Christianity Incorporated: How Big Business is Buying the Church

by Michael L. Budde & Robert W. Brimlow
2002, Brazos Press.

I come from a financially-oriented family. Mom and Dad met while working at the Federal Reserve Bank. My uncle and aunt are entrepreneurs. Grandma still follows the stock market daily. They all told me, "Take Economics in college!" Well, with all the philosophy, German, and Ultimate Frisbee classes filling up my schedule, ECON 10 just didn't fit.

And I regret it. I'm sorry, Family! I should have listened to your advice. I'm gradually discovering how essential economics is to just about everything - including the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, I'm not alone among Christians who artifically dichotomize the world into economic and spiritual realms.

If Colossians Remixed casts a vision for the church living counterculturally in the face of the global capitalist empire, Christianity Incorporated describes the present reality of a church not only submitting to, but blindly shaking hands with its oppressor. Authors Budde & Brimlow, professors of political science and philosophy, respectively, argue that the church has become a chaplain for capitalism. Much as a military chaplain provides moral support and personal guidance to individual soldiers, but cannot question the values or legitimacy of the military itself, the authors claim that the church has become so engrossed in worldly wealth that it can no longer prophetically challenge the systemic injustices of capitalism.

Furthermore, in its mission of Christian formation - shaping the "habits, affections, and dispositions of people" to be like Christ's - the church cannot compete with the formational processes of capitalism: an endless barrage of advertisements on television, radio, and every other conceiveable medium.

In every time and place, the church has formed a people capable of hearing and responding to the gospel of Jesus, the witness of the saints and martyrs, and the challenges of the prophets.... [But], in the world made by contemporary capitalism, thousands of for-profit firms of considerable wealth and power are vitally concerned with forming human affections, dispositions, desires, and practices. Capitalism, no less than Christianity, depends on formation processes to sustain itself in the world; making people "fit for capitalism" is no less important to the workings of the world economy that processes of production, distribution, and finance.
Our primary assertion is this: to the extent that capitalist formation succeeds, Christian formation fails. (61)

How can the church cast off its chaplaincy role? Like the authors of Colossians Remixed, Budde & Brimlow close their book with an exploration of the alternative economics of the Kingdom, particularly those practices that can be derived from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the Old Testament law. For example,

By restraining the urge to amass wealth and translate that wealth into domination (the Old Testament more often ascribes wealth accumulation to exploitation and predatory practices than to individual hard work), the Jubilee imperitave [Leviticus 25] testifies to the divine economy as one of abundance rather than scarcity, of communal sufficiency rather than individual acquisition. (161-2)

As a campus minister raising financial support, Christianity Incorporated hits close to home. Where do I draw the line between receiving donors' gifts with gratefulness and critiquing the economic system from which many of my supporters derive their income? Where do I draw the line between my own participation in the capitalist economy and its dangerous side effects? I have no easy answers, only more questions and a newfound desire to understand economics - not in order to profit from the system, but in order to live faithfully in spite of it. In a world where everything is for sale, I have good news that can't be bought:

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. (Isaiah 55:1-2, NIV)

Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire

by Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat
2004, InterVarsity Press.

Some books of the Bible stand out like mountains on the horizon - you can't take in the landscape of scripture without them. Who hasn't marveled at the theological depth of Romans, or the in-your-face practical wisdom of James? Then there are other biblical books which get read, but failing to display their easy applicability to contemporary life, don't get selected for closer study. Colossians always fell in the latter category for me - a nice repetition of what Paul says in his other letters, with fewer original highlights - nothing special. And then I picked up Colossians Remixed.

With historical insight and cultural awareness, Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat (a married couple in Toronto) argue persuasively that Colossians does have a prophetic message for the church today. Examining Colossians as Paul's instructions to a community struggling to live faithfully in the context of oppressive Roman imperialism, the authors ask the same questions of us: What empire do we live in? And, how can we live subversively as the body of Christ?

The empire, claim Walsh and Keesmaat, is nothing less than Global Capitalism:

"We are facing the most powerful, fastest-growing and most successful religion in the history of the world. And what is fantastic about this religion is that it actually doesn't require any volitional choice of its converts.... Globalism wants more than your pocketbook, it wants your soul." (28-29)

As cultural observers have noted, parallels abound between the Roman Empire, with its myth of peace and prosperity through military might (Pax Romana), and current global conditions under the "Pax Americana." Walsh and Keesmaat creatively paraphrase the text of Colossians to let us hear how radical the message would have sounded to its original audience. For instance, here's their take on Colossians 1:17 (He is before all things, and in him all things hold together - NIV):

In the face of the empire
in the face of presumptuous claims to sovereignty
in the face of the imperial and idolatrous forces in our lives
Christ is before all things
he is sovereign in life
not the pimped dreams of the global market
not the idolatrous forces of nationalism
not the insatiable desire of a consumerist culture

In the face of a disconnected world
where home is a domain in cyberspace
where neighborhood is a chat room
where public space is a shopping mall
where information technology promises
a tuned-in, reconnected world
all things hold together in Christ
the creation is a deeply personal cosmos
all cohering and interconnected in Jesus (87)

They go on to show how Paul's instructions for the Colossians call for a community ethic rooted in the values of the Kingdom, values which are antithetical to those of the empire.

This is not an easy book. It offers no simple advice on how to improve our individual lives. Rather, the message is directed to communities: we must end our allegiance to the empire by allowing the Word and the Spirit to transform our collective imagination. As long as we say we have no alternatives to the lifestyle promoted by the empire - as long as we believe we have to buy our food at the supermarket, our household items at Wal-Mart, and drive everywhere we go (to name just a few cultural practices that the authors mention) - our imaginations are held captive by the empire, not knowing the freedom that is in Christ.

I'm passionately recommending this book to others because I can't live out its message alone - I need a community in which to work out the radically new life we have in Christ. Colossians Remixed should be required reading (and conversation) for pastors and ministry leaders in our postmodern culture. Much more than that, the book of Colossians is a must-read for all Christ-communities seeking to live faithfully to the gospel in this age of empire.

Download the first chapter of Colossians Remixed here!

Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith

by Eric O. Jacobsen
Brazos Press, 2003.

Growing up in the suburbs of metro Atlanta taught me two things: 1) expect the Braves to win in the National League East and 2) don't expect to get anywhere without a car. Getting my driver's license was a passport to freedom - freedom to drive half an hour to visit friends further out in the suburbs, and freedom to sit in traffic on the way back.

In college I moved to a small town in Germany on a one-year exchange program. My '89 Camry didn't fit in my suitcase, and it didn't need to. The grocery store, bakery, post office, university, church, and friends were all a short walk, bike, or bus ride away. Granted, the homes were much smaller, and nobody had huge grassy lawns - but the quality of life seemed just as good as, if not better than, my American-dream hometown.

Sidewalks in the Kingdom articulates my intuitions about the value of urban life while calling Christians to begin seeing ourselves as "city people" as we anticipate our eternal home - not in a garden or clouds in the sky - but in a city, the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2). Author and pastor Eric Jacobsen traces a biblical theology of the city and then draws out contemporary implications from the perspective of an urban planner. While recognizing negative elements usually associated with urban areas (crime, poverty, etc.), Jacobsen chooses to see the city's redemptive potential.

"So much of our Christian literature seems to be focused on the question of whether and how we can save our cities. It seems to me that we need to adjust this approach and begin to look for ways that our cities can save us. I mean save here not in the sense of salvation from sin - only Christ can do that - but rather save our souls from the damaging effects of uglification, standardization, privatization, and mass consumerism that have fueled this historically unprecedented appetite for sprawl in this country."

Now I'm living in a small university town again, and experiencing for the first time in the US what I had only seen overseas. Sidewalks in the Kingdom has inspired me to appreciate my new surroundings and become a steward of the community in practical ways - by choosing to walk or bike instead of driving, choosing to shop locally at the farmer's market rather than the big chain supermarkets, making time to get to know my neighbors, learning more about the town's history and government, and praying over the sidewalks. Most of all, I've been challenged to rethink what kind of environment I'd want to raise a family in. I'll always have fond memories of growing up in the suburbs - but I doubt my children ever will.