I have recently been enjoying some thought-provoking dialogue on Facebook. David Grant in particular writes some very insightful stuff. Below is a comment I made on David Fisher's note - The Economy and the Book of Acts:
"I would say that the manner in which interdependence can be handled by a body of believers depends on which of the two models you subscribe to; one based on ‘submission’ or one based on ‘contract’.
Under ‘submission’, and in the event of disagreement, we ‘submit’ ourselves to the nominated individual(s). Under ‘contract’, we revert to what we had previously agreed.
Even though contracts are a little inflexible and require significant foresight to comprehensively create, my vote goes with the contract model.
Partly because of my struggle to find people with a broad enough biblical worldview and humble enough heart to submit to, but mostly because I believe that the concept of ‘mutual submission’ (i.e. ‘submit to one another’ (Ephesians 5)) is impossible.
Both paradigms are biblical (OK so we can just about justify anything as ‘biblical’). God’s agreement not to flood the Earth again (Genesis 9 the rainbow etc), the covenant of circumcision with his people (Genesis 17) and the new covenant made by the shedding of Jesus’ blood, which is remembered by ‘communion wine’ (Hebrews 9, Mark 14), are all significant contracts.
The notion of submission is a popular subject in the context of husbands and wives, though it is often and conveniently treated as contextually confusing by many. Submission to ‘kings’ etc is also biblical, but God’s attitude towards monarchy seems to be ‘well, you have kings, because you want kings … and everything that goes with them … so don’t complain, etc’.
The beauty of contracts is that they avoid ambiguous relationships, and the disappointments and emotional haemorrhaging suffered due to the steep differences between presumption and reality. I would say that it is actually difficult to ‘love’ deeply without contracts – leaving us with weak smiles and relational indifference in church gatherings.
I have contracts with God, with my wife, with the state, with insurance companies, with banks, with service providers, everybody except my kids(!). Sketchy relational definitions are insufficient in all aspects of current life in the UK, except amongst the church it seems.
I run a small business. What happens if some rich idiot decides to not pay his bill? Assuming the breach of contract is his, and not mine, he becomes my enemy and I fight him for justice in the courts. I cannot ‘turn the other cheek’ when I have dependents, and I cannot exercise ‘divine grace’ unless he acknowledges his wrongdoing before a mutually respected (or not!) judge. A bigger problem would arise if a poor idiot doesn’t pay a bill(!), or if I don’t succeed in obtaining justice in the courts. If I can still love him in my heart, through all this, I have won one for Jesus. That’s hard. What would happen to my family, employees, and suppliers? All the risks are agreed and understood contractually. I’d hope that the suppliers also had other customers. And the rest of us? maybe we’d go out for a Chinese and have a laugh about the fight?
Would I expect the church to bail me out? No. The Lord is my rear guard, not the church.
Contracts clarify any shared ‘risk’ amongst the body, which is important since faith and scriptural interpretation are unique to individuals. Hence my point that if a group wants to genuinely share each others’ loads, there would need to be a common starting point and openness about the baggage that is brought to the body, including debts, equity, investments, commitments (both financial and time), assets and maintenance burdens, number of dependants, etc. It would be a messy business, but how else could giving to the communal pot be ‘equally sacrificial’?
Just thoughts. Not my kind of thing really. All that time spent squabbling about entitlement; meanwhile life goes on for the rest of the unbelieving world. And who would be watching their backs?
For all of it’s flaws, a capitalist ‘free market’ economy is relatively impartial to the belief of the individual and that is important. Personally, I will only accept a biblical economic model as a pattern for global interdependence when someone gives me a coin from the mouth of a fish (Matthew 17).
Maybe we’d do better trying to find something that we can export to aliens?
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