What is Money For?

The Beat of A Very Different Drummer

Given the relative wealth that washes around in New Zealand, and in the West generally, a question is begged that is seldom addressed.  What on earth is money for? 

The answer our pagan culture most often advances is that wealth is for self: self satisfaction, pleasure, self-aggrandizement, self-indulgence, living "the good life", and so forth.  The Puritans had a different answer: they believed, taught, and lived the doctrine that money is a social good, not a private possession. 

It is granted immediately that the doctrine of money being a social good is also widely believed in secular society today.  Money is to be taxed--as highly as the electorate will permit--to be dispersed by the State for whatever good the State determines.  Those who espouse this doctrine of money, however, tend to cover over its implications.  These include a belief that the real owner of all property is the State; that the role of citizens is to produce money, wealth and property to fuel the State's demands; and that the function of private citizens and corporations is akin to serfs or slaves. 

It is at this point we are confronted with the great divide between modern secular culture, on the one hand, and Puritan (or Christian) culture, on the other.  The Puritan ethic called for believing men and women to work hard, live modestly, and use their excess earnings for their neighbours' good and the good of society as a whole.  The present secular ethic is a perversion of this doctrine.  Modern secular society is confronted by the State's overtaking personal and private stewardship with taxes, imposts, rules, and regulations. 

The flip-side of this Statist aggression is for the citizen to avoid paying taxes whenever and wherever possible and use the squirrelled funds to spend upon themselves and their appetites.  After all, why should citizens be concerned about the welfare of their neighbours and community, when the State has taken over that responsibility?  At this point the modern State and the citizens resemble more the kleptocracy of the Roman Empire than the ethics and practices of the Christian faith.

William Perkins was one of the greatest Puritan theologians.  Here is his summary of how Christians ought to use their property, wealth, and income:

We must so use and possess the goods we have, that the use and possession of them may tend to God's glory, and the salvation of our souls. . . . Our riches must be employed to necessary uses. These are first, the maintenance of our own good estate and condition.  Secondly, the good of others, specially those that are of our family or kindred. . . . Thirdly, the relief of the poor. . . . Fourthly, the maintenance of the Church of God and true religion. . . . Fifth, the maintenance of the Commonwealth.  [Cited by Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Zondervan/Academie Books, 1986),  p.67.]

This sort of thinking came straight out of the Continental Reformation.  Calvin wrote fifty years earlier:

If we acquire possessions in gold and silver, it is our duty . . . to do good to our neighbours.   

And elsewhere:

All the rich, when they have property with which they can be of service to others, are here . . . to assist their neighbors. . . .  Those to whom God has given much grain and wine are to offer part of these goods to those who are in need of the same.  [Ryken, ibid.]

The money-ethic of so many in our materialist society has been summarized by a cynic:  money is a race and competition to:

Get all you can;
Can all you get; and,
Poison the rest.

This is the natural default position of the average secularist living in a society where the acquisitive State extracts citizens' wealth by force in an attempt to achieve social and economic "justice", or, more accurately, egalitarianism.  If the State is "taking care" of the poor and needy, why should we, the citizens, take any responsibility?

But Christians march to the beat of a different Drummer.  They know that they must give an account to God for all that God has given them.  They rejoice in that duty and responsibility. It is an honour.