How would you develop a biblical view of economics and culture which would transform a society from a non-Christian system into a Christian system?

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C. Matthew McMahon, Ph.D.
John 5:39, "...search the Scriptures..."

Dr. C. Matthew McMahon.com, www.apuritansmind.com and www.puritanpublications.com
Member - Christ Presbyterian Church, Professor at WTS for Puritan History & Theology.

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Life Maxim: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
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GARY NORTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, sorry I was having fun with that one.

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

Seriously though...He has dedicated himself to writing 19 biblical economic commentaries as well as supporting books not to mention numerous newsletters and LewRockwell articles. I do not see how one could seriously try to develop a biblical view without at least consulting his works:
http://www.christianciv.com/North_Ec...ommentary.html

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Chris Rhoades -33
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church (PCA) Nashville, TN-Under Care

Vera theologia non theoretica, sed practica est; Finis siquidem eius agere est hoc est vitam vivere deiformem. - Martin Bucer
""True theology is not theoretical, but practical. The end of it is living, that is to live a godly life."

When it comes to sheer writing talent, he wins the battle hands down.

How would you summarize 19 commentaries and other sundry writings into a paragraph or so on this topic for this thread?

Free market, maybe? I am weak on economics and would feign display my ignorance. I defer to my betters on this one.

Calvin wrote alot on some of these ideas. I'll check there as well.

Forget Gary North. Go with John Robbins!!!

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~Wayne Wylie~
Member, Mid Cities Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Ruling Elder - Inactive
http://www.mcopc.org
Bedford, TX

Job 28:28 - And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

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Protestant Work Ethic and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

[Edited on 8-3-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]

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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole

The Religious Tradesman by Richard Steele

I know that there are many on this board who do not care for anything Robbins says, but I have listened to his series of lectures on economics and they are quite good...but then again, I am not theonomist like most on this board. Suprisingly, free market is what Robbins promotes as well if I remember correctly.

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Jeff Bartel
Mechanical Engineer
Member - Trinity Reformed Church - RPCNA

"To believe in the power of man in the work of regeneration is the great heresy of Rome, and from that error has come the ruin of the Church. Conversion proceeds from the grace of God alone, and the system which ascribes it partly to man and partly to God is worse than Pelagianism" (The Reformation in England (London, 1962), Vol. 1, p. 98)

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Robbins is decent on economics; I have listened to a number of his lectures. Most on this board are NOT theonomists. Robbins takes the same view as Machen on economics (Christianity, Education and the State, ed Robbins) which is the same view that Bahnsen takes on economics.

Here's a statement by ICE, Gary North's ministry

This to me is a accurate summary of biblical economics.

VanVos

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Rev Jonathan James Goundry
*Calvinist @ Heart
Missionary with International Christian Institute www.iciministry.org
www.fide-o.com
www.vanvos.blogspot.com
www.unchainedradio.com

Adam Smith self-consciously elucidated the laws of God's liberty in Wealth of Nations.

If there are really, foundationally, only three kinds of economy: command economies, tradition economies, and free market economies, then from a biblical point-of-view...

Command economies would be the worst. They enslave. They are strongest monkey as leader economies. Everything is centralized. Communism in our era is a prime example. Atheists love command economies.

Tradition economies limit one's horizons (you do what your father or family does). The two great escapes are the miliary and the cloth. The spiritual state of a people can be real and higher in a tradition economy than a command.

Free market economies require the most liberty and cooperation and rule of law. They promote more flow of information as well. Liberty and the flow of information is what is most conducive to the plan of God.

That the most biblical school of Christianity - Calvinism - helped create and meshed so well with free market republics says something.

(Note: most economies will have elements of all three basic types, but will have as its center-of-gravity just one. For instance, the most policed communist economy will usually have a very active free - black - market raging underneath, usually for the 'elite'.)

Some thoughts from my limited forays into the subject...

I was browsing through Sproul Jr's Dollar Signs of the Times yesterday. So far it is very good, if basic. It is Mises for dummies!

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Jim Jarantowski
Minister of the Gospel, New Hope Community Church, Franklin, WI

I have no problem wiht John Robbins on economics. When Greg Bahnsen reviewed (read: massacred) Theonomy A Reformed Critique he made heavy use of a collection of essays edited by John Robbins on Machen: Christianity, Education, and the State and praised Robbins for doing such a fine work! Bottom line--Robbins has done much good in the past (his devastation of natural law is superb) and can be read with profit if read with discernment.

But for fun read here: Go Ahead Tax Payer, Make my day!

Here ya go: Christianity and economics lectures.

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R. Anthony Coletti
Midway Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Jonesborough, TN
[i]et venite et arguite me dicit Dominus[/i]

Succinctly stated, that the Bible recognizes property rights is manifest in the commandment "Thou shall not steal," and while God is said to be Lord of all creation, he gives us finite humans stewardship over some of the things and realty over this earth, and rights inherent in the fruits of our labor.

Most economic questions reverberate back to the Bible's recognition of property. Verses in Proverbs, that say, "The laborer is worthy of his wages," convey that a man is owed his due, and should not be defrauded by an employer.


The allocation of resources by the free play of supply and demand is the only economic system that is conducive to the freedom, happiness and prosperity of a nation. The free-market prospers within a prudent civil and legal framework for prosecuting acts of force and fraud, enforcing contracts, and upholding private property rights.

Robert Nisbet's works illustrate how the intermediary institutions and allegiances between the individual and the state have been continually encroached upon by statism and centralization. In recent years, the line between society and the state has become increasingly blurred like the ancient Greek Polis.

Nisbet achieved notoriety for his groundbreaking manuscript, entitled The Quest for Community. His thesis therein was remarkable, for he asserted that the preoccupation with community was a result of the displacement of the intermediary institutions between the individual and the state whether the family, neighborhood, church, or voluntary and civic associations. The displacement of these institutions so vital to civil society and the accompanying obsession with community was precipitated by the activities and structure of the modern state. The centralised state has dissolved the natural bonds and allegiances of civil society. Much of the later twentieth century social pathologies, dependency, poverty, and rampant crime perhaps owe in part to authentic community being grinded in the millstone of central state authority.

An ideal economic system needs to coincide with a political system based on principle of subsidiarity, as a centralized regime will predictably stifle economic freedom. Politics interplays with economics. A Christian system of economics, most assuredly cannot develop in a statist society. America despite a strong market economy, liberalized marketplace compared to Europe, still has a public sector that allocates nearly forty-five percent of our nation's economic resources. Dare I say America is a little statist?

Today, even when we consider revitalizing the moral fabric of society, we somehow cannot think of such considerations with public policy formulation or some concerted action of state power... Federally-funded faith-baith initiatives? This shouldn't be.

Books
I recommend that you read Wilhelm Roepke's A Humane Economy and examine the moral dimension of economics and forget all the sterile utilitarian rationales for a market economy. I submit these books for consideration as well:

Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded by Samuel Gregg is a good book. It elucidates on various economic principles, and weighs some Scriptural evidences in support of the market economy, and helps if sterile utilitarian reasoning isn't your cup of tea.

Understanding the Times: The Religious Worldviews of our Day and the Search for the Truth is a good book on the Christian worldview, as pertaining to various disciplines. It has a whole chapter on economics.

Larceny of the Heart by R.J. Rushdoony critiques the inflationary state, and the immorality of fractional-reserve banking, central banks, and monetary systems that expropriate wealth from those who hold money through inflation.

Hope that helps.


[Edited on 2-1-2006 by Puritanhead]

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Ryan
1689 London Baptist Confession

I just read Sproul Jr's Biblical Economics. It is a nice intro.

He makes a jab at theonomists and then propounds a theonomic argument on the next page. Its a lot of fun to read.

How would a Christian answer the questions in this economic quiz?

http://www.mises.org/quiz.asp

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Richard Kairelis
Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCNA (Prarie View, IL)
Chicago, IL

My feedback response

I do believe that this quiz is helpful overall. However, my concern is not acing the Austrian exam, and being deemed a "purist." I didn't expect to get all Austrian answers. In fact, I have a bone or two to pick with the Austrian school of economists, and particularly the new generation of its adherants, which I dub the Neo-Austrians. The Neo-Austrians skewed the legacy of Mises and Bohm-Bawerk, who originally critiqued the consequences of misguided state intervention, and they took it one step further. The Neo-Austrians consider the state something that can be dispensed with, and have subjected Austrian economists to reinterpretation for their decisively anti-statist preferences. Regarding the State: Abusus non tollit usum - Wrong use does not preclude proper use.

I dislike sterile utilitarian reasoning, and tend to favor an economist like Wilhelm Roepke, and his book A Humane Economy, which opens us to the moral dimension of economics. From a philosophical perspective, I take issue with Mises' epistemology, though I grant that I do not adequately understand it myself.

I very much recognize the interplay of economics with the body politic, hence the importance of recognizing human action, and the misguided application of bad economic policy. So, I appreciate the public choice economists.

My understanding of economics was shaped originally from a non-intellectual appreciation of the virtues of free enterprise, hard work and private property, which I had from a young age, and it was reinforced by father who is a man possessed of business/economic acumen. So, common sense is a good foundation. The intellectual observations merely butress what my empirical senses tell me. At around age 17, I discovered the Foundation for Economic Education and found their resources indispensable. I became enamored with Mises, Hazlitt, Hayek. Likewise, in college I read some public choice economists and supply-siders, and of course Milton Friedman. So, my perspective is heavily imbued with the influence of the classical Austrian economists, and tempered by the Chicago-school and Public Choice theorists.

Objectively, free-markets find their vindication in Biblical foundations, which recognize property in both money and private property such as realty.

The dumbest thing I have ever done to date regarding economic thought is consider and entertain protectionism in my later college years, albeit a moderate protectionism, which I have since repudiated. I was misguided in my perception of the consequences wrought by inflationary monetary policy, which distorts everything in the economy, including overseas trade, which the U.S. does increasingly on credit with foreign borrowing. However, once you study the nature of exchange, division of labor, and comparative advantage... the illogic of protectionism and its asymetrical, zero-sum view of the economic sphere falls apart. It fell apart in my mind, because I realized you had to operate from basic microeconomic principles which most protectionists don't even acknowledge, because they are for lack of any nice words are irrationale, illogical nuts. For all of Pat Buchanan's hue and cry about how free trade is "socialist," he basically embraces Marx's labor theory of value, and has a shallow picture of the world with trade being a zero-sum game. Protectionism is in essence "socialistic." Read Frederic Bastiat's The Law. The protectionists seek artificial privilege through the subversion of the law.

Now, I affirm the Austrian theory of trade cycle. The economic woes we perceive in our time, and even the distortions in trade balances, owes to the distortions caused by the monetary mechanism (i.e. Federal Reserve) which artificially creates credit through monetary inflation, and its misguided attempt to regulate interest rates. It causes exacerbated cycles of boom and bust, and the decline of the U.S. Dollar through inflation. It's a post hoc fallacy of the highest order to scapegoat foreign trade, even though us Americans have found an outlet for our excessive U.S. Dollars in the form of overseas purchases.

The e-mail response given to me:

[quote]Your score is: 94 / 100.

Each question is followed by an Austrian School answer (4 points), a Chicago School answer (2 points), a Keynesian-Neoclassical School answer (1 point), and a Socialist answer (no points)--all broadly defined.

Are You an Austrian?

Ryan Setliff (rsetliff@hotmail.com), Thank you for taking the Mises Quiz, Your results will be emailed to you.

1. What is the correct economic status of private property?

A. Property is a naturally arising relationship between human beings and material things. Property and enforceable property rights make possible economic calculation, a wider and more productive division of labor, and therefore increasing levels of prosperity. Indeed, civilization itself is inconceivable in the absence of private property. Any encroachment on property results in loss of freedom and prosperity. The Austrian answer. http://www.mises.org/libprop.asp

B. Property is at the heart of most serious inequalities and oppressions in modern civilization. Only by regulation, transfer payments, redistribution of property, and common ownership can society arrive at fairness, justice, and human dignity for all. Socialist answer

C. Property is an important component of our social system but its status as a "right" is contingent. It must be subject to regulation and modification for the general good. The state must intervene to prevent abuses of economic power, even at the cost of reducing traditional prerogatives of owners. Keynesian/Neoclassical answer

D. Property is central to prosperity and economic growth. Accordingly, it is of the utmost importance that the state, or more abstractly the law, maintain and modify the bundle of property rights in such a way as to allocate transactions costs in such a way as to promote maximum growth and economic efficiency. Property does not arise naturally, but is the end product of the legal system. Chicago answer

Your answer: A
The Austrian answer. http://www.mises.org/libprop.asp

You chose the Austrian Answer!


2. What is the proper method to conduct research in economic science?

A. The economist should not mimic the behavior of the natural scientists, because the social sciences involve human beings. Human action is characterized by intentional behavior, which involves the rational use of means to achieve desired ends. The very subject matter of economics"”capital goods, money, wage rates, etc."”is not defined by physical or chemical properties, but instead by the mental or subjective attitudes that human minds take toward these things. Consequently, the proper method for an economist is to start with self-evident axioms"”such as that people try to achieve the highest satisfaction at the lowest cost"”and logically deduce conclusions from them. The Austrian answer: http://www.mises.org/StudyGuideDisplay.asp?SubjID=3

B. Like the physicist, the economist (if he wants to be scientific) should construct a precise model that yields quantitative predictions about economic variables, such as GDP and unemployment. Then the economist should test those predictions against the actual data as collected by statistical researchers. At any given time, the best explanation or "theory" of a certain economic phenomenon is that model which yields the best fit between predictions and actual data. The Chicago answer

C. The question is misleading; economics cannot really be scientific in the conventional sense of the term. In physics we have fixed "laws" that are the same in every society and every time period. In contrast, there are no fixed laws in economics. The economist might study a certain historical episode and conclude that, say, rent control didn´t achieve its objectives when it was tried in Manhattan after World War II. Nonetheless, it may still be true that rent control could work in Paris in 2004 if the people in charge take care to avoid the mistakes of the past. There is no distinctly Keynesian answer. This is a historical school answer.

D. To be scientific, we need to modify the traditional economistic approach of viewing society as nothing but a collection of atomistic, egoistic individuals. In reality, human beings consider themselves to be part of a greater social whole. A more fruitful avenue of research would be to study the complex groups with which people identify, whether class, race, or sex. Such an analysis would reveal the undeniable power of relationships in society, and give a much better understanding of economic events than typical, simplistic economic models. The Socialist answer

Your answer: A
The Austrian answer: http://www.mises.org/StudyGuideDisplay.asp?SubjID=3

You chose the Austrian Answer!


3. What is the reason for the interest rate, and should the rate be regulated?

A. Interest payments compensate investors for their loss of liquidity when they sink cash into a business project or lend it out for a certain period; the interest rate is the price of liquidity. Interest is a monetary phenomenon, not a "real" one (as the classical economists thought). Modern economics recognizes the role of expectations or what might generically be called "confidence in the future." For example, if the interest rate jumps from 5% to 10%, this does not mean that people have become more oriented towards present consumption; it could simply reflect heightened anxiety about the economy. Government manipulation of the interest rate is certainly one of several tools needed to smooth economic fluctuations, but by itself this approach is relatively impotent. If everyone fears a worsening recession, employers will not hire more workers or build more factories, no matter how low the interest rate is pushed. Keynesian answer

B. Interest payments are a return on capital, and the interest rate in equilibrium equals the marginal product of capital. The situation is perfectly analogous to labor, where the wage rate equals the marginal product of labor. There are various technological recipes yielding output at various future dates, and co