Has the last three weeks of discussion left you wondering how you should spend your money? Or at any point did you wish you had a better grasp of some of the underlying issues? If you answered yes to either question, you are in luck.
I read Naked Economics: Uncovering the Dismal Science about two years ago and cannot give it a stronger recommendation. Much of what I read on a daily basis is best classified as educational (i.e. textbooks and research papers), and every now and then when I have time I read purely for entertainment purposes (Dilbert is funny). Naked Economics falls into the delightful and magical third category, edutainment. Much like the spooky wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics, edutainment describes the seemingly paradoxical relationship where things are simultaneously educational and entertaining!
The author explains what economics is all about in very fun to read, but highly informative way. No confusing graphs or mathematical equations (ok the book isn’t perfect, it’s not the Bible), but Charles Wheelan manages to give good insight into the how and why world the works using the principles of economics. The last two chapters are particular relevant to our discussions, talking about globalization and poverty.
There is a copy in the Hamilton public library. I first borrowed a copy on the recommendation of my brother who majored in economics, but today would gladly shell out the $15-20 for a copy of my own.
To quote Mike’s previous post: “Good intentions aren’t enough. Sound economic thinking is also necessary to build programs and policies to help the poor.” This book can go a long way in helping us produce right thinking.
Ok. Enough marketing for one day …. Seriously, BUY THIS BOOK ;>
I have been thinking over the course of the day about a couple of the conversations we had at large group today. It would be hard, strictly based on many of the conversations today, to walk out of The Vine to our cars, head to the restaurant for lunch at a $10/plate restaurant, and then go home to our computers and televisions without either (a) being enormously hypocritical or (b) feeling incredibly guilty about many of the choices we make. Now, perhaps we should feel guilty about some of the ways we spend money — I can definitely say that the last few weeks have challenged some of my expenses and/or my absence of spending in certain areas — but I think there was an element of balance to this story which might have been at least a bit understated today. Following are three stories from the life of Jesus which sprung to mind while I was reflecting on this topic. Please comment on what you think of each of these passages in the context of money and what God may consider a “wise use of economic resources” (feel free to debunk my slightly editorialized explanations of the passages as well if you feel it’s necessary):
1) John 2:1-11 - The Wedding at Cana - particularly appropriate given our wedding registry discussion today, this is of course the story of a wedding feast (for invited guests only, as specified in verse 2) where — horror of horrors! - the wine ran out before the party did. So, Jesus’ mother comes to him, asking for help. Jesus’ response? It wasn’t “you fools, stop gorging yourselves and complaining about the lack of wine and go use the remaining food to feed those hungry just outside the banquet grounds”. It was to make around 150 GALLONS of wine out of water, save face for the party organizers, and keep the party going (with some ulterior motives, yes, but still).
2) Luke 15:11-31 - the parable of the prodigal son - we all know what happens here (two sons, one demands his share, leaves his father’s house, blows it all on sin, comes back poor and repentant, and is welcomed back into the father’s household despite his irresponsibility). The part of the story which struck me in the context of money is the father’s response (v. 22-23): “Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate!” In other words, no expense was spared to celebrate something worthy of celebration, even though the sure-to-be-hefty price tag could certainly have been used to feed, clothe, and house an enormous number of poor people.
3) John 12:1-8 - Jesus’ Anointing at Bethany - this is a really interesting case where Mary took a pint of expensive perfume (in the text, said to be worth approximately a year’s worth of wages) and poured it over Jesus’ feet. Judas — admittedly for all the wrong reasons, but still — questions Jesus regarding why that perfume was not sold and the proceeds given to feed the poor. Jesus’ response: “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me”. What do you think that answer means? Is it specific to Jesus as being God and thus worthy of anointing in this manner or can it be extended to, for example, spending money on the people we care greatly about even though they are not necessarily “in need”? Another example along this line: if the wise men were really so wise, why didn’t they sell their gold, frankincence and myrrh on the way to feed the beggars they no doubt passed by on the way?
These aren’t the only examples either (add more if you know of them!). The point I see from all of this is that, while Jesus certainly called us to be wise stewards of what we are given, the way we should do this is by no means spelled out and, based on these passages, it does not seem to necessarily involve always denying ourselves every pleasure of life or condemning all expensive gifts. I think the approach I have settled on is treating money as a blessing - that is, a gift from God which we are meant to enjoy but which also gives us enormous responsibility. It’s so easy to get caught in self-flaggelation on this topic and, as a result, in a sense deny yourself part of God’s blessing of wealth to you — that is missing the point entirely in my opinion. This is by no means to say indulge freely in the world’s luxuries if you have the cash to do so; however, I think these passages might suggest that this is by far more than a black-and-white issue where taking a balanced approach is really important.
- Todd
UPDATE: Just read a good quote from a Christian “money management” strategist which I kind of like in terms of defining our spending priorities as Christians: “Society tells us to spend, save, and give - in that order. We ask people to give, save, then spend”. The spending part is still there — it’s just a matter of where you rank it on your priority list.
P.S. if this post doesn’t generate comments based on the opinions expressed at large group today…
After two weeks of talking about money and economics, here’s some food for thought. An article in The Economist’s special Christmas edition about how the corporate and Christian worlds are coming together inside churches themselves.
Yep, I’m finally writing about politics… flee, flee! As much as I would like to tell you exactly why you should vote for a certain party (and believe me, I do…, I fear I may violate Philpott’s tax-free status by doing so… as a result, all I will do is encourage you all to vote on Monday. I strongly believe that as citizens of a country who enjoy the amazing number of rights and freedoms (as we do in Canada) have an even greater responsibility to be involved in influencing the direction our country takes — and taking advantage of our right to vote is a fantastic way to do just that. It’s awfully easily to get cynical about politics — if you just got your information from the parties’ “educational” commercials you would think that Stephen Harper is going to put an armed guard on every street corner and Paul Martin is running some sort of international smuggling conglomerate — but I can’t help but think that the concept of “living in the world without being of the world” applies here in a very real way — it ain’t perfect, but it’s what we have and we need to participate. Or, if the patriotic “O Canada” argument isn’t enough to convince you to get a poll on Monday, you can check out the religious reasons why as Christians be at the ballot box — you could argue a couple of them are a bit of a stretch, but the point is still well made.
This information is from Christine - some food for thought when we are talking about how to practically help the poor, it’s not sometimes as simple or obvious as we may think it is:
During the last three months, readers of WORLD Magazine, Crisis Magazine, and the Michigan Catholic newspaper have been seeing a new series of messages from the Acton Institute. These compelling advertisements make a strong statement: People of faith will never comprehend the root causes of poverty and its persistence without a sound understanding of market economics.
These high-quality advertisements which reproduce beautifully as handbills and posters are freely available to anyone who wants to educate friends, family and religious leaders about poverty, free trade and economic initiative. The Acton Institute is also granting a blanket permission to anyone who would like to reprint these ads in newspapers, student publications, corporate and non-profit newsletters, and church bulletins.
Good intentions aren’t enough. Sound economic thinking is also necessary to build programs and policies to help the poor.
Print these ads and post on bulletin boards and kiosks. Pass along to a friend, student, pastor or priest. Click on the links below to view the ads. Save the files and pass along as attachments, or simply forward the links.
We’d like to hear from you. Tell us what you think about the new Acton advertising campaign. Would you like to see more of these unintended consequences messages on other issues? Which ones? Go to this link to weigh in: http://www.acton.org/impact/
This article fits in so beautifully what we have talked about in the 40 Days of Mercy and what we were talking about today regarding the Christian response to wealth that I had to post it (ignore the strangely off-topic and provactive title and just read the article):
The context of the article is the increasing gun violence in Toronto and a call to predominantly black churches in many of the troubled neighbourhoods to “stand in the gap” (Ezekiel 22:30 - a neat passage Marianne mentioned in oXyGEN a couple of weeks ago) in their communities from Boston evangelical preacher Eugene Rivers. Rivers has spearheaded an effort in similar churches in Boston which has been at least partially credited for reducing the murder rate there by more than half over the last decade. His main point involves his explanation for why the church has been negligent in reaching out to many black communities troubled with violence, but it just as beautifully applies to us as we reach out to the poor of all nations in Hamilton:
“When the black church refused to do as Jesus did, which is to go and be among the poor, to hang out with that hooker, to go into that bar and that pub and capture that child, we were, in effect, rejecting the mandate of Jesus which is to bear witness to the truth of the gospel to those who are blind, who are incarcerated, those who have been denied love in this life.” (…
“But these churches, while versed in addressing spiritual needs, often forget about the physical wants. They focus on saving souls, not lives. Their mission is to evangelize, not socialize, to use their sometimes-opulent buildings as places of high worship and joyful praise while damnable violence and poverty flourish at their property line.” (…
“Where were those spiritual leaders with them fine suits, them over-priced cars, who are treated as princes, who don’t serve, but are served … as the poor died and suffered. Where was my church?”
That’s a good question — hopefully, with the seeds of what we’ve started at Philpott and at other churches in the city, we won’t hear people asking this question in the future.
Title got your attention? We are constantly bombarded by the apparently self-evident “fact” that Canada’s central value is tolerance for all opinions and values, no questions asked. However, it’s amazing to actually think about what a ridiculous position that is — indeed, being intolerant of certain actions and thoughts is the only way any society can ever hope to properly function. Here’s one of the most interesting expressions of this position I’ve read in a long time countering relativism in our society. It comes from John Patrick, who is actually a former pediatric nutrition professor at the University of Ottawa — hence the topical focus on the issue of tolerance in the health care system. Read the whole essay here (it’s a little thick reading but it’s worthwhile) — but here’s an excerpt I found particularly interesting:
“No one likes to be called intolerant but it can be demonstrated that intolerance in certain things is essential. Consider the following scenario. There is a society in North America with the declared aim of legalizing sexual activity between adult males and pre-pubertal boys. “Eight is too late” is their slogan. Now imagine yourselves as parents of an eight year old boy who find themselves compelled to have one of these men as a house-guest for two weeks. He is charming, witty, intelligent and full of fun but he does have this quirk. Will you allow him unopposed opportunity to use his charm and sophistication to persuade your eight-year old that he is being deprived of the rightful experiences of every eight-year old? I have asked this question of several audiences. No one has said yes. There are activities which all of us will not tolerate and we feel no shame in displaying our intolerance.
What sorts of behaviours do we legitimately attempt to suppress? I would suggest a starting list of four - unloving, unjust, untruthful, dishonourable behaviour. Love, truth, justice and honour cannot even share a sentence with the verb to tolerate. You do not tolerate love, you embrace it, you seek it; you do not tolerate truth or justice, you demand them and honour is admired not tolerated. Tolerance and compromise are not the stuff from which great societies, great stories or even great professions are made. But tolerance is important. It is the oil which lubricates so many human interactions; but often its strength is to overlook error or wrong-doing, to have compassion on the human frailties which beset us all. Unlike truth, love, justice which brook no rivals, the proper use of tolerance involves wise judgement. To lack the necessary skills of prudent judgement will lead the defective into either bigoted narrow-mindedness or libertarian excess.”
You can read the rest of his essays here (some on medicine, some on moral issues in society) — although, be warned. Bre’el pointed this link out after having met the author personally and, based on reading a couple of Patrick’s articles, I think her analysis is pretty good: “this is a man who, upon FIRST meeting me and finding out that I study at Mac stated something to the effect of ‘McMaster medical school is responsible for wrecking the profession of medicine’… hmmmm, tactful… nonetheless, he is saying some things that are very truthful and that few other people have the guts and eloquence to put into words.”
Sometimes reading the newspaper can be a very depressing experience… wars, death, famine, politics (I will tactfully restrain myself from making a more specific comment on the last of this list, particularly after the debate tonight… ). However, quite often, a little humour can go a long way, not only to entertain us through the gloom, but also to put events into perspective and make some interesting commentary on what we consider “important” news compared to what we should consider “important” news. So, in that spirit, I’d thought I’d share with you all the link to a very funny “year in review” article from Dave Barry, one of my favourite humour writers. There is a bit of fairly American-specific content in here, but if you have a remotely similar sense of humour to mine, you will most definitely enjoy reading it.
We have mentioned Acts 2:42-47 several times over the past few years as we have talked about building up a true “community” of believers at both oXyGEN and Philpott:
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and to prayer 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favour of all people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
If this kind of “community” was enacted today, however, it would likely be viewed as (more than) a little creepy by most people, even though it was clearly a model on which the early church was established and, as verse 47 indicates, grew explosively as unbelievers could clearly see God acting in the lives of His people. So, I was greatly interested by this article appearing in today’s Toronto Star:
Essentially, this article is about Christians (in this case, two different couples) using the Acts model a literal guide to living. I have some issues with a couple of the blanket statements made in the article about the mainstream Protestant church (the emphasis on the necessity of pacificism for instance and the thrashing of the mainstream church for not embracing a similar approach), but it’s an interesting approach to life which certainly nobody could accuse of being “unbiblical”. What do you think? Is this, as these couples suggest, a practical and even necessary way of minimizing the commercial excesses of our society and more accurately reflecting what God is all about to friends and neighbours? I’m not sure, but it’s certainly an interesting concept.
So, I learned two things this weekend: (1) A couple people wanted to see more pictures from Hawaii (and in terms of this blog, “a couple people” is the equivalent to “an angry mob” (2) I am, once again, hopelessly behind the latest technology, this time in photo uploading software.
So, in my continuing quest to learn from life’s mistakes, here are more photos from all three islands I visited, uploaded with only the best of modern equipment. Enjoy!
“I came across an article in Macleans this week about a new Christian magazine based in Winnepeg called GEEZ — it sounds quite interesting and so I thought I’d forward the info. www.geezmagazine.org is the website. The magazine is concerned with social change and the publisher was the founder of Adbusters Magazine a few years back.”
I’ve never been big on making New Year’s resolutions — it seems to me that if you have to wait for January 1 each year to make a commitment to change a certain behaviour, you’re probably don’t hold that commitment in high enough regard to actually stick to it. That being said, there is certainly no shortage of resolutions very much worth making to help to improve our walks with God, and the beginning of a new year is as good as time as any to make or renew these commitments. Jonathan Edwards was one of the most prolific and highly-regarded resolution makers in Christian history, writing a series of 70 resolutions over the course of two years aimed at growing his faith and making his life reflect God’s greatness. You can read them all here - while it’s certainly a dauntingly rigid list of objectives, it’s reallly worth a couple of minutes to read and reflect on these great reminders of how our human nature so often falls short of what God expects of us. Here are a few resolutions which I found particularly worthwhile for me to reflect on as 2006 begins:
5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can. (what if we watched TV one half hour less a day and spent that time serving others?)
28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same. (“steadily, constantly, and frequently” being the key for me there)
33. Resolved, always to do what I can towards making, maintaining, establishing and preserving peace, when it can be without over-balancing detriment in other respects. (I really like this one, it’s a really interesting way to express how we should respond to conflicts in a Godly manner)
48. Resolved, constantly, with the utmost niceness and diligence, and the strictest scrutiny, to be looking into the state of my soul, that I may know whether I have truly an interest in Christ or no; that when I come to die, I may not have any negligence respecting this to repent of. (it’s often hard to find time for some sober self-reflection in our go-go-go society, but it’s important)
54. Whenever I hear anything spoken in conversation of any person, if I think it would be praiseworthy in me, Resolved to endeavor to imitate it. (a neat way to help to conquer the pride demon)
70. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.
Please feel free to share any resolutions with particular impact for you in the comments section.
Sorry the blog has been “dark” for so long… I have been in Hamilton for a grand total of three days in the past month so haven’t had any time to post (although, I should remind you all again this is a PUBLIC blog ). For those hardy readers still reading this blog, my excuse for this negligent posting (outside of the obvious Christmas break) is that I had the chance to spend two weeks in Hawaii just before Christmas, five days on “official scientific business” (conferences are one of the best parts of being a grad student!) and eight days exploring the Big Island, Maui, and Oahu.
Hawaii is most definitely the most amazing place I have ever been and by far the most diverse place I have ever visited - if you stand on the slopes of Mauna Loa (the world’s largest active volcano), you can reach all of the major climate zones on the planet, from alpine to rainforest, with only a five mile walk in different directions. Out of the many cool experiences, by far my favourite was in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The Big Island of Hawaii is right above a volcanic hot spot in the ocean which is erupting continuously, so at the end of the road (and I use the term “end” loosely since the road used to go further until lava covered it and an adjacent town ten years ago), you can actually see lava flowing down to the sea, creating a massive plume of steam as it hits the water. Indeed, three days before I arrived, a lava shelf 32 acres in size fell into the sea and 9 new acres of land was formed in its place… it’s literally being a live witness to the dynamic processes forming the earth. You can’t really see the lava during the day but, as dusk descends, you can hike to within one mile of the “river” (something about the powers that be not wanting people standing beside molten rock emitting corrosive gases) and watch the show. Sitting on a two-year old piece of solidified lava, I had perhaps the must multi-sensory experience of God’s power I have ever had — in front of me, the sight of lava flowing into the sea in front of me making new land; metres to my right, the sound of waves crashing against the coastline wearing that land down; above me, the crystal-clear starry sky showing how small a part of the universe we are. I actually sat there, in the dark, for about an hour just watching and listening. I was a bit surprised when the Sacred Pathways questionnaire pegged me as a naturalist — now I get it.
See some of my pictures of the volcano park here if you’re interested (actually just 11 of the ridiculous 907 I took in Hawaii). General word of advice — large memory card plus digital camera plus laptop to download images every night = massive overkill of pictures).
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, I fear I may violate Philpott’s tax-free status by doing so… as a result, all I will do is encourage you all to vote on Monday. I strongly believe that as citizens of a country who enjoy the amazing number of rights and freedoms (as we do in Canada) have an even greater responsibility to be involved in influencing the direction our country takes — and taking advantage of our right to vote is a fantastic way to do just that. It’s awfully easily to get cynical about politics — if you just got your information from the parties’ “educational” commercials you would think that Stephen Harper is going to put an armed guard on every street corner and Paul Martin is running some sort of international smuggling conglomerate — but I can’t help but think that the concept of “living in the world without being of the world” applies here in a very real way — it ain’t perfect, but it’s what we have and we need to participate. Or, if the patriotic “O Canada” argument isn’t enough to convince you to get a poll on Monday, you can check out the 
). However, quite often, a little humour can go a long way, not only to entertain us through the gloom, but also to put events into perspective and make some interesting commentary on what we consider “important” news compared to what we should consider “important” news. So, in that spirit, I’d thought I’d share with you all the link to a very funny