IDS 1022 – History Research Paper

Christian Economies: Towards a More Compassionate Capitalism

Robyn Morrison

PSR Box 449

Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

Introduction
The world stands poised for economic calamity or transformation. Either we repent and convert
from a culture that worships the idols of global capitalism, individualism, materialism, and
consumerism, or we risk the destruction of our environment, and perhaps even the future of humanity.
The purpose of this paper is to educate Christian leaders about the relationship between the history of
Christianity and the Church’s relationship to markets, economic systems, and the development of global
capitalism. More specifically the audience is economic decision makers in old-line Protestant churches,
such as those on denominational finance and administration boards, foundation and pension fund
boards, and social and economic justice commissions. This historical survey focuses on historical
turning points affecting Christianity and contemporaneous marketplace or economic systems. The
objective is to reframe the notion that it is appropriate to separate economic decisions from decisions
about the mission and ministry of the Church. The author also hopes to cast a vision of an expanded
role for the Church in creating a more compassionate global economy.
Throughout history there have been dominant and subaltern Christianities and economic
systems. When appropriate, the survey will describe counter-cultural economic communities.1 The
writer does not profess that this survey is a definitive study of the complex, geographically and
culturally diverse, and lengthy history of the relationship between Global Christianity and the economies
of the world. Many important bits and pieces of history have been left out in the interests of brevity.
The author’s experience working in economic justice in order to invent a more compassionate economic
system brings with it paired beliefs in Christianity and Capitalism, along with a clear perspective of how
important it is to temper free-markets with compassion.
Ancient Israel
Since the time of theYahwist and Genesis, human beings have struggled with the question, is
God prodigally generous (a God of abundance), or is scarcity and hunger part of God’s divine plan? 2
The doctrine of divine providence holds that God is an active force and nothing that occurs in history is
beyond God’s influence. If God rules the world, what are we to make of economic injustice? The
images of God contained in the Hebrew Bible range from a God who encourages the seizure of land

1
Many, but not all, of the more compassionate counter-cultural economic systems were motivated by subaltern
Christian or religious communities including communities of women.
2
Perhaps God is both extravagantly generous and abundant and also the force that allows scarcity to persist.

1
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

through violent means, to the God of the Hebrew Prophets with their stern admonitions and warnings to
attend to the needs of the widows and poor.
Jesus and his earliest followers
Jesus of Nazareth preached good news to the poor, and taught principles for dealing with the
economic problems of his time. Under the Roman Empire, the common Jewish people were generally
‘poor’ in the sense that they worked in order to survive, living a subsistence lifestyle.3 They were
burdened with excessive taxes to support the Roman Empire as well as the Temple taxes and religious
tithes of Judaism. The increasingly impoverished peasants suffered as entire households lost their land
(and ability to produce the food they needed to survive) because of debts to those with religious and
political power. When Jesus cleared the Temple in Jerusalem he was publicly protesting Judaism’s
failure to attend to the economic and spiritual needs of the working class poor. Jesus preached of a
Kingdom of God where everyone was welcome at the table, there was plenty of food and drink for all,
and people learned to place their trust in God and not in mammon. Jesus taught that God would judge
us by whether we were in solidarity with the poor – feeding, housing, and clothing them. As for
salvation Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is
rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:25)
There is considerable controversy to this day as to whether or not the Early Jesus Movement
practiced a form of communism or radical surrendering of all material goods for the benefit of the
community of believers. The late 2nd Century church father, Clement of Alexandria, believed riches
gave rise to passions for material possessions, and that ‘love of mammon’ was evil, not wealth itself.
Salvation for the rich could only be achieved through radically generous redemptive almsgiving.4 It is
more likely that early Christians practiced this form of extravagant sharing or almsgiving than a truly
communistic system.5
Augustine, the unity of Church, and the social and economic order
By the time of Augustine of Hippo, the Church was enmeshed in concerns for worldly power,
daily life events, and concern for the worship of God and spiritual matters. As a Bishop in North Africa,
Augustine struggled with local conditions of wealth and poverty, and the social effects of the

3
L. Wm. Countryman, Rich Christian in the Church of the Early Empire: Contradictions and Accommodations, (New
York and Toronto: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1980), 23.
4
Countryman, Rich Christian in the Church, 50-61
5
Countryman, Rich Christian in the Church, 209.

2
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

fundamentally flawed sinful nature of human-beings.6 He concluded that God created the social order,
including the economic system of private property and the state to “prevent the disintegration of the
world into complete chaos.”7
Medieval Age, Feudalism, and Monasticism
Augustine’s divinely ordained hierarchy or ladder of society established the nurturing soil of the
medieval Church and society. In his book, Christianity: A Global History, David Chidester describes
the hierarchy as a three level structure of workers, fighters, and ritual experts.8 Relief from the harsh
daily circumstances endured by the peasants was offered through the salvation or after-life promised by
the Church. The doctrines of divine providence and human salvation supported the social order.
In order to maintain the hierarchy, establish markets and obtain goods, and provide opportunities
for the military class, Christianity eventually found it necessary to engage in warfare.9 European
Christianity suffered from a trading disadvantage with the powerful Mongolian and Muslim empires.
The Crusades were battles for control over middle-eastern trade routes.10 The Church encouraged the
violence of the Crusades by promising salvation to the military crusaders. As the middle-ages
progressed the Church became increasingly involved in exchanging its salvific power for monetary and
material goods.
Between the reign of Constantine and the Protestant Reformation, monasticism became a
powerful counter-cultural force that inspired many beneficial developments in Christian history.11 From
the desert monks of Africa to Martin Luther (who began his career as a monk), monasticism offered an
alternate economic and spiritual community which attempted to more fully integrate human
production/work and spirituality. It offered hope of a stable religious lifestyle, a deeper communal
spiritual experience, and counter-cultural levels of religious and economic freedom for women.

6
David Chidester, Christianity: A Global History, (San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 2000), 136.
7
Bob Goudzwaard, Capitalism and Progress: A Diagnosis of Western Society, (Toronto: Wedge Publishing
Foundation and, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), 17.
8
Chidester, Christianity, 179.
9
Although history often claims that the Christian crusades as religious wars to gain control of sacred places, the
underpinnings were motivated by economic reasons.
10
This is from notes taken during a lecture in IDS 1022 given by Dr. Randi Walker. The author agrees with this
assessment and would also state that over 4,000 years of violence in the middle east has less to do with religious
differences and more to do with a desire of the ruling class to gain wealth, power, and property – trade routes, land, and
resources including in our current time, oil.
11
Mark A. Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, 2nd edition, (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2000), 83- 105.

3
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

Through a practice of continually moving towards the periphery of society, monasticism was a force for
spreading Christianity beyond the territory of the Christian Empire.12 Two particularly influential
monastic orders were formed by St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) and St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226).
St. Francis was particularly notable because he felt all Christians, not only monks should practice
nonviolence and voluntary poverty. “Within the context of an emerging market economy in Europe
where pride had been replaced by greed, avarice, and desire for material gain as the root of all evil,
Francis prayed for a ‘holy poverty’ that trusted only in God.”13
Significant climate changes in Northern Europe in the 12th Century led first to warming, and
then to a drastically colder climate which caused widespread famines and scarcity.14 Later during the
14th Century, the Black Death or plague, swept through Europe killing between one third and two thirds
of the population and wreaking havoc in lives and economic systems.15 Europe was also exposed to
technology and culture from the powerful Mongolian Empire including the printing press, paper money,
compound interest, gun powder, the blast furnace, and hardy climate crops (which helped Europe
recover from the famine caused by the cold snap).
The Renaissance emerges from the fertile ground of disequilibrium and social unrest of the late
Middle-Ages.16 During the Renaissance a new image of the human-being emerged, in which man was
“free, the master of his fortune, not chained to his place in the universal hierarchy but capable of all
things.”17 The old hierarchal world order of the Middle Ages crumbled under the strain of a changing
world, especially as men gained increasing control over nature.
Protestant Reformation and the emergence of Capitalism
During the Protestant Reformation the relationship changes between the Church and the social
and economic order. Trade becomes increasingly transacted through monetary exchanges rather than an

12
The author is aware that not all monastic groups were beneficial nor did they all practice a commitment to tending to
the needs of the poor. Some monastic groups were violent and militaristic. A complete discussion of the varieties of
monasticism is beyond the scope of this essay.
13
Chidester, Christianity, 183.
14
According to Dr. Randi Walker (from notes during an IDS 1022 lecture) there was a period of global warming which
involved ice melting in Greenland. This was followed by a cold snap that decreased the yield of traditional food crops.
15
These ‘acts of God’ undoubtedly changed theology, particularly thoughts about divine providence and human
salvation.
16
During the Renaissance humanism emerges and begins to separate from Christianity creating the seeds of the
Reformation and the myth of human progress.
17
Goudzwaard, Capitalism and Progress, 13. (quoting Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols. [New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967], 69.)

4
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

exchange of goods, people move from villages to urban areas to supply the labor for emerging
industries, and humanism separates itself from Christianity. In 1521, King Charles V summoned Martin
Luther to recant his criticisms of the Roman Church’s practice of selling papal ‘indulgences’ or trading
financial remuneration for promises of salvation. Luther argued that God’s grace is a free gift, offered
through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. The Protestant Reformation spread quickly
from city to city. New political power structures decreased the control of the Roman Catholic Church
and the political and economic power of the merchant class increased dramatically.
When Luther’s message reached country peasants, they interpreted the gospel message of God’s
grace as a promise of liberation from their oppressive living and working conditions. Luther was not
supportive of the peasant uprising and continued to believe that “a worldly kingdom cannot exist
without an inequality of persons, some being free, some imprisoned, some lords, some subjects.”18
Luther was complicit in the violent suppression of the peasant revolt which resulted in the deaths of over
a hundred thousand peasants. In fact he once wrote that “anyone who killed a rebellious peasant was
performing a service to God.”19
In Geneva, John Calvin’s (1509 -1564) reforms were a tremendous catalyst for the capital
needed to fuel the growth of industry. The Reformation spread internationally in part because it drew
primarily from the growing bourgeoisie or merchant and trading classes. They naturally developed new
thoughts about capital, credit, interest, and banking because industry was capable of producing more
than what was needed for subsistence. Increasing production and accumulation of wealth became the
moral good – tools for improving society. However, Calvin did not espouse an unfettered market. It is
ironic given Calvin’s vitriolic attacks on religious idolatry that he was not able to envision the dangers
of economic idolatry or the seeds of materialism and consumerism that were already beginning to
blossom.20
In spite of his support of business, commerce, and accumulation of wealth, Calvin also stressed
the importance of almsgiving and generosity. In his Institutes Calvin wrote the following about the
obligation of a Christian. “No member holds his gifts to himself, or for his private use, but shares them
among his fellow members, nor does he derive benefit save from those things which proceed from the

18
Chidester, Christianity, 320.
19
Chidester, Christianity, 320.
20
Calvin was highly critical of the Roman Catholic churches ‘idolatry’, a criticism of the money that the Pope was
spending on St. Peter’s Basilica and the general emphasis on religious art and icons in Catholic Churches.

5
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

common profit of the body as a whole. Thus the pious man owes to his brethren all that it is his power
to give.”21
The emerging economic, political, and religious power of the bourgeoisie and the resultant
accumulation of private property and capital transformed the economic system from feudalism to
capitalism.22 By the late 19th Century sociologist Max Weber argued that the freedoms created by the
Protestant Reformation released the entrepreneurial ‘spirit of capitalism.’23 Eliminating the role of the
Catholic Church as the intermediary between human beings and God also circumvented the feudal
hierarchy of Lord/Peasant. Laborers were freed to exchange their productive energies for personal gain.
The Colonial Project and New World Markets
The colonial project developed almost simultaneously with the Protestant Reformation. The rise
of industrial cities and nation states and increasing international commerce created pressure to secure
new resources. Spain, Portugal, and England built great ships that were capable of sailing around
continents, thereby circumventing the control that the Mongolians and Islam had over the silk-road and
middle eastern trade routes. Europe wanted spices from India and silk and glass from China, and
needed to acquire gold and silver from the New World in order to trade.
Starting with Columbus in 1492, the Spanish and Portuguese colonization projects to the
Americas and Africa involved dual objectives, conversion and acquisition of wealth – primarily gold
and silver.24 Spanish conquistadores forced Christianity on the native people with threats of violence
and slavery. Strangely, when twelve Franciscan Catholic priests arrived in 1524 they participated in the
violent destruction of the indigenous culture. 25 Even though the Spaniards encountered the highly
developed and civilized cultures of the Mayans and Aztecs, they forcefully took possession of the land,
dispossessed the natives, and used military strength to compel the native population into forced labor.26

21
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. By J. Allen, 1838, vol. ii, 147, as quoted by R.H. Tawney in
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, 118.
22
Answer.com defines capitalism as: An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are
privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained
in a free market.
23
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated and edited by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright
Mills,(New York: Oxford University Press, 1958).
24
One of Christopher Columbus’s objectives was to secure gold and silver to finance Spain in a new crusade to attempt
to regain control of Jerusalem and trade routes in the Middle East.
25
The violence committed by the Franciscan priests and their involvement in acquisition of property and wealth from
indigenous people seems far removed from the teaching of their founder, St. Francis of Assisi.
26
As a result, the native population of Mexico was reduced from 25 million to 1 million within one century.

6
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

The Enlightenment
The sixty to seventy years preceding the French Revolution, also known as the Enlightenment
period (roughly 1720 – 1789) was a time of tremendous religious, social, and economic change. This
period is known for its undaunted enthusiasm for reason, science, and faith in human progress. In his
book, Capitalism and Progress, Bob Goudzwaard contends that an abiding faith in human progress was
one of the philosophical by-products of the Enlightenment period.27 During this period skepticism and
outright resistance to Christianity increased. In France, the resistance to Roman Catholic Christianity
was most bitter, eventually leading to the violent French Revolution (1789).
In England, the Enlightenment was characterized by more restraint. In the course of two years,
three patents were granted that changed the course of English history: Arkwright for the water frame in
1769; James Watt for the steam engine also in 1769; and to Hargreaves for the spinning jenny in 1770.28
The industrial age exploded in England resulting in rapid urbanization, poverty, and harsh living
conditions for workers.
John Wesley (1703 – 1791), an Anglican minister, and his brother Charles Wesley were
responsible for a movement called Methodism. Some historians have speculated that the Methodism
movement helped prevent England from experiencing a violent Revolution like the one that occurred in
France. The Wesley’s took their message of the transformative power of God’s grace to the poor and
working classes of England. One of the core elements of Wesley’s reformation was his emphasis that
Christians had a duty to imitate Christ through solidarity and direct personal involvement with the
homeless, sick, and the poor. 29 Within the early Methodist societies, Christianity became a religion
with a distinct preferential option for the poor. Wesley also had radical ‘evangelical economic’ ideas.
Wesley believed that Christians should hold as much as possible in common, so that there would be no
poor, and no rich. Wesley consistently opposed the accumulation of wealth because he believed riches
corrupted the individual. The goal of Wesley’s evangelism was to integrate the poor into the Methodist
Society’s discipleship programs.30 In some cases, the Societies developed cottage industries to provide
cooperative work opportunities to help unemployed women and men reach financial self-sufficiency.31
27
Goudzwaard, Capitalism and Progress, 42-54
28
Goudzwaard, Capitalism and Progress, 55.
29
Joerg Reiger and John Vincent, Methodist and Radical, (Nashville: Kingswood Books an Imprint of Abingdon Press,
2003), 37.
30
Reiger, Methodist and Radical, 31-43.
31
A predecessor to micro-enterprise development activities.

7
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

When Methodism moved to America, it continued to flourish due its foundation of radical generosity,
costly discipleship, and solidarity with the marginalized.32 Between 1776 and 1850, the Methodist
Church was the fastest growing denomination in the United States.33
During the Enlightenment, the idea of Divine Providence was dramatically modified by the
emerging spiritual movement known as deism. Deists believed “natural law is so unalterable that God
himself cannot change it.”34 Man is given dominion over the world, and the fate of the world is in
human hands. God has not been, and cannot be an actor in human history. Deism provided fertile
ground for the rise of reason and science, including the new science of economics. Adam Smith, a deist,
(1723-1790) was the father of economics. Adam’s Smith’s economic theories depended on four
essential beliefs including: 1) prosperity is the result of man eliciting value by dominating nature; 2)
natural law is the law of free unhampered competition; 3) absolute harmony can be attained through the
natural balancing of a free market; 4) there is a direct relationship between prosperity and morality, or
between utility and morality (i.e. money produces happiness).35 Traditional theologies of Divine
Providence were replaced by a belief that Man controls his destiny, and whatever brings increased
prosperity to man is inherently good (utilitarianism).
By the turn of the 19th Century, the industrial age and capitalism created an increasingly bitter
and impoverished working class. The Protestant work ethic, discipline, and habits of thrift had both
positive and negative consequences. Materialism, consumerism, and capitalism gradually infiltrated and
weakened the European Protestant church and relegated spirituality to the private realm of the
individual; eventually rendering Christianity impotent as a force for social change in most of Europe.
Although many writers, including Max Weber, linked the rise in capitalism to the influence of
Protestant Christianity, it was more a failure of Protestant Christianity to offer a sufficiently influential
counter-cultural force to resist the unfettered greed of capitalism that allowed the negative conditions of
capitalism to thrive. Weber argued that capitalism demands a devotion to the calling of making money
and it has no need for support from any other religious force. In fact, he viewed attempts of the State or

32
Between 1776 and 1850, the Methodist Church was the fastest growing denomination in the United States.
33
Roger Finke and Rodney Starke, The Churching of America 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious
Economy, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 1992), 54-108.
34
Goudzwaard, Capitalism and Progress, 20.
35
Goudzwaard, Capitalism and Progress, 20-32

8
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

religion to influence economic life as unjustified regulations.36 Yet as clearly as capitalism presumes
the individualistic pursuit of opportunities or profits, it has never precluded other motivations including
compassionate and communitarian ethical concerns.37 Weber himself believed that “unlimited greed for
gain is not in the least identical with capitalism, and is still less its spirit.”38
With the declining influence of Christianity in the dominant European and North American
industrial age economies, the impetus for a more just and compassionate economic system came
primarily from outside of mainstream Christianity.39 Karl Marx (1818-83) and Frederick Engel (1820 -
95) argued for revolutionary economic change, eliminating private property rights, and a transformation
of industry that would place the power in the hands of labor/workers. Engel and Marx felt religion was
an ‘opiate of the people’ and argued that Christianity had abandoned its socialist origins.40 Marxism
rejected Christianity and proposed its own philosophy of salvation. Humanity would be saved through a
militant revolution against the prevailing Christian order. 41
Varying responses to 19th Century Capitalist Christianity
The movement of Christianity into the Pacific Islands was an experience of clashing economic
world views, a contrast of the island communitarian subsistence economies with 19th Century Christian
materialism. David Chidester refers to this expansion of Christianity as Christian Cargo.42 The island
economy valued generosity and hospitality (not unlike early Christianity). Christian missionaries
brought new material goods as an incentive to encourage the Islanders to convert to Christianity.
Eventually the Islands developed a distinctive Christianity with the white man’s ‘cargo’ as a component,
including a belief that the Parousia would include Jesus bringing gifts for all of the people. Capitalism
exploited this ‘cargo’ Christianity and imposed its own monetary based economic system, commodities,
and low wage labor (which resulted in tremendous disparities between wealth and poverty).

36
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Has the Cloak Become and Cage? Charity, Justice, and Economic Activity,” in Rethinking
Materialism: Perspectives on the Spiritual Dimension of Economic Behavior, Robert Wuthnow ed., (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 145-168.
37
Clearly capitalism and markets are influenced by a range of human motivations and values, both positively and
negatively. Fear, revenge, jealousy, and spite move capitalism in towards negative self interest (individualism).
38
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated and edited by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright
Mills,(New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), 72-73.
39
In the United States, although religious freedom was highly valued, many of the founding fathers were deists who did
not believe that God was still and active force in the world. If God is not active, then humans are left to depend on their
own knowledge and experience to affect changes in the world.
40
Engel argued that the early followers of Jesus practiced socialism.
41
Chidester, Christianity, 485-486.
42
Chidester, Christianity, 471-479.

9
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

In the United States, Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) and the Social Gospel movement43 was
one of the responses to the moral evils and injustice of capitalism. Rauschenbush advocated for the
public ownership of industry, economic equality, and democracy in the workplace. In addition,
theologian Reinhold Niebuhr criticized Marxism for its tendencies to operate as a replacement for
religion and advocated that Protestant Christianity needed to be a force for tempering the ill effects of
capitalism.
World War I (1914-18), the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (1917), and the Great Depression
(1929) created tremendous political instability and extreme poverty, unemployment, and hunger
throughout much of the world. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and the Nazi party developed out of the
economic and religious upheaval in post war Germany. Hitler neutralized the Christian Church and
motivated German Christians to engage in violence promoted as “the salvation of Germany (and
Europe) from the chaos of Bolshevism and the destruction of Christian Europe.”44 Hitler appealed to the
economic suffering of the middle class, and stimulated the economy with nationalism and military
spending. Hitler and the Holocaust dampened our faith in the myth of human progress.
In other parts of the world, Christians had different responses to the social ills of the early 20th
Century. In India, Mohandas Gandhi relied upon the teachings of Jesus45 to lead his country through a
nonviolent social revolution that eventually won independence from the British Empire. Gandhi
believed that ‘soul force’ or ‘satyagraha’ was Christianity in action. One of the most important aspects
of Gandhi’s movement for social transformation was his emphasis on constructive programme. He
knew the Indian people needed to expand their own economy, separate from the British capitalist rule, in
order to prepare for self governance. The spinning wheel became the symbol of Gandhi’s emphasis on
rebuilding cottage industries and creating a self sustaining economy for his country.
Latin American liberation theologians also made a significant positive impact on the relationship
between the Catholic Church and economic injustice. Going much further than John Wesley did with
the doctrine of the preferential option for the poor, Gutierrez and others have taken Christianity back to

43 Support for the Social Gospel movement was widespread. According to David Chidester a 1930’s in a survey of
20,000 clergy, only 5% favored capitalism as an economic system; 28% favored some form of socialism; 75%
supported the socialist party candidate for President.
44
Chidester, Christianity, 499
45
Gandhi was particularly fond of the Sermon on the Mount.

10
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

the margins emulating teachings of Jesus, the liberator, who was willing to die to bring about the
Kingdom of God.
Christianity and Capitalism in the 21st Century
We finally arrive at our current situation. In the words of Charles Dickens, “these are the best of
times, and the worst of times.” The dualism and dichotomies of Christianity are more intense than ever.
Christianity has drastically declined and is mostly irrelevant in Europe. Religious pluralism thrives in
the United States, the world’s most religious nation. Once a thriving sect devoted to the radical
Christianity taught by Jesus, the United Methodist Church is comparatively wealthy, spiritually
lukewarm, and vulnerable to attack from the religious and political right.
The growth in Christianity is coming from opposite poles. In the Southern Hemisphere and
underdeveloped nations oppressed people are enthusiastically responding to the gospel message of
Liberation. Much of the remaining growth is coming from the right wing and the ‘Prosperity Gospel’.
Rev. Creflow A. Dollar (World Changers International) and others have packaged a religion designed to
appeal to consumers and fuel the excesses of individualism and capitalism. Appealing to the greed and
self interest of our culture, the Prosperity Gospel goes far beyond Calvinism in preaching and teaching
that wealth is a sign of God’s grace. The prosperity gospel practice of promising salvation in return for
gifts to the Church is also reminiscent of the old papal indulgences.
Colonialism and capitalism have combined into the complex behemoth of Globalization. Like
capitalism, globalization is neither inherently evil nor beneficial. Global economic growth has
decreased global poverty but it has done so unequally. There is ample evidence that the gap between the
richest and poorest countries, and between the richest and poorest groups of individuals in the world, has
increased. This growing disparity between the richest one or two percent of the world and the poor has
concentrated power in the hands of global corporations and an extremely small number of people who
control those corporations. Globalization has also decreased the political power of nation states,
although it seems to have done nothing to decrease wars and violence between nations.
Conclusion – Hope for the Future
There are movements coming primarily from the secular world that are bringing good news to
the poor, and living out the gospel message. The Grameen Bank, Green Belt movement, and other
counter-cultural economic and environmental justice movements are transforming local economies. The

11
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

Corporate Social Responsibility and Green Business movements are proving it is possible to sustain a
profitable business enterprise paired with compassion for the environment, communities, and people.46
An alternate banking and investment community is developing and consumers now have the choice of
doing business with financial institutions which measure social impact of investments not just financial
return.
Mainline Protestant Churches are very slowly coming on board with these movements. The
World Council of Churches has a global initiative called AGAPE, or Alternative Globalization
Addressing People and Earth. The initiative is a call to Christian action to eradicate poverty, work for
justice in international trade, protect and preserve the environment through sustainable development,
promote a livable wage for all workers, and dismantle hegemonic empires.47 These developments have
the potential to influence our global economic system – to create the world Jesus envisioned when he
said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it
abundantly." (John 10:10).
Over two thousand years ago a carpenter and Rabbi from Nazareth, named Jesus, saw the
disparity between the rich and the poor, the greed and corruption of some of the Jewish religious
leaders, and the oppressive conditions imposed by the Roman Empire. He preached good news to the
poor. He announced the coming of Kingdom of a God who blessed the poor, comforted the grieving,
healed the sick, thirsted for right relations, and invited everyone to feast at the table. His people were
frightened and burdened with excessive debt. Yet, God’s promise was and still is at hand. Our salvation
will be a world where we learn to place our trust in the power of love, and learn radical generosity, and
enthusiastic productivity.

46
Green and socially responsible businesses operate with a double, triple, or multiple bottom-line. Short term corporate
profits are not the only driving force for their business decisions. These organizations often have a social mission,
measure their impact on the environment, operate their organizations with a more egalitarian structure, pay their
employees and living wage, limit CEO compensation, and have a holistic approach to sustainability.
47
World Council of Churches, “Alternative Globalization Addressing People and Earth – AGAPE, A Call to Love and
Action.” September 2005. http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=2986 accessed 4/05/2007

12
Robyn Morrison IDS 1022
Christian Economies April 18, 2007

Selected Bibliography

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. By J. Allen, 1838, vol. ii, 147, as quoted by
R.H. Tawney in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1952.

Chidester, David. Christianity: A Global History. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2000 and HarperSan
Francisco, paperback 2001.

Countryman, L. William. Rich Christian in the Church of the Early Empire: Contradictions and
Accommodation. New York and Toronto: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1980.

Finke, Roger and Rodney Starke. The Churching of America 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our
Religious Economy. New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 1992.

Goudzwaard, Bob. Capitalism and Progress: A Diagnosis of Western Society. Toronto: Wedge
Publishing Foundation and Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979.

Noll, Mark A. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, 2nd edition. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000.

Reiger, Joerg and John Vincent. Methodist and Radical: Rejuvenating a Tradition. Nashville:
Kingswood Books an Imprint of Abingdon Press, 2003.

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated and edited by H.H. Gerth and
C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. “Has the Cloak Become and Cage? Charity, Justice, and Economic Activity,” in
Rethinking Materialism: Perspectives on the Spiritual Dimension of Economic Behavior.
Robert Wuthnow editor. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995.

World Council of Churches, “Alternative Globalization Addressing People and Earth – AGAPE, A Call
to Love and Action.” September 2005. http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=2986
accessed 4/05/2007

13