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For Study, Prayer and Fellowship - 8:00 AM PDT 10/11/2025:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82968961343?pwd=LzcwVjJKcWVESDRURlhDcXlNV0JUdz09
Meeting ID: 829 6896 1343
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Economics and Christian Culture
(Econ & CC)
Bible Study
In the Western world, in my lifetime, we have seen a shift in what drives our culture: religion, government, social policy, and ingrained institutions for example. However, they no longer are sufficient because what drives nearly all elements of our culture today is money. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” [Matt. 6:24]
In our society we submit to the cumulative power of production and consumption. We spend our days buying and selling. Commercialism is invading all things because the system is built on two commandments: “Thou shalt produce” and “Thou shalt consume”. “And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” [Luke 12:15]
After 9/11, President G. W. Bush reassured us and immediately exhorted us to buy something to prevent our economy from tanking. I bought a new car. I rationalized my decision as good for my country. ‘The homeless’ are often classified as freeloaders. Originally, programs were used to help the homeless person(s) clean up, have an address and a telephone to respond to job offers.
It is as if to consume was to act morally. How did we turn society into thinking consumption was a virtue. “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” [James 4:2-3] This could only happen where economics is the primary institution, subverting family, religion and politics. Authority in our culture is no longer patriarchy. The father figure symbolically holds the family together, but fewer and fewer families have fathers in residence. Nor is it religious ideology/culture or party authority/culture (think political parties). Quite simply it is wealth. Status in our society is attained by having money and the freedom to use it. “Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” [Gal. 6:8]
When economics is primary, religion is diluted by the pragmatic. God is bought and sold more than loved. We Christians need to grasp this biblically. Jesus’ one clear act of anger was aimed at buying and selling in the Temple. “Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.”[Matt. 21:12] Consumerism is on a pedestal and is to be protected at all costs. For example, the Savings and Loan bailout in 1989 was the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in human history. We rail against welfare for the poor, but not for the wealthy or banking or the military. We have difficulty finding money for infrastructure, but not military adventures. We are protecting the system. AMEN
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