Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Careers, Workplace and Religion
Is money power?

Is money power?

Last updated on: July 29, 2014 at 8:51 am by Made to Flourish

Is money power? 2014-07-26T20:31:41-05:00 Made to Flourish

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A new post from Greg Forster over at the Kern Pastors Network blog asks us to think about that question. Greg is responding to the “widespread chatter” about a recent book on capitalism by Thomas Piketty (we talked about the book a few weeks ago in this very space.)

Greg begins by noting,

The widespread chatter about Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” is both good news and bad news. The good news is that people are intensely interested in the problem of inequality. The bad news is that they are interested in the wrong kind of inequality.

The inequality people are talking about is unequal possession of money. The more important challenge is unequal respect for human dignity. Address that, and the money issues will not only seem less important, they will also become less difficult – and in ways you would have never discovered as long as you were thinking about money instead of dignity.

Why are we having this kind of chatter? Because our minds haven’t caught up with our money yet:

Today, we face a reality unprecedented in the whole history of the world: we are not starving. Traditional modes of social organization have all been designed to meet what was, until very recently, the central challenge of all human life: keeping food on the table. Even now, 200 years after the Industrial Revolution, we haven’t really figured out how to organize social systems for an environment in which the problem of starvation has basically been solved.

The modern, entrepreneurial economy creates wealth. This has had an extraordinary, transformative effect on every aspect of human life in modern civilization. Without it, you couldn’t sustain democracy, modern medicine, free speech, technological advancement, a public role for women, or any of the other blessings of modern life that we take for granted every day.

However, because it creates wealth, the entrepreneurial economy also creates large, new inequalities of wealth. Before modern times, there just wasn’t enough money for the disparities of wealth to grow very large. Only in the past two centuries has there been enough economic growth for larger inequalities to occur. And we haven’t figured out what we should think and do about it.

He compares Zacchaeus the tax collector to the modern situation:

With 97 percent of the population living within shouting distance of starvation, Zacchaeus didn’t need much money to swagger around town and lord it over everyone. The average American today – that’s you and I – is almost certainly many times wealthier than Zacchaeus. In fact, modern Americans in the upper middle class, far below the highest ranks of the modern wealthy, are probably richer than Caesar himself. Think about that the next time you read the book of Luke!

Let’s be clear: our problem today is not a lack of money. Recent big-think pieces in the New York Times and on National Public Radio have begun with the astonishing observation that in modern America, even the poor have all the money they really need. They have lots of problems, some of them shocking and urgently in need of help. But they also have food, clothing, shelter, cars, phones, televisions, and computers. If money could have solved their most pressing problems, it would have by now.

So, what’s broken? Relationships, says Greg:

Our problem is broken relationships and systems, and they’re broken at multiple levels. Among the poor, the most basic relationships of human life – family and work – are broken. Nothing else will get better if this problem is not dealt with.

But the chatter about Piketty’s book shows that our broken relationships are not confined to the poor. Inequality of incomes fascinates us, in spite of it having little relevance to helping those in need, because our relationships with ourselves, our money, and our fellow citizens is broken.

Because we have believed the deceitfulness of riches, we are becoming more and more obsessed with who has how much of what. The modern economy has produced huge fortunes. How can we get our hands on some of it?

Ironically, he adds, we got here because we were trying to get somewhere else:

Ironically, what produced the modern economy in the first place was not the pursuit of money. It was the pursuit of equal respect for human dignity. The most important catalyst of the Industrial Revolution was an Institutional Revolution: the belief that people outside the ruling class had human dignity led society to give more and more people the right to work, earn, buy, sell, save, and build. That’s the entrepreneurial economy.

And we need to be careful we do not return to a position that treats only some people as, well, people:

Zacchaeus may not have had all that much more money than the beggar, by our standards, but he was a human being in the eyes of Roman law. The beggar was not. Zacchaeus could have done almost anything to that beggar with impunity. He could have spat on him, beat him, taken away the few pennies he had, or even killed him and paid no price for it. And in his way, that is actually what he did to thousands of people, year after year – until he met Jesus.

Don’t think for a moment that America could never go back to that kind of inequality, treating only some people as human. In most of the world, unequal protection of economic rights is still normal. Recent victories by hyper-nationalist and even quasi-fascist parties across Europe (they won inFrance, of all places!) are a sobering reminder that there is nothing stopping even the most advanced, civilized nations from a return to the kind of brutal inhumanity that is, both historically and globally, the normal state of human affairs.

The gospel is light and hope. The church can help rebuild broken relationships in communities and remind the world that all people are creators and contributors. When we do this, our neighbors respond. Never underestimate the impact of hope – the reminder that people don’t need to have much money to live in the way God intends for them, and in a way that will give them dignity and community.

He concludes,

What I do know is that human dignity and right relationships matter more than who has how much of what. Can we renew equal human dignity in our time? This will be one of the key challenges the church faces in the coming generation.

How can you address that challenge? How can you create hope? How can you build relationships? Have you done this and do you have a success story to share with the rest of us? Share your ideas below.

Image: KPN.

Previous Post

July 28, 2014

Three things dessert can tell you about God

Next Post

July 30, 2014 Sometimes heaven meets earth in a hamburger: more from "Come and See"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Audio posts Bible and Work Book Review Books Budgeting Calling Common Good Community Development Conferences Discipleship Economics Entrepreneurship Ethics Faith and Family Faith and the Marketplace Faith and the Workplace faith and work History of Work and Vocation Leadership Local Church Meaning New Blogger News Prayer Relationships Seminaries Theology of Work Uncategorized Video posts Vocation Worship Resources

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 April 2025 January 2025 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 August 2023 July 2023 April 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small, out of you will come a ruler over Israel. What makes this town significant?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A holy city A place of prophecy The birthplace of the Messiah David's hometown