Love is the basis of society

It is very common to hear people cast both naive and cynical views about government. For those who seek a well-considered view of society, Augustine's City of God is extremely helpful. Lesslie Newbigin notes:

"Augustine was very realistic about the evils that tear all human communities apart - the family, the city, the nation. In The City of God he has no sentimental illusions about natural brotherhood among human beings. Yet he insists that love is the basis of society; even in their wars men are in fact speaking peace. But peace is only possible when there is order, and order depends on proper government; but government in which one is subordinated to another is only right if the one who is called to govern does so for the sake of those he governs -as their servant. The motive power of order is therefore love." (Foolishness to the Greeks p103)

All the natural goods of peace and order that result from good government hinge on the one who governs acting in love. Thus the character of the one who governs is of utmost importance to the order and peace of the state.

By extension the same is true of those who 'rule' in the economic sphere by employing others. The subordination of one to another is only right if the one who is called to so rule does so for the sake of those he leads - as their servant.

Confessing the Kingship of Christ

As I continue to reread Lesslie Newbigin's Foolishness to the Greeks, I find myself essentially blogging through it. Page after page is full of rich missionary insight into my culture, the things that I don't naturally see because they are so familiar to my view. So on that path I will continue.

In his chapter on Christian engagement in politics, economics and culture, Newbigin writes:

"From the eighteenth century onward, Europe turned away from the Christian vision of man and his world, accepted a radically different vision for its public life, and relegated the Christian vision to the status of a permitted option for the private sector. But for the modern church to accept this status is to do exactly what the early church refused to do and what the Bible forbids us to do. It is, in effect, to deny the kingship of Christ over all of life - public and private. It is to deny that Christ is, simply and finally, the truth by which all other claims to truth are to be tested. It is to abandon its calling." (Foolishness to the Greeks p102)

What he points out is that Christianity in the West has, by and large, accepted the status of a permitted option for private belief for personal salvation. Newbigin points out elsewhere that:

"Such private religion flourished as vigorously in the world of the Eastern Mediterranean as it does in North America today. It was permitted by the imperial authorities for the same reason that its counterparts are permitted today: it did not challenge the political order" (ibid. p99)

This is where the rubber meets the road for economics and entrepreneurship. The claims of the gospel prevail on every element of public and private life, calling all people everywhere to order their lives around the One for whom all things. There is not a tidy world of business in which one can bracket his 'personal' beliefs in order to be a faithful employee or employer. To be a Christian means to believe and announce the rule of Jesus over everything, and to witness to that Reality in all aspects of life. That challenges the political and economic order, and is a genuine call to repentance.

An encounter with the gospel

"What would an encounter of the gospel with our post-Enlightenment cultured involve for the public arena - the political, economic, and social aspects of our life?" (Foolishness to the Greeks p95)

I think about that question daily. Where are the places that the good news of Christ calls political, economic and social life into question? As I ask the question, I hear the answer, "Everywhere!"

This morning I read in Ecclesiastes 4:4

"Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind."

To be born again by the Spirit is to be born to a new reality that is no longer governed by envy. There are new reasons for toil and skill; and there are abundant reasons to call for repentance from envy. We are now to manifest a new social and economic order defined by love, not envy! This is but one area where public life is questioned and transformed by the gospel.

Governed not by envy

"What would an encounter of the gospel with our post-Enlightenment cultured involve for the public arena - the political, economic, and social aspects of our life?" (Foolishness to the Greeks p95)

I think about that question daily. Where are the places that the good news of Christ calls political, economic and social life into question? As I ask the question, I hear the answer, "Everywhere!"

Recently I read in Ecclesiastes 4:4

"Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind."

To be born again by the Spirit is to be born to a new reality that is no longer governed by envy. Toil and skill are no longer the servants of envy, but the servants of love. When Christians engage in the economic life of their society, we ought to do so in a way that demonstrates a radically different relationship to work. Our toil and skill should be engaged to love our neighbors as ourselves - to seek their good as ours, rather than to desire their good for ourselves.

To live in this way is to blaspheme Adam Smith's doctrine of the invisible hand. It proclaims that the way the betterment of the public life consists not in each person seeking his own private gain, but in each person seeking the good of his neighbor - and that the miracle of new birth is essential for this reality to take hold. This is our call to conversion, the call to the Kingdom of God.

What is the real truth about the world?

"We have come again, from another angle, to the cleavage running through our culture between the private and the public worlds, a public world interpreted in terms of efficient causes and a private world in which purpose and therefore value judgments still have a place. I have affirmed that we cannot accept the situation in which Christian faith is admitted as no more than a possible option for the private sector. We cannot settle for a peaceful coexistence between science and religion on the basis of an allocation of there spheres of influence to the public and private sectors respectively. We cannot forever live our lives in two different worlds. We cannot forever postpone this question: What is the real truth about the world?" (Foolishness to the Greeks p79)

I feel precisely what Newbigin is saying here, having been raised with this "two different worlds" mentality. As an employee, when I shared the gospel with co-workers, I was told that matters of belief are personal and do not belong at work. When I was a teacher, I was told that religion had no place in school, because it was a matter of faith and conviction. And so I, like many others in my generation, have lived a schizophrenic life, postponing the question, What is the real truth about the world?

Now I am in a unique place as an entrepreneur. I don't have organizational forces telling me that I am not permitted to say certain things; yet I feel very deeply our cultural taboo against the truth of the gospel. Certainly it is a permitted opinion, but it is not admitted in any sense as truth. Science is what we consider sacred, and must not be defiled by religion, which is scientific blasphemy.

So my challenge is to do precisely what Newbigin calls for: "instead of trying to explain the gospel in terms of our modern scientific culture . . . to explain our culture in terms of the gospel." To accept the division between public and private, fact and faith, is to surrender the field - and to fail to confess Jesus as Lord of all. I am not claiming to have figured out how to do it, but I know it is what I must do. I must press the question with those we engage through tumblon: What is the real truth about the world?

The light of the Gospel

"The dichotomy between a world of so-called objective facts that can be 'scientifically' known apart from any faith commitment on the part of the knower and a world of beliefs that are solely the personal responsibility of the believer is precisely what has to be questioned in the light of the gospel." (Lesslie Newbigin "Foolishness to the Greeks" p50)

This is precisely the tension that I feel as I work on tumblon. I'm working with 'scientific' facts called developmental and literacy milestones that we will present to parents on the basis of scientific research, and I'm working with a set of values [parenting, literacy, virtue, etc.] that cannot find their origin in that 'scientific' world precisely because they are claims about what should be, a realm which the scientific world-view has relegated to 'belief' rather than knowledge.

The only way (that I can see) to faithfully present the facts and values with appropriate confidence is to do exactly what Newbigin is suggesting: to question the dichotomy between the 'world of so-called objective facts' and the 'world of beliefs.' There is no question in my mind that this confrontation is necessary; the remaining question for me is how to do it in my situation.

Recession, Repentance and Remission

Right now 'recession' is the word on the street. There are two words that are no less important but get far less press: repentance and remission. As I have quoted Lesslie Newbigin elsewhere:

". . . Increased production has become an end in itself; products are designed to become rapidly obsolete so as to make room for more production; a minority is ceaselessly urged to multiply its wants in order to keep the process going while the majority lacks the basic necessities for existence; and the whole ecosystem upon which human life depends is threatened with destruction. Growth is for the sake of growth and is not determined by any overarching social purpose. And that, of course, is an exact account of the phenomenon which, when it occurs in the human body, is called cancer." (Foolishness to the Greeks p114, emphasis mine)

We are entering a time of recession because our growth has been cancerous. This is a mercy if we will receive it with repentance. God may even see fit to put our cancerous growth into remission if we will repent.

True repentance requires not just limiting our spending, but changing our entire trajectory. It is not merely about limiting unsustainable production, but radically altering the purposes for which we produce. Furthermore, there can be no genuine repentance without reference to the One whom we have offended. As Christians in our time, the desperate need is to exemplify and call for repentance that has Christ as its center of reference - rather than the environment, or industry, or anything else.

In order for this repentance to occur, we must transgress the public/private divide that says that religious language does not belong in public dialogue. This is part of our repentance, the claim that Christ's authority is not limited to those who confess Him, but is over all of humanity. I know no other way to begin this call than through humble, prayerful study of the Scriptures, and faithful, consistent action in the world. God grant us repentance!