This is the final installment in my series on moving churches toward a practice of missional economics: Part 1: Manna in the Desert, Part 2: Manna in the Postmodern Desert, Part 3: From Wealth Building to Gift Giving, Part 4: From Scarcity to Abundance, and Part 5: From Altruism to Reciprocity.
The Modern Doctrine of the Autonomous Self
Each of these three paradigm shifts lead us to another major dilemma rooted in our commons Modern concepts of the self and the life of virtue that only the cross of Christ can address. The common thread of all the dominant economic paradigms previously mentioned is the Modern doctrine of the autonomous self.
Concerning this, theologian Thomas Oden states, “The rhetoric of unrestrained, individual freedom is a prominent earmark of the spirit of modernity.” Westerners today simply assume that well-being means being free from dependencies on others. Likewise, Christopher Kaiser observes
“We painstakingly differentiate ourselves from our families, our upbringings, and our jobs. We affirm our freedom, even at the expense of the extreme psychological discomfort associated by a sense of homelessness.”
The church has played a powerful role in the development of this doctrine, principally through a particular theological stance of Martin Luther’s. Unwilling to impose the difficult scriptural prohibition on usury amid emerging mercantilism (particularly among of his financial benefactors), Luther declared that all life was divided between the “civil” and the “religious,” freeing the realm of civil affairs from the strictures of biblical paradigm (even for Christians) and effectively fragmenting society into a collection of isolated individuals. Lewis Hyde astutely remarks on the affect of this for every person: “Now each man is separated. The church and the state may be separate, but each man partakes of both.”
In other words, Luther blessed the Modern fragmentation of the individual self in the realm of economics allowing us to “believe” one ethic in our private lives yet live another ethic publicly.
This radically new and free sense of self created a wilderness of being, where everyone lives ultimately free, disconnected, and isolated lives even in the midst of a society. One result has been the lionization of self-sufficiency – a public virtue that creeps into even our compassion work. For example, even Christians in the West frequently judge the impoverished precisely because they haven’t achieved autonomous financial independence. It’s no wonder that Dallas Willard calls ours the, “culture of rejection,” and says that its roots in Modernity, “deeply affects the concrete forms Christian institutions take in our time.”
This doctrine is not without its Modern critics, who point out the sad consequences. Alexis de Tocqueville found American individualism frightening because it leads to the apathetic withdrawal of people from public life into a private sphere of isolation. Lewis Hyde agrees, saying,
“In the ego-of-one we speak of self gratification, and whether it’s forced or chosen, a virtue or a vice, the mark of self-gratification is its isolation.”
This is the essence of poverty; whatever possessions one might hold, isolation makes one impoverished. Miroslav Volf adds to this spiritual diagnosis: “All things are from God and through God, and yet we want to be independent of God, standing on our own two feet, claiming God’s gifts as our own achievement.” Relational detachment – principally from God – is the truest form of bankruptcy and naturally leads to all other forms of poverty.
The New Kingdom Self
Countering isolation must involve re-defining the self in terms that are relational rather than consumeristic. Bryant Myers agrees, “Development cannot be reduced to simply empowering individuals with new choices.” We must recognize that the solutions to economic inequality can’t be found in the building of new markets for the inundation of new consumer products aimed at the underdeveloped.
Not surprisingly, it is the Apostle Paul who is most radical in his terminology when he speaks of the death and rebirth of the human self in relation to Christ:
“It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:19-20).
Paul is talking about nothing less than the re-definition of the self and Volf captures the implications of this for the act of gift-giving, saying,
“But now hasn’t our very self disappeared and been replaced by Christ? What else could the death of the self mean? In fact, however, it has not disappeared at all but has been reborn as a new self, as a self that has been returned to itself. Christ’s indwelling presence has freed us from exclusive orientation toward ourselves and opened us up in two directions: toward God, to receive the good things in faith, and toward our neighbor, to pass them on in love.”
So the new self of the Kingdom is subsumed into the person and work of Christ – a kind of self-death that recapitulates the cross in the life of the believer. This new self is radically open to giving because doing so does not violate any boundaries that need protecting. Rather – and perhaps most importantly to the three shifts outlined previously – being “in Christ” re-locates the boundaries of the self beyond the walls of the body, extending them throughout the sphere of Kingdom relationships, and rooted in one’s relationship with Christ himself. This is not an autonomous self, but a self dependent on Christ, interdependent with others, and intimately intertwined throughout; it is a Kingdom self.
Only by learning to live such a collectively cruciform life can the Church hope to embody a truly missional economy and appropriate the equality of the eschatological Kingdom in our time as a prophetic sign and foretaste.
Questions:
- What do you see as the boundaries of the “Kingdom self” proposed above? Is every Christian our brother/sister, or is every “American” (or other compatriots), or is the Christians called to consider every human being a fellow child of God? What are the implications of these boundaries for a “missional economy?”
- What do you think are some ways missional churches could put missional economics into practice?
Technorati Tags: Bryant Myers, Christopher Kaiser, Economics, economy, Kingdom of God, Martin Luther, Miroslav Volf, Paul, Self, Thomas Oden
Munzer was a German Anabaptist Theologian contemporary with Martin Luther – and quite the troublemaker. The two clashed severely over the increasing privatization of property and practice of usury – issues that led to a major tragedy in 1524-1525 called the Peasant’s War that resulted in the death of 100,000 people. Here are some of Munzer’s thoughts on Luther’s economic proclamations:
