation remind us of the two-fold character of the biblical witness on money. Money is a blessing from God, but the love of money is sinful. In personal attitudes toward wealth, these two ideas are harmonized in the biblical concept of stewardship. Stewardship welcomes money as God’s gift, but remembers that our property is ultimately God’s. We are entrusted with it for a time and we will be held accountable for our use of it.

The southern Presbyterian theologian Robert Dabney wrote that stewardship requires the Christian to make the most efficient use of wealth: “It is our duty to make the best use of every part of our possession that is possible in our circumstances. If there was any way within our reach in which our money might have produced more good and more honor to God when we spent it in something innocent, but less beneficial to his service, we have come short of our duty. We have sinned.” Dabney offers a simple test to judge our use of God’s money: Does it make us more efficient servants of God?

John R. Muether is librarian at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Theonomy on Debt

R. J. Rushdoony

Debt is for the Christian a violation of the commandment, “Owe no man anything save to love one another” (Rom. 13:8). Debt rests on covetousness, a desire to possess what our neighbor has, even though we lack his means. As a result of covetousness, the slave desires to possess a home, car, furnishings, and clothing which he sees the wealthy possessing, and his means of securing these things is debt. St. Paul declared, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is also certain that we can carry nothing out. But having food and clothing, let us therewith be content” (1 Tim. 6:6, 7).

The covetous man or nation goes into debt to gain added power, purchasing power, prestige, resources, and other forms of visible might. The result is indeed an increase of power, but it is short-term power purchased at the price of long-term disaster. The debtor sees perpetually additional goals, new increases of power possible through debt, and as a result plunges ever more deeply into slavery. Debt is a way of life, a covetous way of life and a form of slavery. The eventual outcome of a debt-economy, for men and nations, is bankruptcy.

The short-term power, however, is impressive. The debtors themselves are profoundly impressed by this power, and hence they ascribe to the greatest debtors the greatest power. They believe, moreover, whenever they become aware of the pinch of debt, that the evil is in the moneylender, not in themselves for having lived covetously. As a result, they begin to rant against “the hidden money power,” and often amass data concerning it. The grains of truth concerning the money establishment obscures the grim reality that debtors create this money-establishment, and the real evil is covetous living, not banking, erroneous though modern principles of banking are.

The perspective of those who concern themselves about the “money-trust” is thus a very faulty one. They believe in the triumph of evil, and they fail to see the basic evil as debt, as covetousness. Such people would outlaw banking, a legitimate activity, instead of forsaking covetousness. Money-lending is not a sin; slavery is a fact of life, and the debt-slave cannot blame a man who honestly and legitimately lends him money. The Bible recognizes such a transaction as legitimate; the slave is not outlawed by God, but is merely regarded as a person whose way of life is a very limited one. The biblical law makes provision for the slave who wants slavery; it simply insists that he publicly acknowledge what his way of life is, an act of will (Ex. 21:1–6).

The believer who avoids debt declares thereby that he refuses to be a slave, refuses to be covetous, acknowledges that the earth is the Lord’s and man also, and, therefore, that life can be lived only in terms of God’s law. The Christian cannot mortgage himself or his future: it is God’s, not his own. In terms of this faith, and this way of life, power returns to the Christian man, whose loss of freedom and of power began with a loss of faith and that covetous mind which is the mainspring of debt-slavery. The beginning of true power is always obedience to God.

Reprinted from Politics of Guilt and Pity (Thoburn Press). Used with permission

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

From the Archives: The Saint’s Everlasting Rest

Richard Baxter (1615–1691)

In this Puritan classic, written in 1649, Baxter discusses how the “worldly-minded” pursue material possessions rather than God.

If there be so certain and glorious a rest for the saints, why is there no more industrious seeking after it? One would think if a man did but once hear of such unspeakable glory to be obtained, and believed what he heard to be true, he should be transported with the vehemency of his desire after it, and should almost forget to eat or drink, and should care for nothing else, and speak of and inquire after nothing else, but how to get this treasure. And yet people who hear of it daily, and profess to believe it as a fundamental article of their faith, do as little mind it, or labour for it, as if they had never heard of any such thing, or did not believe one word they hear…

The worldly-minded are so taken up in seeking the things below, that they have neither heart nor time to seek this rest. O foolish sinners, who hath bewitched you? The world bewitches men into brute beasts, and draws them some degrees beyond madness. See what riding and running, what scrambling and catching for a thing of nought, while eternal rest lies neglected! What contriving and caring to get a step higher in the world than their brethren, while they neglect the kingly dignity of the saints! What insatiable pursuit of fleshly pleasures, while they look on the praises of God, the joy of angels, as a tiresome burden! What unwearied diligence in raising their posterity, enlarging their possessions; perhaps for a poor living from hand to mouth; while judgment is drawing near; but how it shall go with them then, never puts them to one hour’s consideration! What rising early, and sitting up late, and labouring from year to year, to maintain themselves and children in credit till they die: but what shall follow after, they never think on! Yet these men cry. “May we not be saved without so much ado?” How early do they rouse up their servants to their labour! But how seldom do they call them to prayer, or reading the scriptures! What hath this world done for its lovers and friends, that it is so eagerly followed, and painfully sought after, while Christ and heaven stand by, and few regard them? or what will the world do for them for the time to come? The common entrance into it is through anguish and sorrow. The passage through it. is with continual care and labour. The passage out of it, is the sharpest of all. O unreasonable, bewitched men! will mirth and pleasure stick close to you? Will gold and worldly glory prove fast friends to you in the time of your greatest need? Will they hear your cries in the day of your calamity? At the hour of your death, will they either answer or relieve you? Will they go along with you to the other world, and bribe the Judge, and bring you off clear, or purchase you a place among the blessed? Why then did the rich man want a drop of water to cool his tongue? Or are the sweet morsels of present delight and honour of more worth than eternal rest? and will they recompense the loss of that enduring treasure? Can there be the least hope of any of these? Ah, vile, deceitful world! How oft have we heard thy most faithful servants at last complaining: “Oh, the world hath deceived me, and undone me? It pattered me in my prosperity, but now it turns me off in my necessity. If I had as faithfully served Christ, as I have served it, he would not have left me thus comfortless and hopeless.” Thus they complain: and yet succeeding sinners will take no warning.

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine. Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

History

Francis and the Waldensians

Joyce Renick

Was Francis of Assisi secretly a Waldensian? Catholic writers vigorously reject the idea that a “heretic” such as Peter Waldo could have had any direct influence on the saint from Assisi. However, a cross-fertilization of ideas, with Peter Waldo directly or indirectly influencing Francis of Assisi is definitely possible.

Considered a major forerunner of the Protestant Reformation, Peter Waldo lived at the same time as Francis, in the twelfth century. He was a French merchant who was converted in 1170 and promptly gave up his substantial wealth. He formed a band known as the Poor People of Lyons. They went about preaching, translating the Bible into the language of the common people, and ministering to the poor, though they were committed to poverty themselves.

Confronted with a Christianity that was primarily theoretical, and with a priesthood saddled with corruption and inertia, Waldo insisted that the teaching of the gospel be put into practice. His Rule of Faith was therefore a call to action, summoning Christians to apply God’s commands in their everyday lives.

The Waldensian group was one of several springing up about that time as an intuitive answer to the specific needs for reform in the church. The Cistercians and the Albigensians in France pre-dated both the Franciscans in Italy and the Dominicans in Spain. They were spawned several years after Waldo and his Poor People of Lyons began to impact French society as the “Jesus People” of the twelfth century.

There is no recorded meeting between Francis and Peter Waldo, but the writings of a contemporary, Thomas of Celano, the biographer of Francis, lead us to some speculations. First, he says the mother of Francis was French. Second, she was sympathetic to the Waldensian movement. Third, Francis’s father traveled frequently to France and must have visited Lyons often at the time when the movement of the Poor People was gaining momentum.

We also find curious similarities between the teaching of Francis and that of Waldo:

(1) Both had a literal view of the Bible;

(2) Their common mandate of a practical Christianity of good works had its biblical basis in the Epistle of James, whereas the sixteenth-century reformers concentrated more on Paul’s letters;

(3) To reinforce their teaching on the vow of poverty, they chose the same four Scripture passages from Matthew’s Gospel, out of a possible fourteen texts on the subject;

(4) Their interpretation of one of these texts, Matthew 10:10, is identical.

Historian Giorgio Tourn writes, “The similarities between Francis and Waldo (the latter was older by a mere thirty years) are so many and obvious. Alike city dwellers, whose mercantile families became at odds with their societies, both were gripped totally by the gospel and both were propelled thereby to a life of poverty. Each was also a missionary on the frontier of the church, concerned for a balance between obedience and liberty.

“No less evident and substantial, however, were the differences which made of the one a heretic who would be relegated to the footnotes of history and of the other the very embodiment of sainthood.”

While Francis was hailed as the pinnacle of spirituality, Waldo was excommunicated. Yet his preaching had an influence. Fifty years after he started preaching in Lyons, the Waldensians had become a well-defined movement, offering their call to true faith and their model of Christian community. To escape persecution, they scattered throughout Europe, settling especially in the mountain valleys of the Cottian Alps and establishing churches that today are Protestant.

The above observations were based on Giorgio Tourn, “The Waldensians, The First Eight Hundred Years” and Herbert L. Stein-Schneider’s article “La ‘Confessio Evangelico’ du Catharisme Occitan,” Etuds Theologiques et Religieuses (Montpellier, France 1986, Vol. 3)

Joyce Renick is a free lance writer who has lived in Lyons and worked there as a missionary

Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

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