One is reminded of the 2009 film The International wherein two low-to-mid level bureaucrats attempt
to investigate and challenge the state-corporate power represented by
international banking. The movie has
been noted for its cinematography wherein small figures are often juxtaposed
with large overbearing architecture. It's meant to amplify and accentuate the
virtual impossibility of the little man taking on the machine. In the movie the
crusading bureaucrats (an Interpol agent and a state level district attorney)
are all but crushed by the overwhelming power of the corrupt Western system.
As I watched the movie, I thought if relatively low-level
bureaucrats have no hope in challenging the system, what hope does a
non-conformist have?
And yet in a sense this is our calling as Christians. We're
not here to 'take on' the system but to witness against it and glorify God by
following the path of Christ. We have a choice, we either step back and
maintain our integrity, bearing witness against the Satanic world order (as the
New Testament puts it) or we can join the system and profit from it. The logic
is as follows, since someone is going to do it regardless, it might as well be
me. I can't fix the world. Or to put it more bluntly, someone's going to make a
'buck' on it, it might as well be me.
Thankfully that is not the ethic of Christianity. It was not
a course pursued by either Christ or His Apostles. The Early Church understood
this but the message and the ethic have been largely lost. For all its calls to
return to Scripture the Reformation did not recapture this principle and in
seeking to reform the system became but
another expression of it.
How far does one take this? Should Christians avoid the law,
the corporate sector, the insurance industry and the financial sector?
I cannot tell fellow brothers and sisters what to do. Each
case is different. For me the answers are fairly clear and yet for others such
categories of thinking are wholly alien. Like it or not we can't wholly avoid
them.
At the very least we should avoid actions and pursuits
motivated by avarice and/or vengeance. This principle alone is instructive and
possibly life-altering. We can close our eyes and work as bureaucrats in these
industries (as some I know do), taking nice paychecks fed from the exploitative
system or we can stand on principle but that may mean that we never 'make it'.
It might mean the American (Western) dream is not only a lie but closed to
anyone guided by Christian ethics.
Some readers, the few that have persevered to this point will
groan by the burdensome and even earth-shattering notion that I'm suggesting. Is
this upsetting? If so, why? Should it even matter?
I was thinking about this the other day as I chatted with a
client, one I have worked for on-and-off for more than twenty years. I've
watched his kids grow up and he was talking about the cost of living, holidays,
paying for college, a wedding, retirement etc... Internally I was chuckling
because this guy has effectively written my weekly paycheck for extended
periods of time over these past couple of decades. I usually end up working for
him at least once a year and in some cases for weeks (or even a couple of
months) at a time. He knows what I make and he knows that my wife doesn't work
outside the home. And yet he's obviously never reflected on it or put two and
two together. If he did he would realise he inhabits a world that is alien to
me. Everything he was talking about, and all his lamentations regarding costs
are ones I do not share. They're not even on the table or in the realm of
possibility.
I know his house very well and it's rather nice. He would be
horrified and offended by where I live. Holidays? At best we take an overnight
trip somewhere every couple of years and we do it on the cheap... most people
would be rather unsatisfied by the experience I can assure you. I don't have a
dime to give my kids for college and this may sound strange to some but that
doesn't bother me in the least. I have no retirement account and I don't care
to have one. I have nothing to invest in future weddings. If we invest anything
it will be time in producing hand-crafted decorations or whatever. My living
room wedding cost next to nothing and neither my wife nor I have ever regretted
it. I say all this not to brag, earn pity or anything else. Rather I say this
simply to point out that the middle class world and values this client represents
are wholly at odds with both the ideals and practicalities I live by. He
probably pities me but would be astonished to discover that not only do I not
admire him but I actually pity him. He has lived a life wasted.
So what? Well, it's just this. This man is a professing
Christian and I know that the lifestyle which governs him is by his estimations
a 'Christian' one. He believes he's being a good Christian by being respectable
and prosperous. His financial are career decisions are to him expressions of a
work ethic, stewardship and responsibility. As I've pointed out to my own
children he and his wife (if they knew us on a more personal level) would
actually view us as immoral people, bad parents, bad Christians because we live
the way we do and aren't able to 'provide' for our kids they way they do. It's
not surprising he only has two kids. If you follow the world's wisdom, that's
probably all he could afford. Once I knew a couple that made well over $100,000
a year and yet they were convinced they could only 'afford' to have one child.
They were such awful parents that thankfully (for society) that one is all they
had.
This businessman that I have unfortunately been obligated to
work for these many years would be unwilling and offended to follow through on
what I've been talking about here. He couldn't build his businesses because
without the system and its protections, his money, his investments would be at
risk.
After saying all that some will ask, how then do I have any
integrity if I work for him? And I will grant they have a point and it's one
that continually burdens me. I often am forced to work for people that source
their income in sectors I object to. I sell my services and at times it makes
me kind of sick. On the one hand I can't police everyone's money and often I
don't know that much about them when I take on a job. Unfortunately (in one
sense)due to the nature of the work you tend to 'get to know' people as you
work for them and in time I find out they're a lawyer, investor, retired
military etc... and no, it doesn't please me. And yet what does that leave us?
We can be farmers. We can be involved in cottage industry. Once viable options,
the Industrial Revolution, (something once celebrated and championed by
dominion-taking culturally mandated Protestants) has all but eliminated these
economic models.
At the end of the day, the coin is Caesars. For us it's a
means to an end. All our dealings with the world will be corruption and to some
degree we will (like it or not) be forced into the Beast machine. The
industrial age, its destruction of the village and transactional autonomy has
all but guaranteed this. Technology and computers have virtually absolutised
this reality. Industrialisation and the economic system it spawned have quite
literally taken the Beast-system and its potential to a new level. The
technology is changing so fast it's hard to imagine where it's going next. We
needn't panic but we need to remain highly vigilant.
What to do? Survive. That's all we can do. Survive with integrity
or at least as much as we can muster. But flourish? Find solace and
respectability... success? Embrace all the latest gadget-fads and new ways of
living?
I think not.
In the meantime let's seek to understand what has happened
and why. How did all this come about? Why are things the way they are? I will
say this. Once you divorce yourself from the mindset and categories of the
world when it comes to money and our relationship to Caesar's coin and the
system which undergirds it, you will certainly feel with greater acuity the
alienation and exilic status that is the Christian life. And hopefully you will
have a better understanding of the world and our place in it. The statements
and assessments of many will seem trivial and foolish, sometimes even difficult
to endure. But instead of fostering pride, the burden of such knowledge should
humble us and shift our thoughts and affections.
See also: