From the Salmon

Pastor Ted Haggard — president of the National Association of Evangelicals, pastor of a Colorado Springs megachurch, and the subject of a cover story in this month’s Christianity Today — knows how to help people escape from poverty:

“It’s not hard. They need to live in a society where there’s freedom of religion. And if they want to gather up some wood and make chairs and sell them on the corner, they need to be able to do it. Free markets. Free markets have done more to help poor people than any benevolent organization ever has.”

But Jesus made no mention of free markets, Haggard is reminded. Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all and give to the poor.

“But Jesus was in the 1st century,” Haggard answers, “and we’re in the 21st century.

“The Scripture is the Word of God, and nothing else is. But if the Scripture says we have an obligation to the poor, then you have to take what we’ve learned in the last 2,000 years to help poor people not to be poor. If the Scripture says we have an obligation to the oppressed, then you have to take what we learned in the last 2,000 years to help oppressed people. I maintain that we learned more about those subjects in the 20th century than in any other single century.”

Haggard is so enthusiastic about free-market economics that he applies it to church.

There’s a lot to unpack here, and we’ll get to even more of the same in a moment. But there’s one thing that just leaps out of this excerpt that I have to deal with first…

Did Haggard really just say that Jesus would have responded differently to the rich young ruler if the conversation had taken place in the 21st century? That Jesus recommended selling everything and giving to the poor because it would be two millennia before he could give the market-based answer he really wanted to give? Which would be what, exactly?

I really hope Pastor Ted was misquoted, because the alternative is astounding.

It’s no secret that Haggard is a free-market enthusiast. And we’ve talked before about what a disturbing philosophy this makes for a church. But what about the Christian response to extreme world poverty?

Before considering that, let’s let Pastor Ted explain a bit more about his ideas when it comes to fighting poverty. In the companion interview to the CT piece, Haggard says the following:

Are you pro-business and conservative out of pragmatism or out of theological conviction?

I am pro-business and pro-free market because we have 6.4 billion people on the face of the earth, and that is the only way we’re going to be able to create enough wealth, provide enough goods and services and meet the needs of enough poor people.

It’s a pragmatic approach. We have a responsibility to the poor and needy. There is no way we can give enough cans of peas and give away enough toys at Christmas time to meet everybody’s need. We have to stimulate wealth. We know from the 20th century which government policies and economic policies create poverty and which government and economic policies create wealth. And so, all we have to do is apply those.

In my recent discussions with Prime Minister Tony Blair, we had an in-depth discussion about how the West can implement policies in poverty-stricken areas like portions of Africa, so they can start creating wealth. Hong Kong and South Korea and Singapore and Australia and New Zealand and the United States are not wealthy countries because we took wealth from somebody else. We’re wealthy countries because we learned how to create wealth. And so, we want that exported all over the world, and I think Christians should be pro-free market and pro-free trade because we have an obligation to help poor people have their needs met.

I’m about to be quite critical of what Haggard says here, but before I do so, I think it’s important to state that there’s some truth to what he says. Certainly, if very poor countries are going to escape a pernicious cycle of poverty, part of the solution will involve developing domestic industries and finding a global market for their products. In addition, these countries will need to develop sustainable agricultural production first for domestic consumption and then for export.

That’s not as easy as it sounds, especially considering the geography of certain African countries, but it’s almost impossible given the existing agricultural subsidies in the US and the EU. I wonder if Haggard’s free-market evangelism extends to his weekly conference call with the White House. Does he press them to reduce US subsidies and to encourage similar action from Europe? Or does he share the White House’s conveniently different definition of what constitutes free trade?

While Pastor Ted might get partial credit for his answer, let’s be clear: these statements demonstrate a poor grasp of economic history and, quite frankly, a pretty underwhelming theology.

First of all, Haggard may indeed be sunny and optimistic, but putting a happy face on the history of capitalism doesn’t magically make market forces the cure-all for poverty. I hate to break it to you, Pastor Ted, but to claim as you do that the US is rich because we “learned how to create wealth” is to ignore the African slaves, Chinese railroad workers and immigrant factory laborers from Europe who were the criminally underpaid fuel for the American economic juggernaut. To claim that “all we have to do” to solve poverty is apply the economic policies that create wealth is to ignore the reality that our present wealth is maintained by importing clothes and electronics and produce that have been sewn and manufactured and picked by underpaid, overworked people living in abject poverty.

The dark side of capitalism is that there will always be economic losers. The dark side of being pro-business is that a certain level of poverty is good for the profit margins. Let’s not pretend otherwise. And let’s certainly not sanctify it and sell it as Christian duty.

Look, the market is such a dynamic economic engine because it runs on the idea that people are most interested in maximizing their own pleasures and gains. We’re selfish creatures, and harnessing that selfishness holds tremendous power.

But the Christian narrative promises something radically different.

In the figure of Jesus, a divine Selflessness breaks through the selfish. The language of Jesus, the grammar of the Kingdom, is that of sacrifice, of humility, of love, of giving. When the Church starts speaking the language of the market, it’s forgotten its native tongue.

I know I’m coming down hard on Pastor Ted. But here’s the thing: I’m not much different. When I read the story of Jesus responding to the rich young ruler, you know what? I look for loopholes, too.

Sell all I have? That can’t be what he really meant. And I’m sure he wouldn’t say that to me.

But go back and read Mark 10 again.

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Jesus looked at him and loved him. Out of love, he asks: Sell. Give. Come. Follow me.

That’s not first century.

That’s timeless.