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The Church’s Complex Relationship with the Idea of Wealth and Need

I am very glad I was asked to use the word “complex” to talk about our theme this afternoon. Under the influence of our own moral and spiritual blindness it is very easy to be one-sided and miss a balanced and complete perspective. This is a major reason why in Evangelical theology and philosophy today we increasingly talk complementarity, meaning convictions and truth claims that we have to hold together to keep our lives in balance, convictions that might otherwise come apart. This desire has been a part of Protestantism at least since the time of Martin Luther, who sometimes used a turn of phrase that sounded completely contradictory in order to get his readers to listen carefully and to think with him. For example, in his essay “The Freedom of the Christian,” he famously wrote, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” My theses lack the eloquence of Luther, but in this spirit let me suggest for your consideration the following complementary theses:

1. A crucial way to demonstrate to the watching world that we truly believe that both
creation and redemption bestow a unique dignity on humanity is to help people in need.
2. An easy way to destroy the dignity of the poor who are created in the image of God, for
whom Jesus gave his life on the cross, is to treat them like objects of charity.

The Church’s Complex Relationship with the Idea of Wealth and Need1

I am very glad I was asked to use the word “complex” to talk about our theme this afternoon.
Under the influence of our own moral and spiritual blindness it is very easy to be one-sided and
miss a balanced and complete perspective. This is a major reason why in Evangelical theology
and philosophy today we increasingly talk complementarity, meaning convictions and truth
claims that we have to hold together to keep our lives in balance, convictions that might
otherwise come apart. This desire has been a part of Protestantism at least since the time of
Martin Luther, who sometimes used a turn of phrase that sounded completely contradictory in
order to get his readers to listen carefully and to think with him. For example, in his essay “The
Freedom of the Christian,” he famously wrote, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject
to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” My theses lack the
eloquence of Luther, but in this spirit let me suggest for your consideration the following
complementary theses:

1. A crucial way to demonstrate to the watching world that we truly believe that both
creation and redemption bestow a unique dignity on humanity is to help people in need.
2. An easy way to destroy the dignity of the poor who are created in the image of God, for
whom Jesus gave his life on the cross, is to treat them like objects of charity.

Before clarifying these complementary theses, let me mention two of my background
observations that inform how I think about these themes. A key ethical question running through
all of western culture, including education, health care, politics, business, law, and the arts, is
“what is a human being?” The West is stumbling and tripping because our culture at large does
not have a satisfactory answer. As Christians we have real answers about what human nature is
that are rooted in the biblical narrative of creation, fall, and redemption. Western culture,
probably every culture, urgently needs these answers. A more adequate understanding of
humanity can and should have multiple valuable functions religiously and culturally. On the one
hand, a better understanding of humanity, with our created dignity and fallen shame, should
provide the framework for appropriating the gospel; knowing ourselves properly should lead to
knowing God. On the other hand, a better understanding of humanity should also shape how the
several spheres of society function, including health care, education, business, law, and
government.2 In order to set the stage both for more people to come to faith in Jesus and for a

more healthy future in society, we have to communicate our biblically informed convictions
about human nature more clearly.

Background observation number two: our world around us, that is often watching Christians,
assumes we do not really believe our own Christian message. People frequently assume we
Christians do not believe our own words because they do not completely believe their own
worldview or philosophy of life. Many of our neighbors, I believe, go back and forth between
worldviews, changing them like clothes. Perhaps at university they talk as if they are rationalistic
naturalists, saying that only that which is physical exists, while in private they jump into a realm
of irrationality to find hope, love, and perhaps some type of faith. Some of the time our
neighbors act as if they accept parts of the Christian worldview because God’s general revelation
is constantly impinging on human experience; at the same time the same people may profess to
accept some other belief system. It seems to be impossible for people to escape this situation of
being of two minds if they are created in God’s image and live in God’s world, but do not
acknowledge God.3 But because our neighbors do not fully believe their own words, they assume
we Christians do not honestly believe what we say we believe. Our world is filled with various
games of manipulation, power, and control; our neighbors have to see that we have chosen not to
play such games and that we honestly believe our own words.

I. To our first thesis: We have to demonstrate to the world that we truly believe that
creation and redemption bestow a unique dignity on humanity by helping those in
need. The preferential option for the poor stands as a test for the Christian community
so that the world can see that we truly believe and practice our professed beliefs.

Today, much more than in previous generations, thanks to modern media, we are constantly
confronted with scenes of human suffering: Refugees from wars, the victims of religious
persecution, honor murders, natural disasters, people dying as a result of air or water pollution,
some coping with generations of hunger and poverty, human trafficking. All these scenes and
more prompt a God-given sympathy reaction in the hearts of millions of people from across the
globe. And even if few can formulate the words, many know that their sympathy reaction to
human suffering is related to their natural awareness of God, their sensus divinitatis. As a part of
God’s direct general revelation into human consciousness, even the person who claims to be an
atheist will often have both a sense of the dignity of the other and an awareness of a moral duty
to help the person in urgent need, in such a manner that the sense of moral duty has a vague but
real reference to God. This moral/religious sympathy reaction will often stand in conflict with
the claimed worldview or religion of the person reacting. If a person is truly convinced of atheistic evolution,one might be expected to say something about the survival of the fittest in
reaction to human suffering, but almost no one says that. No one I have heard ever said, “we can
be happy so many poor people die as a result of disasters, persecution, and pollution so that the
strong can survive to perpetuate humanity.” The moral sympathy reaction of millions to others in
urgent need shows that many may not fully believe their own worldviews which seem to deny
human dignity. Their practiced beliefs, including their moral sympathy reactions, are better than
their professed beliefs.

For us, as people of the Bible, we have always had good explanations of why we should help
people in need, explanations for our moral intuitions when those intuitions are healthy. This
started in creation when God created us male and female in his image. Even if we do not know
all that this means, it is clear that people have a very special status and value in the universe. The
status that people are created in God’s image provides an explanation for why our moral
reactions to people are different from our reactions to a stone or a tree. And this theological basis
for helping people in need is then emphasized at many points in the history of redemption,
demonstrating how redemption is a restoration of creation. Indeed, all of redemption is God’s
response to people in urgent need, and this theme is emphasized to become prominent at certain
points in the history of redemption. The Exodus from Egypt shows God setting his love on poor
slaves, while the wealthy, powerful army died under the water of the sea. With this background,
the people of God received very high standards for care for the poor. Shortly after the Exodus
they were told, “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like
a moneylender; charge him no interest.” (Exodus 22:25) In the Ten Commandments, the servants
were specifically mentioned as not having to work on the Sabbath. And even the Old Testament
institution that is sometimes called “slavery” was radically different from slavery in the
surrounding nations. If properly applied, the Old Testament transformed slavery from an abuse
of the poor to become a kind of safety net to keep the poor from starvation; if properly
implemented, it would have led to renewed economic independence for those who passed
through temporary servitude. God set high standards for protecting and restoring the poor within
his covenant people. It seems to me that the protection of the poor, even the rehabilitation of the
poor, was intended by God to be a distinguishing characteristic of his ancient people. The
protection of the poor was emphasized much more in the Old Testament than in the other
systems of law and ethics in the ancient near eastern world.4 In this light it was especially
wicked, as Amos mentioned, for the people of Israel to sell the needy for a pair of sandals and to
trample on the heads of the poor. (Amos 2:6,7)

This moral theme continued directly into the New Testament, with the care of the poor becoming
a crucial theme in the relations between Jewish and Gentile believers in the first century
(Galatians 2:10), so that the wealthier Gentiles assisted poorer Jews. And John wrote, “If anyone
has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of
God be in him?” (1 John 3:17) This principle was practiced to the extent that it was noticed in
the unbelieving world. Christians have often quoted the pagan Emperor Julian (332-363) who
complained that the Christian faith “was specially advanced through the loving service rendered
to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a
single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans [Christians] care not only for their
poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should
render to them.”5 Christian care for the poor both confirmed that Christians really believed what
they said they believed, challenged the belief system of the surrounding world, and thereby
helped set new social standards for caring for people in need.

Whereas in the unbelieving world people often do better than they believe, so that their practiced
belief is better than their professed belief and they practice sympathy though their worldview
might call for ruthlessness, within the Christian churches we sometimes face the opposite
problem. Our professed belief, which I just summarized, is wonderful. And at times our practice
has been wonderful. But today informed people are much more aware of global human suffering
than in previous generations; it fills our TVs and computer screens. Our neighbors will wonder if
we really believe the poor and needy are created in God’s image if they do not see us practicing
what we say we believe. The Christian community faces a continuous test on this question.

I have written and edited some philosophical materials about human rights and human dignity as
based in creation and redemption, and I could wish that those materials would convince our
world that God has truly given dignity to the poor and desperate. But I do not expect our books
and journals to change the world very much. I think it has a far larger impact when people see
Christians honestly caring for the poor and needy. And that has to be at every level, local,
regional, and global. If our neighbors see that we truly care for the homeless, the boatpeople, the
victims of trafficking, the refugees, and those suffering religious persecution, then they may
question their secularism, which has real difficulty explaining human dignity, and consider our
Creator and Redeemer. As a friend described it, caring for human needs can be the boat that
carries the gospel as a passenger.

II. But now the opposite thesis: An easy way to destroy the dignity of the poor who are
created in the image of God, for whom Jesus gave his life on the cross, is to treat
them like objects of charity.

Probably many of us have heard the stories of the numerous generous attempts to help people in
need that seem to have done more harm than good. The stories can be very discouraging. It
sometimes seems like the larger the effort, the greater the problems are that we cause. The irony
could easily make us bitter and disillusioned. Everywhere we turn we see examples of
humanitarianism causing destructive dependence and sometimes fueling corruption. Two
specialists from my church circles who have addressed this problem summarized the issue in the
title of their primary book, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the
Poor . . . and Yourself. 6 I will not try to summarize their important study, but I believe the key to
the problem is the total picture of how people are viewed that is communicated by our activities.
Do we treat people as objects of pity, or do we treat them as subjects who will make decisions
and implement plans for their future based on their values and convictions? If there is even a hint
that we see people as objects, this causes the poor to see themselves as even more worthless and
inferior to the people helping them, causing further dependence and discouragement. In contrast,
engaging people as subjects with whom we are in conversation helps them to plan a better future
for themselves. Regarding a person’s subjective feelings, convictions, and decisions as truly
decisive is a central part of recognizing and affirming the image of God in that person.
Fellowship with those in real need is part of what draws them out of their need.

Perhaps another way of saying the same thing is to notice that efforts to relieve poverty that see a
lack of money as being the primary characteristic of poverty tend to cause destructive
dependence and more poverty, for within this way of thinking a person’s value comes from the
amount of their possessions. Inadequate definitions of poverty, with terrible irony, have become
causes of continuing poverty. Defining poverty primarily as the lack of money makes the poor
even more dependent on and inferior to people who have money. Ideas have consequences,
especially when those ideas are incarnated into the way programs and organizations are
designed. The poor often feel worthless because they do not have money, that very characteristic
that defines value in a materialistic society. And then our definitions of poverty, communicated
by the whole way in which our anti-poverty programs and organizations are designed, confirms
that people without money are, in fact, worthless.

Fortunately there are better definitions of poverty available. Those better definitions lie in the
direction of seeing poverty as part of a condition of comprehensive alienation. If we define
poverty as an economic symptom of people being alienated from themselves, from other people,
from nature, and from God, then our efforts will tend to succeed and raise people back up to
being socially functional and related, really closer to being in good relationships with
themselves, nature, and society, perhaps even reconciled with God. This holistic reconciliation
will bear fruit in the realm of raising people out of financial poverty.

Obviously I am interacting with Karl Marx at this point, taking note of his sensitive descriptions
of human alienation, but fundamentally disagreeing with his understanding of human nature.
Marx and his modern friends habitually perceive most of the conscious dimensions of human
life, including religion, ethics, relationships, and alienations, as a result of economic influences.
Change the economic situation of a person or a class, or so the thought goes, and you can change
everything else in the life of that person or class. Conscious life (including relationships, beliefs,
and values) within the perspectives influenced by Marx, is shaped or even controlled by
economic relations. I would call this “economic determinism.” But when we pick up the Bible,
and books inspired by the Bible, we see the opposite perception of how human life works. This
sounds theoretical and impractical at first, but it is very practical long term. Within the biblical
worldview, the contents of human consciousness, meaning our thoughts, beliefs, feelings,
relationships, hopes, and loves, shape everything else, including economic activity. What is
inside the human mind and heart, obviously including education and those contents and skills
communicated by education, plays a massive role, whether contributing to poverty or to plenty,
contributing to alienation from God, world, self, and other, or contributing to reconciliation with
God, world, self, and others.

Please do not misunderstand at this point. This does not mean that we first discuss philosophy of
life with the boatpeople before we get them shelter or medical care. It does not mean that
religious education comes before taking care of the refugee. We need good distinctions between
crisis intervention and long term development, and these distinctions are clarified in the better
books.7 But whatever the situation of a person or group, part of the way to a better future will
include a lot of new thinking, learning, planning and imagining a different future, all of which
can best occur in relationships and dialogue with other people. Within the biblical worldview, the
way to a better future almost always comes through the subjectivity of people; this means
through their conscious planning, learning, and work. This requires engagement in relationship,
not treating the poor as objects of our pity.

So that the educators among us see the connections I am trying to draw, let me make explicit that
I am thinking of the perspective on how society works that some of us learned from Max
Weber’s study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.8 Protestant theologians have
long pointed out that Weber largely misunderstood Protestant theology and Calvinism; do not
take that part of Weber seriously. But the Roman Catholic theologian Michael Novak has
pointed out that Weber offers a real alternative to Marx in terms of the relation between the
contents of human consciousness and economic development.9 Without looking at the details, let
me suggest that religious values such as diligence, honesty, and thrift, preached initially by
Christians as a work ethic, first concentrated in northern Europe and North America but now
widely distributed, contributed significantly to economic growth in the developed world. Much
of this work ethic got its start with directly religious motivations, such as seeing daily work as a
place to serve God, but its influence came after it was no longer seen as a purely religious
conviction and was seen as economic rationality. More pointedly for our purposes, the way out
of the poverty that still gripped most of Europe and North America in 1800 came largely through
values, expectations, and convictions, some seen as more religious and some as more rational, in
the hearts and minds of people. It was not the result of an impersonal power of development or
class struggle in which people were passive objects. So too today, the way out of terrible
circumstances for most people will include their planning and efforts in light of what they know,
believe, and value, even when they need a lot of help.

Reflections

Our western culture is in a difficult situation. It lacks a definition of humanness to guide
education, politics, and economic life. People suspect that others do not believe their own words
because they know they do not entirely believe their own words. And everyone but a psychopath
has a God-given sympathy reaction to people in need. We as Christians have a large duty to
show that we really believe what we say we believe about humans being created in the image of
God and God’s special concern for people in the most difficult situations. But the moment we
treat a person as an object of concern we can hurt that person more. God has chosen to engage us
through our consciousness and our subjectivity in redemption; imitating God, we have to engage
people in the worst circumstances through their subjectivity, meaning through what they think,
feel, and decide. Then we can begin to practice our complex Christian relationship to poverty
and wealth.

1 Thomas K. Johnson, Ph.D. This is a lightly edited version of a speech presented to the Dignitatis Humanae
Institute, meeting at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Vatican City, June 28, 2014. Dr. Johnson also
brought official greetings to the DHI from the World Evangelical Alliance and its 600 million members.

2 I am consciously using the language of “sphere sovereignty.” God has created us such that with the unfolding of
history different spheres or structures of society can and should be distinct from each other. The healthy
functioning of a society in its many spheres, so that we move in a healthy direction within the structures God has
created, is dependent on culture, which includes customs, theories, ideas, practices, habits, role models, slogans,
proverbs and more, all of which are oriented around understanding and guiding our humanness. Healthy
governments and healthy economies are always dependent on a healthy culture. The biblical message should always stand in a multifaceted relation with cultures. See Thomas K. Johnson, “Christ and Culture,” MBS Text 79
(2007), available online at www.bucer.eu. Religions and systems of belief always play pivotal roles in cultures.

3 The everyday truths that all people learn as a result of God’s general revelation provide the transcendental
conditions of human life and experience even if people suppress their knowledge of God. See Thomas K. Johnson,
The First Step in Missions Training: How our Neighbors are Wrestling with God’s General Revelation, World of
Theology vol. 1 (WEA Theological Commission, 2014). Available online at www.bucer.eu.

4 Compare Old Testament ethics with the Code of Hammurabi to see this contrast.

5 Quoted in Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, 4th edition, (Thomas Nelson, 2013) p. 38.

6 Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Yourself

7 Again I would mention Corbett and Fikkert.

8 Max Weber’s study was originally published as an essay entitled Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des
Kapitalismus in 1904 and 1905 in volumes XX and XXI of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. It was
republished in 1920 in German as the first part of Weber’s series Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie. It
was published in English as The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons, with a
foreword by R. H. Tawney (New York, Scribner, 1958; reprint New York, Dover, 2003). For more on using Weber’s
ideas in Protestant ethics see Thomas K. Johnson, “The Spirit of the Protestant Work Ethic and the World Economic
Crisis,” chapter 5 in Christian Ethics in Secular Cultures, World of Theology vol. 2 (WEA Theological Commission,
2014). Available online at www.bucer.eu.

9 See especially Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (Madison Books, 1990) and Michael Novak, The
Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Free Press, 1993).