What in the World To Do?

Building, Restoring, and Cleaning

The perspective held by Christians about human society and economy tells one a great deal about their beliefs concerning Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. 

That we all live in human society to one degree or another is inescapable.  Even the foolish Stylites, who committed themselves to a life of isolation from all others, living on poles in the extreme attempt to divorce themselves from human society and the world, could not escape.  The most famous were plagued by tourists coming to gape.

Since living "in the world" is a providential given--a divine decree--the belief we Christians have about the world and our place in it is a vital concern.  Since God has placed us in human society and human economy, we had better get our understanding of it right and in conformity with the Bible. 

R. H. Tawney tells us that there are four distinct beliefs or attitudes about human society and human economy. He presents them as follows:

There are, perhaps, four main attitudes which religious opinion may adopt toward the world of social institutions and economic relations:

1.  It may stand on one side in ascetic aloofness and regard them as in their very nature the sphere of unrighteousness, from which men may escape--from which, if they consider their souls, they will escape--but which they can conquer only by flight.

2.  It may take them for granted and ignore them, as matters of indifference belonging to a world with which religion has no concern; in all ages the prudence of looking problems boldly in the face and passing on has seemed too self-evident to require justification.

3.  It may throw itself into an agitation for some particular reform, for the removal of some crying scandal, for the promotion of some final revolution, which will inaugurate the reign of righteousness on earth.

4.  It may at once accept and criticize, tolerate and amend, welcome the gross world of human appetites, as the squalid scaffolding from amid which the life of the spirit must rise, and insist that this also is the material of the Kingdom of God.  To such a temper, all activities divorced from religion are brutal or dead, but none are too mean to be beneath or too great to be above it, since all, in their different degrees, are touched with the spirit which permeates the whole.  It finds its most sublime expression in the worlds of Piccarda: "Paradise is everywhere, though the grace of the highest good is not shed everywhere in the same degree."
[R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. (London: John Murray, 1923), p.16f.]

The question is begged, To which of these, dear reader, do you hold?  

The first two options presuppose the Kingdom of God and the redemption of Christ have rejected the creation of God.   Either the creation is intrinsically evil, beyond redemption, or God has chosen not to redeem it, for the manifestation of His own glory.  This would place the creation, the world, human society, economic labour and institutions in the same category as the demonic.  These options do not square with the promise God has made concerning the redemption of the creation itself (Romans 8: 20-23).

The third introduces a new redemptive act, and another redeemer, without which the reign of righteousness will not come.  This presupposes the inadequacy and incompleteness of Christ's work upon the Cross and His subsequent resurrection, ascension, and enthronement in heaven. 

The final option is the one most squared with God's revelation concerning His kingdom.  Christ has appeared to destroy the works of the Devil, as far as the curse is found (I John 3:8); He will have every thought, motive, and intention underlying every human action of His people brought captive to Him (II Corinthians 10: 4-6); whatever we do, even down to our eating and drinking, is to be redeemed (I Corinthians 10:31).  How much more, then, every economic and social relationship, every duty, obligation, and commitment to others. 

Thus, in Tawney's presentation of the fourth option, the letter "s" in spirit is to be read as upper case.  Amidst the scaffolding of the creation itself, the life of the Spirit must arise.  It is the Spirit's great task to apply the redeeming work of the Son of God to all of creation.  It is our great task to be His faithful servants in this endeavour.  No calling or endeavour could possibly be higher or more noble.