Two-Kingdoms Economics

Although the two-kingdoms paradigm can provide a valuable lens for viewing any area of our social and cultural lives, for most of us, few areas loom larger than our economic lives.  Preachers often tend to tactfully steer clear of financial subjects, except perhaps on one or two Sundays a year, in which they try to soften up their congregants in anticipation of annual giving pledges. But during the other six days of the week, perhaps nothing is more likely to occupy our thoughts than income, expenses, giving, and saving. 

Here, as elsewhere, it is easy for a one-kingdom perspective, or a misunderstanding of the two kingdoms, to lead us astray. Without any two-kingdoms distinction, the dangers are myriad. In the prosperity gospel, preachers conflate God's spiritual blessings on believers for their faith with worldly prosperity. In some forms of what we might call "Christo-capitalism," the dynamic force of the market becomes the engine of God's redemptive purposes in history, and the Bible is prostituted to economic ideology to encourage an almost religious faith in free-market mechanisms. Alternatively, on the left side of the politico-economic spectrum, many Christians aim to apply the logic of the "divine economy" of unconditional giving to the earthly economic order, hoping to eradicate need and social conflict, and thus incarnate Christ's kingdom on earth.   

However, if the two-kingdoms distinction is simply conflated with the institutional distinction between church and state, other problems can arise. Anabaptism, both in its 16th-century form and its fashionable recent incarnations, thinks that, if the church is the spiritual kingdom, it can anticipate in its own earthly life the shape of the coming reign of Christ. Accordingly it may seek to abolish private property in favor of a community of goods, and become a "scarcity-free" economy unto itself, with frequently tragic results. Or, for many recent "R2K" advocates, the doctrine is used primarily to keep any redemptive aspirations out of the economic policies of the state, which is to serve as a minimalist guardian of order.  Unsurprisingly, then, this use of the paradigm has proved popular among politically conservative Reformed folks. More troublingly, it has also been used to underwrite a minimalistic approach to Christian charity: deacons distribute charity within the institutional church, but should not minister to the broader world.

Both of these general approaches must be rejected. Against the first, we must maintain a clear distinction between the already of Christ's reign, which is hidden, and the not yet, which will one day be made manifest, and between the norms of nature that govern our economic lives and the norms of grace that govern our spiritual lives (though, as I hope to show, without rendering the latter irrelevant to the former). We must also beware of making Scripture speak too comprehensively or bindingly to matters of economic life. For the classical two-kingdoms theorist, there is no prima facie reason to assume that we should find an economic theory in Scripture. If, however, we do as a matter of fact find various insights and norms for economic life (as I think we certainly do), we must remember that norms governing changeable circumstances only bind insofar as the circumstances are the same. There is certainly insight to be gained from the sabbath-year laws for contemporary debt-relief, for instance, but not a direct prescription.

Against the second, we must recognize that the visible church itself straddles the two kingdoms; after all, churches too must make budgets, maintain bank accounts, ensure careful accountability in the use of funds, make cost-benefit analyses when confronted with a multitude of needs, etc. They are not somehow magically exempted from the ordinary conditions and constraints of earthly life, comprising a sacred bubble within which a "divine economy" can take shape. This alone is an important point to make, because many churches or Christian ministries are abysmal stewards of their money, imagining that just because they are doing Christ's work, they can dispense with basic dictates of prudence. Likewise, although I do not want to give up any aspiration to apply a sacrificial, Christ-like logic in the economics of our Christian communities, these remain very much simul justus et peccator, rendering Anabaptist utopianism, well, utopian. At the same time, though, refusing to equate institutional church and spiritual kingdom will blur the boundaries between church ministries and social action generally. Some two-kingdoms theorists want to erect a high wall between deacons dispensing sacred charity to the saints, on the one hand, and soup kitchens, service projects in the slums, or building wells in Haiti, on the other hand. But it is difficult to find historical support for such a division. Calvin's deacons in Geneva were as much civic functionaries as church officers, and the General Hospital and Bourse Francaise which they oversaw were comprehensive welfare institutions.

But although I have cautioned repeatedly against an over-spiritualizing of economic life, does that mean that the Christian has nothing distinctive to contribute, that he gives his tithe on Sunday but the other six days of the week simply follows the gods of self-interest and efficiency? Well, no. Here I will draw upon two points I made in last week's "Two Kingdom Politics" post. 

First, I noted that although it should not anticipate the new creation, the temporal kingdom is bound to the norms of the original creation, so that inasmuch as redemption heals our the distortions of our fallen vision and shows us how we were meant to live as humans, it will point us back to the appropriate ways to order our earthly societies (within the limitations of our depravity). It is interesting to see how often, when you find modern idealists calling for a transformed "divine economy," most of what they describe fits what older thinkers would have described as "natural law"--i.e., community over individual, an end to usury, equity for the poor. Christians should challenge the perversions of our contemporary economy, but on the basis that it is unnatural, not that it is un-cruciform.

Second, I noted that the very apolitical nature of the spiritual kingdom can have a radical effect on politics, by reminding us of its limitations, its provisionality. The same goes for our economic life. The Christian too must enter into the worldly rhythms of supply and demand, of debt and savings, of profit and loss, and navigate them with all due prudence; but the Christian does this knowing that his true treasure is in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy. Most of the perversions of our economic lives come simply from idolizing them, treating money as an end rather than a means. As Christ's spiritual reign frees us from this bondage, it enables us to walk through his temporal kingdom as pilgrims, using the goods of this world for Him, but not seeking our good in them. And that can make all the difference.