Christianity and Poverty: Two Views (Introduction)
A frequent commenter and blogger (his blog is here) Dan Trabue graciously sent me a copy of a book (that arrived with me away on vacation) that he finds to be a significant work describing his view on how Poverty and the Christian relate. In a short series of essays I’m going to compare, review, and contrast this pamphlet The Biblical View of Sabbath Economics by Chad Myers with a somewhat older work on basically the same topic. The the latter part of the 4th century St. Gregory of Nazianzus gave a lengthy oration “On the Poor”. It is these two works I’m going to compare.
Chad Myers according to the frontispiece has “worked for three decades in the field of non-violent activism for social justice, church renewal and radical discipleship.” Mr Myers has degrees in philosophy from UC Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union (also in Berkeley).”
St. Gregory of Nazianzus on the other hand was the most accomplished rhetorician of the 4th century Church. The piece “On the Poor” is the 14th oration that has been passed on from his era. His most famous orations, the so called 5 “theological orations” given in just a short interval from just outside of Constantinople was a major turning point forever cementing the Nicene tradition in the Church over the more popular (at the time) Arian heresy. If you today hew to the Nicean statement of faith … in part you owe it to the brilliant rhetoric of St. Gregory. It also should be noted that St. Gregory unlike his friend St. Basil (the Great) took a different approach to asceticism. He personally eschewed the monastic and extreme asceticism practiced by St. Basil and others around him. His asceticism was a more literary (and spiritual) asceticism of contemplation without embracing all or perhaps many of the rigors of the monastic life. It might be noted however, that he did take at an early age a vow of celibacy which he maintained throughout his life.
Both of these pieces have some similar conclusions. Both stress that charity is a primary virtue. However their methods, arguments and ultimately their conclusions are very disimilar.
I will also admit up front that I have a lot of difficulty giving Mr Myers work a fair reading. Stylistically he makes blanket assertions about, for example, the nature of the free market society which at best are a caricature of the market economy as told by a Marxist. In short, a lot of false statements are made about economic truths and conditions in markets and in pre-market, i.e., early Bibilical societies which need disentangling from his main argument. What is left after the dissection … is a question I can’t answer at this point of this study. It is indeed one of the questions that will need to be answered in this short series.
Filed under: Christianity • Economics & Taxes • Ethics & Morality • Mark O. • Orthodox • Protestantism • Religion
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I will be interested in seeing where this goes. I have become convinced over the last few years that our modern Church views more of it’s economic ideas from Adam Smith and political views from John Locke than we do from the actual Scriptures.
I think we have a world view that is hard to shake when we look at the Word.
Glad to hear you got the book. I’m still waiting on my turn at the library for the book you recommended (The Bottom Billion. Someone has apparently kept it much longer than they’re supposed to. This reminds me that I’ll have to give them a call to find out what’s happening with that.
Like MIT above, I look forward to your assessment. Also, like MIT, I think modern religious thoughts on economics comes much closer to matching material written by Smith than it does the Bible.
It’s Ched Myers, by the way.
I will agree with you that it seems, going in, you’re confronting a bit of bias (“St Gregory, ON THE OTHER HAND, was the most accomplished rhetorician of the 4th century Church…”). But that is okay and to be expected. We all have our biases towards what we already know and believe. Nothing wrong with that as long as one has an open mind as well.