Economics, Politics and Theology, Oh My!!

I know over the past several weeks I’ve been feeding my audience a steady diet of economics. I’ve written about tariffs and trade deficits, common goods and common grace. Such questions have been dominating our headlines. As it happens, I’ve been a student of economics since junior high school.Some have expressed agreement, despite the fact that I’ve been pushing back a bit at the President. Others have expressed disagreement, usually because I’ve been pushing back a bit at the President.

Others, however, have not directly chided me for my perspective, but have rebuked me for what they consider straying out of my lane. “Stick to theology” I’ve been told. “Be a pastor, not an amateur economist.” No one likes being chastened. A wise man, however, is able to step back and see if the criticisms he is receiving are warranted. I’ve received plenty of warranted criticisms before. These, however, are not among them.

There are iron clad laws of economics one ought to study, just like with physics. I shouldn’t critique a SpaceX design if I don’t at least know that force equals mass times acceleration. In the same way, if I haven’t learned the laws of comparative advantage, of marginal utility, of supply and demand then yeah, better to sit these conversations out.

That said, just as physics is way more than its rudimentary formulae, so economics is more than its laws. Economics is intractably bound up with ethics. Ethics are grounded in God’s revelation. Which means economic issues are unavoidably entangled with our call to love our neighbor as ourselves, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

One of the great weaknesses of the Austrian school of economics, which school I’m happily a life-long student of, is that they intentionally miss this obvious point. Austrian economics reveals how freedom best empowers us to love our neighbor, to work and no longer steal. Then it turns around and suggests its insights are morally indifferent. Bosh I say.

In the same way, one of Reformed theology’s strengths is that it recognizes the Lordship of Christ. His reign knows no bounds. It, while recognizing that some things are more holy than others, refuses to dig a great chasm between the sacred and the secular. To put it more succinctly, Jesus changes everything.

With politics, it is exactly the same thing. When the government wields the sword God gave it, it must do so in submission to His law. That is, civil law is always a profoundly moral issue. We don’t set our Christianity aside. Not when we‘re discussing whether the government should interfere in the private economic decisions of its citizens.

So yeah, no. Not gonna “stay in my lane.” I am delighted to speak about Jesus, about His command that we love our neighbor, and about His atoning death for our failures to do so. I’m delighted to stick with theology, recognizing that Theos, the God of heaven and earth, not only touches on but rules over and upholds everything that is.

For more info on a biblical approach to economics, see here.