By Jim Coggins

It’s hard to escape the news. Every day we hear of diminishing funds, lost jobs, billion dollar taxpayer bailout proposals and diminishing house values. The result is a mounting ­– albeit low level ­– anxiety. Will I have a job, can we keep the house, what about our retirement? 

Governments propose spending billions on ‘stimulus packages’ ­to encourage consumerism ­– the very thing which gets individuals deeper into personal debt. Is our society propping up a flawed system?

Meanwhile, ordinary citizens ask ‘how could all this have happened?’ The answers are not simple. BCCN consulted a number of economic and socio-political leaders for perspectives on how Christians should conduct themselves in relation to the current economic crisis.

ONE B.C. expert centred his advice around biblical concepts.

The concept of the sabbath, said Paul Williams, associate professor of marketplace theology and leadership at Regent College, means several things: establishing a boundary; exercising self-control; ceasing to strive; and saying enough is enough. This speaks directly to the compulsion to over-consume which has driven our long-term economic troubles ­– and is, said Williams, a call “to live within our means.”

Sabbath also means “celebrating the abundant life God wants us to enjoy,” he said. “In God’s presence, enough is abundance. Bread and cheese and a glass of wine with friends is abundance. A simple life with contentment is rich.”

Practice jubilee

The biblical concept of jubilee, Williams continued, is about deliverance, freeing people from mistakes of the past and giving them a new start. Practically, this might mean the church paying off debts for people who are unable to pay them on their own.

This would have to be done “with wisdom and care,” Williams said, so it does not encourage people to incur more debt.

Practice hospitality

Another key thing for Christians to do, Williams said, is to practice hospitality. This means being generous to the poor, to the newly jobless, the newly homeless. It also means changing “the way we live together and care for each other.”

He added, “We need to recover the communal corporate expression of the church. A lot of church life is still very individualistic. We are very reluctant to genuinely sacrifice some of our independence and autonomy for the sake of the community.”

Carsten Hennings, assistant professor of business administration at Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto, expressed a “concern that funding for relief and development work will tighten up.”

He said that when “institutional funding” for charities is declining, it will be important for Christians and churches to increase their giving.  

Churches should be helping people, said Lorne Jackson, president of the Canadian National Christian Foundation. However, he noted, “one of the areas where the church has gotten off track is that we have been spending way too much money inside the walls of the church.”

Avoid debt

It is also important for Christians to “get out of debt,” added Jackson. He argued that government efforts to stimulate the economy by making it easier to borrow are only going to make things worse in the long run – since that is “what got us into the problem in the first place.”

Williams noted that there is a longstanding “church tradition against debt.” We need to help those in need and “if we have no spare money for that (because we are in debt), we need to confess and repent, for scripture tells us over and over not to be indebted in that way.”

Jackson said people should “never borrow to buy coal,” that is, to buy things that will burn up or deteriorate and be forgotten. Yet much of the current debt is ‘consumer debt’ – i.e. debt incurred to buy things that people hope will make them happy, but never do.

The only acceptable reasons to go into debt, Jackson said, are to buy a house, or expand a business or buy a car (but only if it is necessary to get to work) – something that will make people better off in the long run.

Teaching is needed

The Bible, Jackson noted, “talks more about money and possessions than any other subject.” Yet Jackson was in three churches recently where the people in the pews were worried about losing their jobs and investments, yet nothing was said from the pulpit –  making the church appear irrelevant.

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Many pastors lack expertise in financial matters, or are afraid of looking like they are just trying to raise money, Jackson said. If that is the case, they should call in financial advisors to do the teaching.

Christians need teaching on the subject because they live the same lifestyle as non-Christians. But “every financial decision is a spiritual decision,” said Jackson. If God owns everything, then before every financial decision, people need to be taught to ask: “Is this going to help me draw closer to the Lord, and enable me to give more and bless people?”

“Churches should impress on their members that their economic lives are one of the most important ways we tell people how we serve God,” said Elwil Beukes, professor of economics at The King’s University College in Edmonton.

There is nothing wrong with being rich and successful; for example, Abraham was rich and blessed.

However, said Beukes, “our actions as consumers, workers, business people and civil servants should contribute to an economy that serves life.”

It is important for the church to “stand in the gap and supply people’s psychological and physical needs,” said Paul Rowe, associate professor of political and international studies at Trinity Western University.

“In previous recessions, it is the church stepping in that has made the difference for a lot of people.”

Rowe noted that tough economic times have been occasions when the church has taken on more of a social role and certain church institutions have expanded; but he added that it is also important for churches to not lose their fundamental moral and spiritual role.

Teaching on economic issues may require significant changes, suggested Joe Gunn, executive director of Citizens for Public Justice. “Churches have been part of the problem. Our church parking lots look like a Wal-Mart parking lot.”

Rowe observed, “There is a strong materialistic strand in American Christianity.”

Spend prudently

Christians should be prudent; but if they have the money, now would be a good time to spend it because everyone “cutting back now is going to exacerbate the problem,” said John Boersema, a business professor at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario.

In fact, Christians may be freer to spend now than other people. “If your identity is tied to wealth, you are more likely to panic than if you say God will take care of me.”

The “sense that God is with them” is “one of the reasons America has such a resilient economy,” added Rowe.

Christians can contribute by bringing a different perspective and “not panicking as much as those with a bigger investment in the system,” said Hennings. The church needs to “make the broader values – prudence, thrift, communal care –  part of the conversation.”

Preach the gospel

There may be some good coming out of the economic crisis if it leads to people paying more attention to God and the Bible, Jackson said. “It is much easier to enter the kingdom poor than rich.”

We are at “one of the periodic turning points in history that force us to reconsider deeply what we are doing,” said Beukes.

The economic crisis “could lead to a resurgence of Christian faith,” but the focus should be on “living right in this world, in the way we deal with the poor and the environment.”

The recession is “an opportunity for churches to engage people” in conversations about ultimate values, said Hennings, and Christians “need to be ready for that conversation. What can we offer in terms of hope and meaning?”

In hard economic times, said Boersema, “we hope people will look to God – but I can’t say we have statistics to say they do.” However, it is true that the church is growing in the economically troubled Third World.  

“Recessions don’t always bring on revivals, but some do,” Rowe said.

The recession is “an opportunity for the church to impact society,” Williams said, “but we have to live it out, to embody it before we can talk about it. The surrounding culture doesn’t know what to do and is desperate to see something authentic.

“When people look at the church, they should see a foretaste of heaven in the way we live together as a community.”

January 2009