Shane Claiborne and Economics
Like many others on this blog I have wrestled with Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. The book challenges me to rethink what my life ought to look like when I take my allegiance to the kingdom of God seriously. But, while the book is challenging on a personal level it is severely insufficient when we Christians reflect on politics on a larger scale.
The authors and many of their friends live in modern monastic communities. In these communities they grow some food in the backyard, sew their own clothes and reuse old stuff. Their efforts are commendable, and if many of us save resources locally it will have a global impact. But while the authors rightly see problems with the current global economical system, they fail to address the enormous benefits we reap from it. I do not think it is a feasible or a sustainable solution for all of us to live the monastic life.
In Jesus’ time the economy was mostly local. People made most of what they needed in the family or village, with some supplements from trade with the larger society. This seems to be an ideal economy for the monastics. Today our economy is built on a global division of labor where we get clothes from Thailand, IT-support from India, iPods from China and iPod-design from California. While the monastics may live without these goods, they (probably) still enjoy non-luxury products that totally depend on a large scale division of labor like hospitals, medicines, and higher education.
The global economy is infested with problems, but it is still the backbone for these and other goods that did not exist in Jesus’ society, but are very beneficial for us today. We also live in a more densely populated world where we can’t all grow our own food in the backyard. Without a large scale efficient agriculture we would simply not have enough food to survive. Claiborne and Haw’s monastic communities has a prophetic function in our society today, but does not provide a sustainable economic model for our society today.
On this background, I do not think withdrawing from the economy (or politics) is a responsible behavior for the “Christian masses”, but neither is blindly participating in contemporary consumerism and indirectly exploiting the environment and people in remote places.
So what should we do? I would love to hear about it if anyone can recommend thinkers or books who provide a more constructive and less naive “kingdom of God approach” to economics.
Tags: Chris Haw, Economics, Jesus for President, Kingdom of God, Shane Claiborne
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November 11, 2008 at 9:26 am
I don’t think I can suggest an idea for an improved economic system – but I wanted to say I appreciate your critique of the book – more constructive than mine. But also – while I don’t think this is a solution to our dependent global economic problems, I do think that given some issues that are identified and given media attention, that we can make changes that benefit the world we live in, at least to some degree. I grew up in Pasadena at a time (in the 60s) when you would not be able to see the San Gabriel Mountains from the Fuller campus (I know – there are still days when you cannot). But, finally, the issue of smog was recognized as a major health problem and steps have been taken ever since to improve the air quality here. Obviously, there is work to do, but at least people are aware of the need to make major changes in how we live. So I do think that we can take even individual steps to improve both our immediate surroundings which might also impact even more of society … eventually.
November 11, 2008 at 10:49 pm
[...] More talk about Shane Claiborne at Evangelical Political [...]
November 16, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Have you ever read Wendell Berry? He’s a farmer/philosopher/poet/writer who actually has some rather good critique of the agri-business and what it means to participate in a larger economy. Home Economics was one of the texts that generated some thought provoking material for me, although he has written many.
Although we participate in the global economy and find great benefits from it, we should also be aware of what that means for us. That is, sweat shop labor and the fact that the west has not really given up slavery for its production means for it’s iPods made in China are also part of the global economy. Ron Sider addresses the food side (largely) in a book called Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger, where the first part of the book is dedicated to the food global distribution patterns, particularly in the US. For instance, a mere 2% of the global grain crop is enough to feed the entire world! (Based on mid nineties data, but in can’t be much more now.) How do we reconcile the gross amounts of waste and imports of food into the west when countries starve? 2 per cent!
Michael Frost wrote a book called Exiles that has a number of practical ideas, some for communities to practice. It may not be addressing the problem at large, but it does a good job of local starts. It may be that the local start is the best place, until we have enough information to be sure that our practices can be rooted in a globally just economy.
December 8, 2008 at 9:46 am
I’m 80% through Jesus for President and feel so challenged by most of it but just cannot see how or where to start. Thanks Andre for this post, you bring some perspective without minimising the challenge. Brian, I’ll hunt down those books.