Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity

by Ronald J. Sider

The increasingly affluent standard of living is the god of twenty-first-century North America, and the adman is its prophet.

It is only when we take our sinful preoccupation with the successful and wealthy as natural and normative that God’s equal concern for all looks like a bias for the poor.

God wills prosperity with justice. As John V. Taylor has pointed out so beautifully, the biblical norm for material possessions is “sufficiency.”17 Proverbs 30:8–9 is a marvelous summary: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God.”

Pope Francis is surely correct: “Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth; it requires decisions, programs, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor.”

If God’s Word is true, then all of us who dwell in affluent nations are trapped in sin. We have profited from systematic injustice—sometimes only half-knowing, sometimes only half-caring, and always half-hoping not to know. We are guilty of sin against God and neighbor.

Modern people have lost the biblical sense of human limitation. We want more and more faster and faster. And we destroy ourselves, our marriages, our families, and the environment to get it. God’s Word is strikingly different: “Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint” (Prov. 23:4 NIV). The Sabbath is a divine mechanism to nurture restraint and moderation.

What else needs to happen? First, we need to correct problems in market economies. Second, we should make international trade more fair. Third, we need to care for God’s creation so God’s poor and our grandchildren can enjoy a sustainable environment. And finally, we must be willing to help with wisely targeted and administered economic foreign aid, which will help prevent starvation during emergencies and empower the poor to earn their own way.

We must redefine “the good life.” We must develop a theology of enough. We must meditate on Proverbs 23:4 until it seeps deep into our psyches: “Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint” (NIV). We must develop models of simpler lifestyles; corporate policies that permit people to choose parenting, leisure, and community service over maximizing income and profits; and macroeconomic policies and advertising practices that discourage overconsumption. Unlimited economic growth is an economic Tower of Babel, not a biblical goal.

Christians should be in the vanguard. The world will change if Christians obey the One we worship. But to obey will mean to follow. And he lives among the poor and oppressed, seeking justice for those in agony. In our time, following in his steps will mean more simple personal lifestyles. It will mean transformed churches with a corporate lifestyle consistent with worship of the God of the poor. It will mean costly commitment to building societal systems that work fairly for all.