Greed is God: Exporting the Values of America's Prosperity Heresy

It seems like you're touching on three different and distinct things here: greed, our exportation of it, and the prosperity gospel. First, I hear a lot of talk about greed, but I would like to know what it looks like and in what ways we are exporting it. Saying it is a value that we are exporting seems pretty ambiguous. If you are telling me to repent of something, I would like to know what I'm supposed to repent of.

Second, the prosperity gospel...I'm certainly no fan. Most evangelicals--including most conservative evangelicals--view it and its figures (e.g., Benny Hinn) negatively. Most would disagree with the statement that 'God wants me to be rich', and all (or nearly all) would agree with the statement that 'God wants us to give.' From what I understand, Christians in the US and Americans as a whole are very charitable (i.e., not greedy) when compared to those in other countries--note, I'm not talking about govt spending I'm talking about actual charity: freely given donations to other nations. Look at how we've responded to Haiti. How to square these facts with your thesis?

It's pretty fashionable in progressive Christian circles to speak ill and uncharitably of the church and of the US. I hope you will resist those biases.

"Jim Wallis names that credo, "greed is good

Related to the United State's export of values, rather than focusing on a purported "greed is good" sort of claim, a very positive export is the idea of clean governance, and the rule of law. The US is leaps and bounds ahead of much of the world in this area - in many countries bribes are an accepted part of life, and of course serves as a huge drag on the economy and such.

Sorry, but "sin" cannot be simply reduced to "poor economic theory" anymore that it cannot be reduced to "dysfunctional behavior." Absent the Spirit of God, something like that will happen.

weber, in short, was right. while calvinism helped to expand the US economy though such attributes as prudence and volunteerism, when the economy became "demystified" only the reward for labor was left. wealth became a deformed and reversed understanding of being among the elect of god who work hard in response to grace, and became the sign of grace in itself. as with robertson's comment about haiti and the D.R., those who are wealthy are favored by god and those who are poor are not only not favored by god, but punished for their alleged apostasy. god becomes a justification for sinful greed rather than any reference to jesus christ who was clearly and under no certain terms radically opposed to greed and pride since these were barriers to the love of god. shameful and disheartening, but not new. this was the same force that ended up killing jesus after all.

Thanks, Sondra, for being bold enough to wonder. I see already what you speak of regarding the shift of Christianity, and the very clear if somewhat unintended export of greed.

I work in Guatemala, from where until recently, American Christians were regaled to save Guatemalan babies from sure death, because the country is so poor. But almost 50% of the population is professing evangelical, and the other 50% is predominantly devout Catholic. While the countryside is invaded regularly with teams of charitable Americans, the local churches are largely unconnected with the charitable efforts among the poorer areas. I really believe this is in part due to an attitude among the middle class believers, that when they become as insanely rich as the Americans, they too will start helping the poor. But for now, even though tithing is a huge deal here, the tithes go to building $20,000,000 buildings, because, that's what Christianity means to the average Guatemalan church goer.

As far as no one really thinking greed is good, I was just on an adoption forum, where I suggested that greed and selfishness may have been the fuel for the corruption conflagration in Guatemala concerning adoptions. 2 commenters surprised me by vigorously defending greed, saying that if there one day was no greed, there would be no commerce. It was so axiomatic to them. It is a part of our fabric as a nation, although we do not like to say it.

As far as asking what to repent of. I was asking myself the same question, as I pondered what John the Baptist meant us to repent of in preparation for the Kingdom of heaven. It finally came ot me, when he told the people in Luke 3 to do the works befitting repentance, and described those works like this:

Lu 3:10 So the people asked him, saying, "What shall we do then?"
11 He answered and said to them, "He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise."

What would you think you would be repenting of, if this was the evidence, Jesse3?

Fundy: What exact theory was the cause of the global crisis? The one that seems most evident is the one where they removed regulations that kept corporate greed in check, thinking "what's good for business is good for America" and suggesting that money trickles down. Never has, never will. Money always trickles from the poor to the rich in an unregulated free market. The power that comes with and through wealth makes sure of that. That is the motive for greed.

It seems to me that "shock and awe" is also a way of using terror as a means to communicate our values in opposition to "Islamic" ideals.

We have become so wrapped up in our American way of life (consumerism) that we have incorporated it into our Christianity. Until you have been out of the country (I spent two years in the Peten in Guatemala) and returned, you can be blind to it.

Thanks for your point of view Stephen.

There is no evidence that sin caused the crisis. It would have happened even if everyone involved were filled with the Spirit. There are laws to economics as there are laws to physics. And unless God wants to perform a miracle, violations of the laws of economics will have the same consequences for the spirit-filled as they have for the sinner.

"if there one day was no greed, there would be no commerce."

Wow! That's a disgusting commentary on their understanding of economics, but even worse on their understanding of Christianity. Very sad.

"What exact theory was the cause of the global crisis?"

For mainstream economics, there is no cause. It was just a random event. I follow Nobel Prize winner FA Hayek's theory: manipulation of the money supply by central banks causes unsustainable booms that end in depressions. Also known as the monetary theory of business cycles, it was first recognized by Richard Cantillon in 1720. It was the main theory of business cycles until Keynes changed economic theory in the 1940's. I still think it is the best theory. If you want to read an excellent version of the theory, google for Washington Irving's "Crayon Papers" and the essay within those papers called "The Mississippi Bubble". In it Irving describes the financial crisis in Paris, 1720. It sounds like he is describing the current crisis.

The idea that deregulation allowed corporate greed to escape is very popular with the four P's, the press, the public, politicians and preachers, but you won't find many economists using it. The reason is that the deregulation that took place had to do with commercial banks, not mortgage banks or investment banks that got into trouble. Also, there is no evidence of greed. Greed implies recklessness and risk taking. But the bankers involved bought only AAA and AA rated securities, the safest securities outside of government debt. You simply can't call that greedy or risky or reckless.

There is no evidence and any logical reason to believe that sin caused the crisis.

I can assume that you either don't know the Bible or haven't read it.

Stephen, you're in a field that is very close to my heart. I spent some time in the Middle East and North Africa, which are not as poor as Guatemala but still the poverty there was really disturbing. I got hooked on economics when I took a class in college on third world economic development. I had been searching for years for some explanation as to why some people are so poor while others are so ridiculously rich. I didn't find the answer in that class. In fact it took me another 20 years and doesn't of books to finally understand. What is so sad is that there is no reason today for any nation to remain poor for another generation. We know how to lift people from poverty to wealth. God bless you in your work.

Actually, Drew, as much as I like Weber he was far from right about the Calvinist origins of capitalism. He got close in identifying Protestantism as a factor. Here is my story of capitalism in a nutshell:

Church scholars, mostly of Salamanca, Spain in the 16th century, determined that the only way to arrive at a just price in commerce was in a free market. They promoted free markets and private property and opposed the king and nobility when they tried to steal the property of common people. But no Catholic monarch would implement their policies. However, the Dutch Protestants were forced to rebel against Spain in the late 16th century because the king was trying to commit genocide against them. Dutch scholars, who were also Catholic scholars, had taught the late scholastic ideas on economics for generations. So when the Dutch rebelled, they became the first nation in modern history to implement Late Scholastic thought on economics. The created institutions to protect private property and free trade. As a result, they became very wealthy. Two hundred years later, Adam Smith studied the Dtuch and incorporated their ideas in Wealth of Nations. Later, Smith's system was called capitalism by Marxists.

In responding to your question about "greed": church people will invest far more money in junk than they will be generous in giving as a response to God's love. Confession time. Myself included! All you have to do is look at the check book. Will there be more money spent on entertainment or on people who have been flattened by an earthquake?

Personally, I both appreciate and critique the church. On Sunday, in many of our churches we will read of Jesus critiquing the selfishness of his Nazareth neighbors in Luke 4. They became so angry they wanted to throw him off a cliff! The Lord's criticism was not against "those people" but against "me and my people." On Sunday, we will also read from 1 Corinthians 13, the greatest spiritual gift is love.

Perhaps criticism and love can go together.

Folks have criticized things I have written here. I don't assume that those who do so are by nature uncharitable and unloving and biased.

My ranking of confidence in the following sciences:

1. Physics
2. Chemistry
3. Biology

4. Astronomy

Next to last. Psychology

At the bottom. Economics

Does this make me a bad person :)

Thanks for the complete response. I appreciate your desire but have to disagree with your analysis. Sometimes, it really is as simple as it sounds. The commercial banks were an extreme part of the banking consortium, but certainly not ostracized or repudiated by the mortgage and Investment banks...or stocks exchanges. Then, I have to say that people who if completely uninvested in the system would have cried foul kept silent, because they also had their stocks and investments, were quiet and hoping that this voodoo economics would at least last long enough for themselves to retire.........culpable! Greed.

By saying it was no cause, you sound like the guys who justified still receiving bonuses after their companies had been run ninto the ground, then bailed out by the government: No one could have guessed. But I was reading blogs and article years ago that predicted exactly what happened. I also read in the old testament prophets that greed and indifference to the poor led to Israel's economic and then governmental ruin...and I see a lot of similarities in America today.

As for greed, I really think you are misrepresenting its definition here. It may motivate recklessness in people who are temperamentally predisposed, but there are also very cautious, very greedy people. Explicitly, it might even exclude recklessness once one has what one wants to keep greedily.

greed (gr?d)
n. An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth

I definitely agree that we spend lots on stuff we don't need and we spend more on entertainment than helping others, but is that a uniquely 'American sin,' as she says? In what way are we exporting these habits abroad? Through our promotion of free trade? I don't really follow this argument. But I guess that's more Wallis's argument than her's, and she's focusing on the prosperity gospel.

Shifting the point of Sondra's article into argument about economic theory successfully evades confrontation with the real issue. We may not export greed intentionally; we're generally most unconscious of our most serious flaws because we can't bear the self-examination that reveals them and forces us to confront our sinfulness.

If you can't see the point in debating Christian America's greed, you most need to do just that. The same is true of racial issues -- those who most insist they're not racist and think that all people are the same are the ones most in need of repentance and humility to learn from Christ the things they'll otherwise never know.

Forget economic theory. Confront Jesus, soul to soul, and his gospel face to face. His Spirit is the only One able to cut through our pretenses, conscious or un-, and transform us into the people who can celebrate His power in the gifts he's given us, and humbly admit that anything but His gifts is insignificant.

Having "stuff" is a moral issue. When it becomes so important that we have to develop complex "theories" to avoid talking about how it corrupts us and what we teach, we confirm our own stubborn insistence on turning God into just one more theory to accept or reject.

I offer a comment not as a rebuttal to anything but as an addition: There is a segment of the American church that views itself as very tuned in and concerned with poor peoples. This segment tends to be highly educated and quite wealthy. And it often criticizes theological and church forms that actually appeal to poor peoples.

"Morality had nothing to do with the crisis."

Surely you jest. Ask Alan Greenspan; even he admitted his assumptions that the Market would regulate itself failed. Even Keynes had his reservations long ago.

"if completely uninvested in the system would have cried foul kept silent, because they also had their stocks and investments, were quiet and hoping that this voodoo economics would at least last long enough for themselves to retire.........culpable!"

A few people did cry foul, but the Federal Reserve, all federal regulatory agencies, the ratings agencies, the International Monetary Fund, and almost all mainstream economists asserted emphatically that there was no problem with the investments. In fact, they said just the opposite, that the investments lowered risk. And such investments do under normal circumstances.

"By saying it was no cause,

Trashing economics is obviously popular on this blog, but does nothing except make Christians appear proud of their ignorance.

If someone came to you with a life threatening illness, would you tell them to ask the deacons to anoint them with oil and pray over them? Of course not. You would drive them to the emergency room of a hospital while you prayed. But the Bible has nothing more to say about physical illnesses other than anointing with oil and prayer. In the same way, the Bible has little to say about finance and economics other than to warn us to control greed and covetousness. And we should. But why stop there? Why not learn a tiny bit of what the science of economics has discovered over the past 300 years?

When, exactly, was the last financial crisis? Keeping in Recession and financial crises are two different, though related events - IE, the recent financial crisis caused our current recession.

We have had recession periods since the regulations placed in response to the stock market crash of 1929 put in place, but we have NOT had a financial crisis since then. It was only when greed, which purchased political power, which did away with the regulatory structures that had protected us since the days of the Great Depression, which allowed more indulgence in ever riskier behavior based on exponentially exploding greed, that we had our next financial crisis.

The assertion of a cyclic nature of financial crises is simply not true - we have not had a financial crisis like the one we are currently experiencing the recessionary effects of since the Great Depression.

Actually, the U.S. housing bubble and subsequent foreclosure crisis occurred because the U.S. government thought it would do "good" by blessing people with homeownership via the CRA regardless of their inability to make a standard downpayment much less meet monthly mortgage payments. Banks that red-lined were threatened with fines if they failed to award mortgages to those determined to be ineligible by the banks' standards but eligible by the federal government's standards. The effects of this do-gooder policy will affect the U.S. economy for years.