Many of the individualists at the conference had negative impressions of patronage. One scholar, speaking on patronage in the New Testament, commented that Westerners often wonder why the New Testament didn’t “condemn slavery or patronage.” Why did he group those two items together, slavery and patronage? He might answer, “They both exploit people.” My collective friends would beg to differ, asserting “Patronage helps people.” In my individualist world, patronage carries negative connotations. By contrast,
