It must be understood the very notion is actually obscene and
is without Biblical warrant on numerous fronts. This dream all but denies the
fallenness of man and the teachings of the New Testament regarding the Kingdom.
The Kingdom is not built here, but in Heaven. Our treasures are laid up there,
our hearts are there. The Kingdom in this world or age, is the presence and
power of the Holy Spirit. Those who are
not indwelt by the Holy Spirit, regenerated by Him are unable to discern,
detect, experience or visualize the Kingdom in any way. It therefore cannot be
equated with Christendom or culture in any sense. To equate these social and
political components with the Kingdom is to redefine it, synthesize it with the
pagan world, allow manifest unbelievers to experience its holy glories and
participate in its construction and manifestation. Such a notion runs
completely contrary to New Testament teaching and thus must be exposed as an aberrant
deviation and dangerous heresy.
When considering power and worldly treasures, the
juxtaposition presented to us in the New Testament is striking. An essential
component of the Christian/Kingdom life is the denial of both worldly
advancement and the idolatry of money, the two being all but inseparable. The
academic definitions of money will not suffice to understand and elaborate upon
the New Testament's spiritual lessons concerning its corrupting influence. Advocates
of so-called 'Christian Worldview' that rely on these definitions and seek to
synthesize them with Christian doctrine, demonstrate the syncretistic tendency
at work in the 'worldview' approach. While claiming to be a holistic
application of Christian doctrine and an attempt to apply the Gospel to all
areas of life, the worldview approach at its heart seeks to form a
comprehensive system to administer culture. Despite its claims to the contrary
it is a speculative extra-Biblical approach and in terms of Biblical
hermeneutics it is thoroughly eisegetical. In other words it is not derived
from textual exposition but an alien philosophy being imposed on the text and
forcing the text to conform to its demands of systemic coherence and its
ethical imperatives.
Biblically speaking money is security and respectability,
money is essentially a tool and means to power. The ethic presented to us so
vividly in the Sermon on the Mount is one of anti-power and anti-security. It
is self-denial and denial of the world, its aspirations as well as its
enticements. This is why Mammon is contrasted with the worship of God. This is
why we are told to render the coin (and all the power it implies) to Caesar and
this is contrasted with what we are to render to God.
It's not a matter of mammon being 'okay' as long as it is
harnessed and utilized in the service of God. No, money and what is symbolises,
security, respectability and the means to power over others is explicitly
contrasted with Kingdom ethics. Even though we can speak of this as a
generalization and even allow that many of Christ's examples are necessarily
hyperbolic it does not in any way detract from the core message.
Power knows no principle but self-advancement. Even acts of
charity and seeming altruism must be understood in this light. This is the
great temptation and ultimate corrupting danger of power. The seeking of power
demands an alternate ethic, a worldly ethic. Seeking earthly power is the
denial of the transcendent nature of God's Kingdom and calling.
It is the ultimate idolatry, a destructive and drowning snare
that leads to people 'straying' from the faith as the apostle puts it (1 Tim
6.10). The embrace of power which necessitates the embrace of money (for they
cannot be separated) leads to apostasy. Paul identifies this lust for 'gain' as
being at the heart of the Ephesian heresy and tells Timothy 'But you, O man of
God, flee these things..."
In the Parable of the Sower, Christ warns against the
deceitfulness of riches and pairs it with the cares of this world. They go
together. The cares of this world and the desire for 'things' and the pleasures
of life are contrasted with 'bearing fruit'.
Principles (applied ethics) wedded to power are not 'good
works' because the notion of 'principled power' is in effect an oxymoron. Power
in itself is like an acid, it corrupts and destroys. What does it destroy?
Integrity, ethics and (ironically) principles. It must (by necessity) be
self-interested and will always seek to maintain its status. In order to 'do
good' the deceived man says, you have to 'hold on' to the power and so you very
quickly lose sight of 'the good' and instead embrace an ethic of the end
justifying the means.
Christian ethics demand we cannot have anything to do with
it. We are to die to self, which is a mandate to eschew power.
And when we reflect more deeply on power we understand its
true nature and what happens when man wields it... especially fallen man in a
fallen world.
When it comes to power, survival is not enough. This is true
in politics and economics for the two cannot easily be separated though
academics aspire to do so. Economics cannot be isolated from the context of
what money is and what a market 'is' and how it functions in the milieu of the
world. Power can never be content and rest with what it possesses. It is
incapable of saying, 'This is enough, let's stop here'.
People in power know this all too well. To be static is to
die. Power must continually grow and seek ways to secure its foothold, acquire
more, and if possible keep others from acquisitions which threaten your own
turf. Again this is true whether we speak of politics or economics. The
principles are the same.
Speaking of 'principles' within the framework of power is
self-defeating and ultimately dishonest. The realist school of politics and
economics is practically correct but morally and thus ultimately wrong. This is
how the world works status post lapsum,
in a fallen state, but that doesn't make it right. And that doesn't mean that
we adopt the world's mindset and ethics in order to succeed. For that matter we
as members of Christ's Kingdom reject the world's definition of what
'succeeding' is.
All too often those who seek or already wield power will speak
of ethical principles being applied to their decisions and exercise of
authority. They are either wholly naive or they are trying to justify and
rationalise their actions. Their 'principles' are in fact illusions and tools
utilized to manipulate. They are dishonest in their framing and assessments of
reality. They are deliberately or subconsciously ignoring the reality of the
principles upon which they operate and certainly doing their best to ignore the
true ethics at work in the consequences of their actions.
In every paradigm, mammon is the principle tool. This is true
in every economic and political sphere and I'm afraid it's even the main factor
in the institutional Church. We see this when we penetrate the nature of
denominational politics and even the world of non-profit charities. In every
case money plays an essential role in the power of any individual or
organization seeking to wield influence and gain a voice whether in its own
internalised culture or in the wider world.
We can't use money as power to build the kingdom and we sure
can't use it to help ourselves. It represents an instant and corrupting
idolatry. It's a tool but a dangerous and corrupting tool.
It's Caesars to give and take. Though this message so central
to the New Testament is no longer popular and in fact decried, the Bible
teaches this world is wholly corrupted, a present evil age and under judgment.
Do Christians really think that by using the world's tools they will somehow
change this? Can we undo the evil of the age? This way of thinking ultimately
destroys the posture of expectation that we are called to live by. Our hope is
in the return of Christ, not earthly schemes to power.
While we certainly are live to God's glory and love the lost
in another real sense the course of this world doesn't matter. What a sad
distraction for the Church to get lost in politics, the struggle for power. It
is a travesty to argue for legitimacy based on this or that scheme, the basis
of currency, rules for capital... these are reductionist academic distractions.
This is a case of missing the forest through the trees. And then to teach
allegiance or rebellion based on these paradigms is also to misunderstand their
nature.
Christians are all caught up in questions of legitimacy based
on economic principles and then pretend that somehow these economic principles
can be separated from the wielding of political power.
Markets are battlefields to be conquered. Do you think the
people in power don't realize that? They seek to gain allies to dominate their
enemies and then before long they turn on each other and destroy. The ethic of
the market is you had better destroy your competition or they'll destroy you. You
had best mark out your turf and then guard it and start planning for the next
war. A merger or takeover is often just another form of battle.
The market like politics operates by the law of the jungle.
Another apt picture is that of a self-destructive hydra. The beast as a whole
destroys its enemies but the heads also kill each other. This is how the world
works and it's on an almost infinite scale from children on the playground to executives
sitting in the tops of skyscrapers. All along the way people are used, infused
with ideas and reasons that manipulate them or assuage their consciences and
they when they are no longer of any use, they are thrown away.
How are we to respond to the turmoil of the world, the
endless war that is fallen society? What are we told?
There will be wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not
troubled.
The Christian quest for political power, the control of
society and ethics in the realm of government and economics is in the end a
fool's errand and a great and unhelpful distraction for the Church.