Sometimes when I don’t have anything to say I read what others have to say. And then I spend the rest of that day arguing with whoever I read in my head.
Last week, I read an essay by Josh Hawley in February’s issue of First Things. At the park that afternoon I carried on a full-fledged conversation with him mentally. I’m sure there are many things I and Josh Hawley agree on. Unlike many people I know, I don’t have any kind of visceral reaction to his mere visage. He doesn’t bother me at all.
But in his essay, “Our Christian Nation,” I found what I perceive to be inconsistencies. And although I am nowhere near as educated as Mr. Hawley on matters of the political economy, I speak as a citizen trying to figure out where things have gone wrong.
First, the things we agree on: it is indeed a problem that “a startling percentage of American youth are medicated for psychiatric disorders,” that “drug overdoses now account for more than 100,000 deaths nationwide each year,” and that people “commit suicide in shocking numbers.” There are many people in positions of power in America who are working to “impose an arid secularism.” I totally share his indignance when he asks “why should the work of the common laborer be despised? Why should the domestic sphere be looked down upon?” I too am sickened by the idea of parents not being able to spend time with their children, and instead being constrained to devote their lives to “corporations that claim every second of their waking energy, often in return for paltry wages.” I am similarly bewildered by the callousness and ignorance of cosseted scholars who claim that the economy is just fine, when “over the last half century, the real wages of … blue-collar men have not risen at all.” And I concur that if our nation has simply become “an alliance of otherwise isolated individuals pursuing pecuniary gain,” the picture is sorrowful indeed.
Hawley believes that Christians in America need to bring the teachings of the gospel into questions of public life. And because “the gospel concerns the whole of society,” our “social norms and economic policies cannot be easily separated.” Fair enough. The senator acknowledges the profound influence Christian ideas had on the founding of the nation, and asserts that “a Christian society requires a Christian economy.”
But what is a Christian economy, exactly? Is it the rosy picture we paint of a two-parent home and a few children, enclosed by a white fence and some quaintly planted shrubs? Is this the ultimate goal of a “Christian economy?” Or is this a traditionalist ideal that has very little to do with what Christ actually said? In my mind, Hawley’s main mistake lies in trying to match an ethos of radical individualism to a more solidaristic economic vision. He praises at length the individualist core of the American spirit, dissident and intrepid, while simultaneously urging growth in “bonds of mutual loyalty,” “moral partnership,” and an economy that works better for working people. Isn’t there a point at which these two impulses become so antagonistic as to demand one taking precedence over the other?
First, a Christian economy. What is it? What did Jesus actually say about economics? Did He say that the goal of your life should be to acquire property? That owning a house instead of renting a house should be the ultimate, obsessively-sought-after destination of a human life, one that represents the pinnacle of everything one could hope to achieve before death?
No. He said Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal (Matthew 6:19-20). The ultimate goal in life is not economic acquisition but an inner fortification that allows a person to withstand any pain, suffering, or failure.
What did Jesus say to a young man who asked how to have eternal life? If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor (Matthew 19:21).
What were the economic choices of Jesus’ earliest radical followers, who have been accused throughout history of nothing short of schizophrenia, so complete was their break with their old life?
They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need (Acts 2:45).
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had (Acts 4:32).
This doesn’t sound very individualist. Yet Hawley spends pages waxing lyrical about “the concept of the individual.” “The idea of individual freedom.” “God’s call to the individual.” The fact that God “died for sinners as individuals.” The notion that “God calls each person individually.” And so on. He glorifies the concept of “self-rule” while denigrating what he thinks of as leftist “autonomy,” perhaps forgetting that this is precisely what autonomy means: it comes from the Greek auto (self) + nomos (law).
I guess I just don’t understand how we’re going to get to a more solidaristic economy with an ethos of radical individualism. Isn’t it radical individualism that enables people to think they should have a “right” to become billionaires by running a company whose workers have to piss in bottles? Isn’t it individualism that makes people walk by the homeless on the street, thinking that it’s those people’s “personal responsibility” to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, no matter how mentally ill or disabled they may be? If an individual has the right to freely enjoy her riches with no obligation to consider the fact that her countrymen can’t pay rent or feed their families despite working fifty hours a week, then how are we going to get to a better economy? If everything is about the individual, then why should an academic or a CEO care that there’s someone in middle America dying of a drug overdose? What does it matter?
The only politician I have ever genuinely believed in or who I believe gave a fuck about me was Bernie Sanders. And when he “lost” the primary in 2016, like a good obedient liberal I was suckered into voting for ole’ helmet-hair Hillary. The people around me had convinced me the sky would fall if I voted like the third-party freak I always have been. Well, never again. This year I will vote American Solidarity Party. For those who are interested, it’s consistently pro-life, socially conservative/moderate, and economically pro-worker. I don’t care if I’m the most impractical person on the planet or if the world is consumed by Cheeto dust if Trump wins. I’m voting my conscience.
I also quote the gospel not to dunk on Hawley but as a reminder that true Christian economics are something more radical and demanding than most of us are willing to admit. Raising a family and owning a house are important parts of the American dream. There are also people in America who are never going to fit into that vision. It is natural to have children, and it is right to desire a stable home in which to raise those children. It is supernatural to acknowledge that the commands of Jesus are often mysterious and beyond comprehension.