Can Christians be capitalists?

"God is a relational being, whose priority is not economic growth, but right relationships both between humanity and himself and between human beings. Christ's injunction to 'love God and love your neighbour' points to the priority of relational wealth over financial wealth because love is a quality of relationships."

- Ross Gittins, summarising Michael Schulter

Ross Gittins, economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, has done a good job summarising a paper by Michael Schluter of the Relationships Foundation, a Christian think tank dedicated to re-conceptualising social and economic relations from a relational rather than purely economic standpoint.

Schluter's short paper makes five main criticisms of capitalism as we know it today: its exclusively materialistic vision; its tendency to offer rewards without responsibilities; its limitation of liabilities on shareholders; its tendency to disconnect people from places; and its undermining of social safeguards. Whether these criticisms apply to all forms of capitalism or only to what Schluter calls "corporate capitalism" is a question for further discussion, but as a brief and accessible Christian critique of trends in contemporary economic theory and practice, it's not a bad effort.

The whole paper is worth reading, but if you'd like a slightly condensed version, then at least look at Gittens' summary in the SMH. If you enjoyed Schluter's critique, you might also like to look at his brief outline of a possible alternative approach, called Beyond Capitalism: Towards a relational economy.
H/T Dad, John Shorter and Josh Kuswadi, who all sent me links to this article. I'm touched to know that so many people associate me with anti-capitalism.

Only the beloved can love

Love makes the world go around. All we need is love. If love is so important, then perhaps we can build an identity on it? Perhaps we can say that we are defined by who and how we love, that the quality of our love shows the quality of our person? Indeed, the two commands (or double command) that Jesus revealed at the heart of human obedience speak precisely of this: to love God and to love neighbour (Mark 12.28-31). If these are the most important things we are to do, then might they not be the best way of understanding ourselves? We are those who love God and neighbour.

However, the object and quality of our loves does not provide an adequate basis for founding an identity, nor can they be reliably forged into a self-justification. We are only secondarily lovers. We are first beloved. And only when we are first beloved can we then love. This is true of children: being loved comes before any attempt to love in return. And it is even more true of us as children of God: "We love because he first loved us." "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and send his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." (1 John 4.10, 19)

The good news is that this means that there is no anxiety in love. In loving others, we are not attempting to secure or prove or acquire or protect ourselves. If we sometimes fail in our attempts, we are not destroyed. Instead, the prior love of God for us frees our love from the constrictions that belong to fear. We are beloved; as such, we are brought out into a broad space of freedom and delight. Love is not a burdensome command that must be obeyed lest we fall into destruction. There is no need to beat ourselves up over the imperfections in our attempts to care for those around us. Love is a joyful free responsiveness to God's delight in us.

Of course, loving broken and hurting neighbours will not be all roses and smiles. Tears and suffering are also the fruit of love in a dying world. But our tears are not the price we pay in order to get some love in return. Instead, as beloved of God, we are invited into the sometimes painful privilege of echoing and sharing that divine love.

Augustine on worship and love

"To this God we owe our service - what in Greek is called latreia - whether in the various sacraments or in our selves. For we are his temple, collectively, and as individuals. For he condescends to dwell in the union of all and in each person. He is as great in the individual as he is in the whole body of his worshippers, for he cannot be in creased in bulk or diminished by partition. When we lift up our hearts to him, our heart is his altar. We propitiate him by our priest, his only-begotten Son. We sacrifice blood-stained victims to him when we fight for truth 'as far as shedding our blood'. We burn the sweetest incense for him, when we are in his sight on fire with devout and holy love. We vow to him and offer to him the gifts he has given us, and the gift of ourselves. And we have annual festivals and fixed days appointed and consecrated for the remembrance of his benefits, lest ingratitude and forgetfulness should creep in as the years roll by. We offer to him, on the altar of the heart, the sacrifice of humility and praise, and the flame on the altar is the burning fire of charity. To see him as he can be seen and to cleave to him, we purify ourselves from every stain of sin and evil desire and we consecrate ourselves in his name. For he himself is the source of our bliss, he himself the goal of all our striving. By our election of his as our goal - or rather by our re-election (for we had lost him by our neglect); by our re-election (and we are told that the word 'religion' comes from relegere 'to re-elect'), we direct our course towards him with love (dilectio), so that in reaching him we may find our rest, and attain our happiness because we have achieved our fulfilment in him. For our Good, that Final Good about which the philosophers dispute, is nothing else but to cleave to him whose spiritual embrace, if one may so express it, fills the intellectual soul and makes it fertile with true virtues.

"We are commanded to love this Good with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength; and to this Good we must be led by those who love us, and to it we must lead those whom we love. Thus are fulfilled those two commands on which 'all the Law and the prophets depend': 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind', and, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' For in order that a man may know how to love himself an end has been established for him to which he is to refer all his action, so that he may attain to bliss. For if a man loves himself, his one wish is to achieve blessedness. Now this end is 'to cling to God'. Thus, if a man knows how to love himself, the commandment to love his neighbour bids him to do all he can to bring his neighbour to love God. This is the worship of God; this is true religion; this is the right kind of devotion; this is the service which is owed to God alone."

- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, X.3.

This passage is critical for all kinds of reasons. Notice how Augustine takes the regular elements associated with worship in the ancient world and shows how they are transformed in Christian worship. The temple is our body and the body politic of the Christian community. The altar is our heart. The sacrifice is humility. And so on. This is not, as is sometimes thought, merely a "spiritualisation" of outward religion, in which meaningless rituals are replaced with right motives. The difference between ancient religions and Christianity is not merely captured by the opposition between "outward" and "inward" piety. True worship is always both. The key difference for Augustine is captured better by the concept of "wholeheartedness". True worship is the wholehearted turning of the self to God, without reservation or any hedging of bets. It is to turn our entire orientation, to re-turn, to a God-ward direction in our life story.

And this is why, Augustine explains, true worship is so closely tied to love in the biblical tradition. For wholehearted love is a motion of the entire life towards the object of our love. If we are to worship God, we must love him wholeheartedly.

And the command to love our neighbour must be understood, not in competition with this primary love, but as its horizontal expression. We love God by loving our neighbour. Yet this also means we love our neighbour by loving God, and inviting them to share that same passionate commitment to the origin of our bliss and goal of our striving.

Notice also that while the love of God is the source and destination of our love of neighbour, it is only through being loved that we learn how to love. Only as we are loved by our neighbour do we learn that God loves us, and only in the light of God's love are we able to love God and others for God's sake.

Finally, a word on Augustine's metaphors. Love is both resting in, and striving after; both choosing of a goal, and finding fulfilment; it is both active and passive. It is an embrace, where I am both taken and held, and also warmly grasp in return. But this is not merely the embrace of a friend, a comfort hug, a warm greeting or a fond farewell. It is the fertile cleaving of lovers, whose embrace produces the gift of new life.

"In my Father's house": further reflections on John 14

A few weeks ago, I said I would post some thoughts on the following teaching of Jesus:

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.                      - John 14.1-4

Having discussed Wright's reading of this famous passage in my introductory remarks, I'd like to tentatively offer a suggestion of my own. Where does God dwell? Heaven? The Temple? In Christ? The new heavens and earth? Yes, these are all true (in different senses), yet just a few verses later, another "location" is discussed.

Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

- John 14.23

Jesus speaks of coming with the Father to those who love and obey him and making their home with them. "My Father's house" might therefore be a reference to the indwelling divine presence amongst the loving and obedient community of disciples. How is this achieved? Through the sending of the Spirit of truth – the Paraclete ("Advocate", or perhaps "Helper"): 

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in [or "amongst"] you. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you."

- John 14.15-18

Thus, before we get to verse 23, if we were to ask where the Father "dwells" (what is his "house"), while the Jews might have said "the Temple", Jesus would have said "in me!" (14.10; cf. 2.19-21). The Father dwells in Jesus, and Jesus in the Father. In verse 23 we get a new movement: by the Spirit, both Father and Son dwell in the disciples (14.23), and so this community is also the home of God. Of course, the whole sequence can also be reversed: the disciples dwell in Jesus (by keeping his new commandment of love), and Jesus dwells in the Father.

Thus, could it be that the preparatory departure of which Jesus speaks in verses 2-3 is his death (and/or ascension), and that the return mentioned in verse 3 is not what is usually called "the second coming" (cf. John 21.22?) but is the arrival of the Spirit? If Jesus "goes" to the Father (verses 5-6), he (along with the Father) "returns" to his disciples through the presence of the Spirit. In the light of 14.23, if we ask where the post-Easter Jesus is, it seems he (and the Father) are with those who love him. Therefore, there are "many rooms" to his Father's "house" because there are many who do and will love Jesus. This is meant to be reassuring to the disciples: there is plenty of "room" in the church, always more space in the community of those who love and obey Jesus.

And what does it mean for the disciples to receive the Spirit of truth? On the one hand, it means a continuation of their love for Jesus by obeying his new commandment to love one another (John 13.34-35). On the other hand, it means that Jesus and the Father are not absent from the community. The disciples are not left as "orphans" because Jesus' Father becomes their Father (cf. 20.17), and neither Jesus nor his Father are absent from a community guided by the Spirit of truth into the love shared between the Son and Father. This will be how Jesus reveals himself to the disciples (though not to the world: v.22): through the very "ordinary" (though actually totally divine) experience of love. If they love one another, then this experience of community is itself the proof and the taste of being included in the divine life of self-giving love. They have been welcomed into the Father's house when they welcome one another in love. They know that Father, Son and Spirit are with and in them when they are with and in one another. And this, unsurprisingly, is where Jesus then goes in chapter 15.

In sum, I am convinced that John 14 doesn't teach the common Christian misconception of going-to-heaven-when-you-die in any straightforward sense (for more on this, see my earlier series). Jesus is reassuring his disciples that the impending violence, betrayal, confusion and bereavement of the next few hours will not leave them at a loss. Though Jesus is going, the Spirit is coming, and with him the common life of love with Jesus experienced by the disciples will continue.

Confession is good for the soul...

...but bad for the career. Or maybe not - it doesn't seem to have hurt Kevin Rudd so far.

In any case, I've been tagged by Benjamin for a meme for an interesting site called Christians confess. The directions for the meme are these:

• Apologize for three things that Christians have often got wrong. Your apologies should be directed towards those who don’t view themselves as part of the Christian community. Alternatively, apologize for things you personally have done wrong towards those outside of the church.
• Post a comment at the originating post so others can keep track of the apologies.
• Tag five people to participate in the meme.
• If desired, send an email with the link to your blog post at the Christians Confess site, giving permission for your apologies to be added to the website.

1. I am sorry that I don't laugh more. And cry more. I am sorry that Christians have treated emotions with suspicion. I am sorry that the good news is sometimes restricted to the head and doesn't also include the heart, hands and feet. I am sorry when we don't weep with a groaning world and overflow with Easter laughter.

2. I am sorry for acting as though it were possible to love God without loving my neighbour.

3. I am sorry for speaking when I should have been silent. And for being silent when I should have spoken. I am sorry for thinking I knew all the answers and for forgetting that Jesus is truly good news.

I tag Boxologies, Dead Flies and Perfume, Duck5, Hebel and Frankly, Mr Shankly - all selected for having obscure blog names.
Five points for the first to correctly name this building.