Is inflated quick selling or so-called 'flipping' real estate
an application of Philippians 2.3-4? Is this loving your neighbour? The folks
associated with Movement Mortgage certainly seem to think so. While their model
is perhaps a little more principled than the get rich quick schemes of real
estate hustlers, the philosophy which undergirds their finance model is rooted
in the same system and built on the same worldly foundations.
It shouldn't, but it continues to amaze me that Evangelicals
were sold such a package with regard to economic theory. Finding its roots in
the Magisterial Reformation, the Evangelical embrace of capitalist theory
picked up steam in the 19th century and triumphed in the wake of
WWII and the threat of Communism. This supposed 'science' unlocks natural laws (so
the argument went) and thus since they are verifiable through experience, they
must reflect the God ordained order... and are thus moral. Supply and demand, caveat emptor, usury masquerading as reasonable
interest and profit via finance have won the day as legitimate concepts
reflecting God's order and are thus right and ethical and are now reckoned
among the canons of Christian orthodoxy.
Through the manipulation of parables and a decovenantalised
reading of Proverbs, the wit, wisdom and ethics of the world and its financial sensibilities
have come to govern Evangelical thought and overlay its lexicon. These 'worldview'
methods are used to effectively override and cancel out the hosts of passages
condemning the rich, their methods of accrual, usury in all forms, exploitation
of others and profits gained by dishonest means. The legacy of both large
segments of Roman Catholicism and certainly the testimony of many Medieval dissenters
has been all but eradicated. Their refusal to engage in commerce, banking or to
profit from mark up and the labours and hardships of others was cast down by the
proto-capitalist forces of Renaissance Italy and finally by the same spirit
which governed the Magisterial Reformation and its progeny.
Today these practices and economic categories are celebrated.
They are so normative as to elicit no shame or reflection. What was once
commonly understood by professing Christians of all stripes is today reckoned
as not only archaic but absurd. To argue otherwise is to stand contra mundum, something Evangelicals
are reticent to do.
Calling black white and white black, these modern
Evangelicals believe the Kingdom of Christ is expanded through banking, through
middle class aspirations, through creating money – not by the quiet labour of
our hands but through sleight-of-hand, the alchemy known as modern finance
capital. Ignorant of the Scriptures and of their own sacrilege they call it
'loving their neighbour'.
Through the fog of para-church confusion, a lifestyle centred
on the assumptions and norms of American economic culture and sacralised
aspirations, the folks of Movement Mortgage have turned into a community which
(perhaps inadvertently) rivals and undermines the calling and tasks of the
Church.
It furthers the confusion in creating educational entities
and producing mortgages that are ideologically and financially split between
their quasi-ecclesiastical missiological-oriented financial institution and
that of the state and its tax revenues. Remember, they view this as a Kingdom
related project. And so what they're saying is that Christ's Kingdom is built (in
part) through public-private collaboration, through the Church working with and
alongside of the state. It's a perfect picture of so-called 'worldview'
teaching put into practice.
I realise some Libertarians would also take exception to this
but for very different reasons. Contrary to their often Pelagian conceptions the
New Testament is not opposed to the state but the Kingdom is juxtaposed with it
and the twain shall never meet. The ethos of the state is contrary to that of
the Kingdom and thus we as Christians are not to look to the state for justice
nor do we collaborate with the state when it comes to Kingdom work. Christ and
Belial (even when Belial is a providential servant) have no concord. We are
called to martyr-witness separatism and to live as pilgrims, exiles and
therefore second class citizenship. We have no interest or stake in Caesar's
coin and we certainly don't labour to see it strengthened nor do we gather it
and rely on the legions to protect our assets. Laying up our treasures in
heaven, the ideology which motivates Movement Mortgage and the larger
Evangelical movement has nothing to offer to us.
Movement Mortgage's financial projects extend overseas.
Indeed much can be done to help people in places like Uganda, but to export
these models is not only theologically dangerous, there's the additional
confusion sown by the relationship of the US state and American Evangelicals
with the Ugandan political order headed by the authoritarian president Yoweri
Museveni.
At the heart of this model we are not surprised to find the
ethos of Dominionist theology. Confusing work, entrepreneurship and a false
view of economic life with the ethics of the Kingdom, the ideology and ethics
of Dominionism and its desire to sacralise and dominate culture, and certainly
its sometimes blasphemous claims are once again on display. But given that the
article was promoted on The Gospel Coalition, we already knew that didn't we?
The middle class norms and values surrounding security and
respectability are equated with the Christian family and contrary to every New
Testament impulse, Christians are encouraged to pursue the dream and 'security'
of home ownership.
It never occurs to them that societal approval and 'security'
comes with a price and can easily become a form of bondage.
The idea that families could simply remain strong by following
the patterns of the New Testament doesn't seem to matter. What the New
Testament teaches about money doesn't seem to apply. What the New Testament
says about the role of wives doesn't seem to apply. What the New Testament says
about respectability, security, the course of this world and its wisdom don't
seem to apply. What the New Testament says about divorce doesn't seem to apply
either and so we let the world and the world-compromised congregations and
individuals that make up Evangelicalism set the standard. From that flawed and
broken vantage point – Movement Mortgage wants to 'fix' the problem.
But what have they fixed? Nothing. But inadvertently they
have accomplished something. They have generated more fog and confusion, they
have muddied the waters between Church and para-church, between legitimate and
honest investigations into what the New Testament says about status, money and
family with the Evangelical Balaam that pays homage to Scripture even as it
bows the knee to Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, BF Skinner and of
course the Joneses... the folks they are ever desperate to keep up with.
While many see great things taking place within such a
movement, I see the spectre of Wall Street and profits garnered through ungodly
methods and by means of ungodly deeds. We cannot do evil that good may come.
I'm sure these folks are sincere but I also believe they are sincerely wrong
and have misunderstood the message and nature of the Kingdom... and certainly
its ethics.
Of course the ugly side of the mortgage industry is
ignored... what happens when people cannot pay, when that same Wall Street
beast destroys economies and people are ruined. Using the writs and dictates of
the judiciary and the threat posed by men with badges and guns these 'Kingdom'
builders rely on Babylon to enforce their order, secure their investments and
protect what is theirs. If the gains are ill-gotten their benevolence is really
a pseudo-benevolence. Their philanthropy is turned into a travesty. One is
reminded of Carnegie and his libraries. A noble gesture to be sure, the project
was financed through theft and blood and while his name lives on carved in
granite, his works remain an offense to God.
How much more among those who do so believing they do God's
work?
They may celebrate their supposed convergence of work and
faith but one is left wondering if definitions aren't changed in order to meet
requirements? If it really was a Christian company (if there is such a thing) and
a Christian environment would the unbeliever be able to flourish there? Where's
the conviction? Or has the bar been set so low that even the lost no longer
find the Kingdom (the Gospel) to be offensive? Such is the 'gospel' represented
by The Gospel Coalition and the usurers it would promote.