The Politics of the Ecclesia: Contra Economy of Affluence

To a very large portion of Americans, capitalism is known as the "only system that works." Considering the many consequences of this economic system, good or bad, I have recently asked myself what it means for a Christian to assert such a notion. Other questions followed: What is Christianity? What is the ontology of a human? Where have things gone wrong? Can our current economic systems fix it? And finally, does a particular country's advocation of a certain economic system give that economic system moral warrant from a Christian worldview? A few of these questions are answered below, and my conclusion follows at the end.

To be created in the image of God has taken on an ontologically-individualistic interpretation for ages. We ask our children if they have "accepted Jesus as their personal savior." We go to church and take the Eucharist in private after the service. Then we go to "Christian" financial advisor meetings in which we are told how to accumulate wealth for ourselves "God's way." Now I'm not meaning to completely negate the personal aspects of a relationship with the Triune God, however I am quite critical of the idea that this God is mediated by mere personal effort and reflection. No doubt the Christian Scriptures and tradition always say that the church - the communal body of our Lord - is the mediator of the divine. After all, the ultimate telos of the elect is the Triune God - the social community of persons perichoretically bound within each other. With this in mind, is the ontology of the church individualistic? Obviously not. Hence, if the ontology of the church is not individualistic, neither is the human person created in the image of the social Trinity.

But things have gone radically awry, as any Christian will agree. As Augustine put it, the direction of our desires was steered away from the City of God and toward the things that were created to use for God. In short, we desire "stuff" instead of God - we desire our own kingdoms instead of God's kingdom. However, humans are loving animals, therefore we will never stop loving something. The ultimate question here is: Where is your love directed? Those who direct their desires toward the self-giving Trinity should consequently be self-giving to the community of the church and the community of humanity. Those who direct their desires away from God can only want for themselves. It is impossible for a sinner - one whose depravity was conceived by pride - to have ultimately selfless teleological motives.

So what's the endeavor of economics and politics for us Christians? Is there a Christian economy? If so, what is the correct system? I don't pretend to know if there's a current economic system that can help redeem our world, however it is the goal of this post to tell you what I believe the correct economic system not to be, followed by my belief that the eschatological politics necessarily mirrors the politics that is the church.

Capitalism works. Virtually no one doubts that. My issue is that many Christians use this notion as justifying grounds: If X works, X must be morally permissible. Morally permissible according to whom? God? If so, the syllogism must apply more premises than this if we want to get to the soundness of the argument. Fascism works; the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" worked. So what? Are we then to support these things because the antecedent only says things must work to be permissible? It all depends on one's end - one's telos. I don't disagree that the system must work to be applied per se. However, to be morally permissible from a Christian perspective, the system's structure must also possibly reach the ultimate telos of the Christian. So capitalism works... but for whom, and to what end?

A bit of history: Capitalism was birthed out of Enlightenment Mercantilism - an era any Christian should immediately be suspicious of. The Enlightenment's main endeavor was to establish self-autonomy by way of the primacy of human reason. The advancement of science, technology, and economics led the world into the era of Modernity, where religious revelation and the need for God was expended for the self-autonomous Newtonian machine-world. Self-autonomy is a dangerous thought for Christian, who should believe that there are no autonomous things in the universe. All things under God are contingent under God. To think otherwise naturally leads depraved humans to test the limits of their own power. So every time you weep inwardly as you tuck your child in bed because you fear an atomic bomb being dropped on top of you, understand that you're experiencing the repercussions of the Enlightenment project.

Mercantilism followed, characterized by the de-humanizing Western colonization tactics in which people of foreign lands were subjected to the sovereignty of the "enlightened" West. The result of this was war, slavery, attempts to "civilize" foreigners (i.e., making them walk, talk, eat, sleep, and breath like white people), etc. Yes, this is how America came to be what it is today. So to all you religious Right folks who believe America was founded "on Christian soil," put that in your pipe and smoke it.

The world market not being fully established, exploitation was a necessity in order for consumer goods to be created and capitalism to ultimately work. It's here that class statuses were established: the Caucasians of the West were first in rank, then you divide by race, gender, and work skills. So at least one product of capitalism was institutional discrimination like racism and sexism. This doesn't seem to run parallel with Paul's teaching that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Further, because capitalism depends on a constantly growing economy which must extract natural resources all the time, Christians should even consider the ecological challenges of this economic system.

Look around you... Alienation is another product of capitalism, because humans' only connection with each other is through the market. There is no community, which I gave reasons for believing we were created for above. Competition is in the details of capitalism, where people compete with each other to earn mere living wages while the bosses make a considerably greater amount off of them.

Minority groups living in urban areas don't receive adequate education, because the vicious circle of exploitation and institutional racism leaves them bound to inner city schools where the salary for school teachers is very low (see the vicious circle?). Therefore, good school teachers are not hired and the drop-out rate increases. To make money, these young people (usually non-Caucasians) sale drugs as a means of making money and subsequently end up in prison. Many white folks see this and believe that people of other races are inherently inferior. After all, many seem to wind up in prison for sailing drugs and gang violence, can't get a job due to their illiteracy, and don't wear clothes that fit them. So guess what happens: More racism. Again, see the vicious circle? The same applies to women in this hierarchical system (brief example: most women in prison are there for non-payment of fines due to their non-pension jobs), but I won't explain in depth because you get the point. This in no way parallels with the egalitarian society we will see at the Eschaton, and it is no system to be praised by those citizens of Christ's city.

One last critique: Consumerism. Capitalism is all about consumption: What material objects will make me happy? The progressive "creation of opportunity" in capitalistic societies is the opportunity to continue expanding wealth. This is obviously a remnant of the Enlightenment's endeavor to expand power. Sure, jobs are created for those who are so privileged, but this is again to the expense of other human beings. And it is repugnant for me to hear Christians say that God wants them wealthy. Material wealth is not something that followers of Christ should make themselves so vulnerable to. Who do we think we are? Have we forgotten our own depravity? I suppose that this indifference toward our own evil desires is testimony to that very depravity. The more you have, the more you want. Your desires are wrongly-directed toward the enjoyment of material objects rather than the usage of material objects for God (see Augustine, City of God).

There are a great deal more critiques I have of capitalism, but this should suffice for the moment in showing how capitalism destroys community access we were created for (i.e., we are communally created in the image of God... the church is the mediator), it creates gender, racial, and skill division that oppresses fellow human beings beyond their own choice, and it directs our love toward material wealth. So back to my earlier question: Capitalism works, but for whom and to what end? Here's my answer: It works for the inherently privileged and for the greedy, for the selfish and for the racists and sexists. It works for a great deal of ignorant people as well, who don't understand that their opportunity to accumulate wealth is not a shared opportunity by all people and actually exploits others. I don't intend to tell you what the end is because I don't know. But I believe that this system does not work to bring about the redemption of all things - the teleological endeavor of the saints.

Can any economic system work? The answer is no. In a systemically fallen world, no human government can work to bring about ultimate peace. Only the Second Coming of Christ will establish this. However, it is the eschatological duty of Christians to be agents of renewal - those creatures for whom "the creation waits in eager expectation... to be revealed" (Rom. 8:19). The church is the mediation of God's healing on the land - on souls, politics, schools, churches, neighborhoods, orphans, widows, and all other systems in our social lives. Thus we have no business saying that we will just have to be content with a capitalist system until the Eschaton, because "there is nothing we can do." This is utterly false. Sanctification of the entire land is made possible by God through the communities of the church. So if we are working to renew all things to their intended states, what are we to say of politics and the economy? Is there an economy of the church?

My answer is "absolutely." Not only is there a politics of the church... the church is a politics. But how are we to know what exactly this political system is supposed to be? My answer: understanding the ontology of humanity and of the Christian church. As explained above, the church is communal - it's social. In an egalitarian society, we work in an economy of affection, not an economy of affluence. Our ultimate telos is the Triune God, not material wealth. And where there is wealth, it should be re-distributed to the community as need be instead of consumed selfishly. This is a Eucharistic economy - an economy in which the head of the polis is Christ, and his body and blood is consumed by the community of believers. As Daniel Bell puts it,

"Christianity's reassertion in the material realm as the true politics, Christianity is the true politics, the true polity, over against the agony of capitalist discipline, in the Augustinian sense that the church embodies the true form of human social, political, and economic organization because its order is one of liturgy, or worship of the triune God." Therefore, "the Christian mythos finds its political correlate, not in the state - even one ordered toward the common good - but in the church as the exemplary form of human community." (Bell, Liberation Theology after the End of History, 71.).

Not even in a state ordered toward the common good? Why? Because no matter what state is ordered toward the common good, it's still radically systemically fallen. Thus, one should not look at America and say that it's Christian. I gave some reasons above for believing that it was not founded with Christian motives, and now I'm submitting that one's patriotism should never be with a state - with a country of this age. So we should not look at capitalism and say that because it's an American economic system, it must be a Christian economic system. Our patriotism should be for the city of God. For as St. Paul said to the Philippians (who were vulnerable to the same civil religion to the Roman Empire as we are to America), "our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil. 3:20).

So am I advocating Christian socialism? I don't know. However, I do know that I'm in support of what James K.A. Smith calls "ecclesial socialism". I believe that socialism can and will be restored to its intended state because that's precisely the kind of system in which we will live in the new earth. Thus, it is my contention that Christian economists and laypersons should work toward sanctifying the socialist systems of this age. To those who ask why I don't mention capitalism being sanctified, my answer is this: Because by definition it cannot be sanctified. Something that is sanctifiable is either ontologically good (even if it's sinful, sin and evil is merely a privation of being) or structurally good (i.e., the ontology of its structure is good and directly from God... it cannot be a product of privation, thus being defined by its privation). Capitalism by its definition necessitates actions described above that are completely evil and idolatrous.