Christian Economics

To complete the Associate of Science Degree in Business, I was required to take courses in both Micro- and Macro-Economics.  I was aggravated, to say the least, that all that the economists talk about was the money. While I understand that there are courses for degree programs in Economics that go a bit more in depth, what most college students walk away from these introductory micro-/macro-economics courses is a really poor understanding of economics and all that it entails.

Being the autodidatic person that I am, I began to study economics on my own.  I read E.F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful in the late 70's, and so I re-read it. I became aquainted with the concepts of Steady-State economics, and during further study read Anabaptist/Mennonite Faith and Economics, edited by Calvin Redekop, Victor A. Krahn and Samuel J. Steiner. From there I was lead to The Economics of Anabaptism, 1525-1560 by Peter James Klassen. I am currently reading David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years.

What I noticed almost immediately was the different view of debt between Graeber and Klassen. Graeber follows Nietzsche in his analysis of Christianity, which presupposes that all Christianity is related to the state church. Whereas, Klassen views Christianity through the lens of Anabaptism. Not surprisingly this makes a big difference in how each views debt, and salvation.

Graeber points out something that I have seen for awhile. Resistance to empire took the form of pastoral rebellion. Debt-burdened farmers would flee the river valleys of the Fertile Crescent into the "pastoral fringes." According to Graeber, "[r]esistance, in the ancient Middle East, was always less a politics of rebellion than a politics of exodus, of melting away with one's flocks and families -- often before both were taken away" (pp.182-183). This brings up an interesting question: How are we, as God's people, to behave in this world? Are we to continue to function as part of the system that has become the normal expression of society? or are we, like the ancient pastoralists, to just melt into the fringes?

Understanding the history of money, and therefore debt, is essential to understanding our place in this world. In most "primative societies", as the colonialists call them, money is not seen as a form of standard currency. Community runs on obligations to each and every member of the community. Using money to satisfy debt between individuals eliminates the bond between them. It, in a sense is saying, "I have no further need of you in my life." In Book of the Eskimos, author Peter Freuchen tells of returning from an unsuccessful hunt and finding that one of the succeful hunters had dropped off several hundred pounds of meat for him. Freuchen tried to thank the man, and was rebuked with:

Up in our country we are human! ... And since we are human we help each other. We don't like to hear anybody says thanks for that. What I get today, you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that gifts one makes slaves, and by whips one makes dogs (qtd.in Graeber, p. 79).

There is no debt established here, and yet there are those connections between members of the community that are not present in consumer societies. Consumer society runs on debts, and those debts are create by the powers. It is debt and the powers that I will be exploring on this blog.


Works Cited
Graeber, David. (2011) Debt: The First 5,000 Years.
    Melville House Publishing:Brooklyn, NY.

Klassen, Peter James. (1964) The Economics of Anabaptism, 
    1525-1560. Mouton & Co.:The Hague, NL.