God Blesses My 401k?

So today I ran across a fellow Christian. Somehow we got on the subject of the stock market, which I had insensitively labeled a gambling institution. While he disagreed with me, I expected him to challenge me as I was prepared to sharpen iron. Instead, he went on telling me all about his investments and encouraging me to "invest" while I was still young (which by the way, I am not).

He was completely oblivious to the fact that I had just called him a gambler.

Many in the church today see nothing wrong with serving God and money at the same time. In fact, they believe that God wants us to prosper, and that He actually encourages us seeking prosperity. It is this kind of wrong thinking that leads to the "prosperity gospel" and to passivity about issues like globalization. As long as my 401k is rising, what could be better than that? It's a win-win gospel. This is surely God's will. He wants to give us the desires of our heart anyway, right?

Now I'm not saying that God doesn't want the best for us. For some of us, His plan may indeed allow for us to become fabulously wealthy.

But what if your investment harms God's environment? Or causes a hard working engineer in America to lose his job - indeed his entire occupation category - to cheap foreign labor - permanently? Or ends up funding radical terrorists who murder innocent people?

In other words, what if our "investments" cause the suffering of others?

Is that OK?

How Then Shall We Think - Globally?

Today is your lucky day -- I have a gift for you!

I have found an economic issue that measures a person's level of compassion. The issue is Free Trade, aka globalization.

The way it works is that if someone supports globalization or free trade policy, then they are not a compassionate person. According to The Bible, Christians are to be known for their compassion.

Since the vast majority of Christians support Free Trade, this is not very "good news", neither for those proclaiming The Gospel nor for those who have yet to hear.

In a nutshell, Christians who support globalization are double-minded; they are advocating a world view that serves money, not Jesus.

Of course, this is a rather explosive claim, especially since it may appear to the pious observer to be untrue.

So I'm going to spend the next several months delving into this issue in depth & I hope you can join me on this important journey. We will apply basic economic theory as we investigate the Bible looking for a glimpse of how God views the most critical marketplace idea of our time: free trade.

I am not going to pretend to be unbiased here. I have been studying this issue for a long time, and not surprisingly have formed an opinion. I will make the argument that free trade is

• immoral
• not scriptural
• unsustainable

But I will listen to the opinion of others and believe that I must change my opinion if I an proven wrong - iron sharpens iron.

Whether or not the church should expend any resources toward battling free trade is an open question. But at the very least we need to get the facts straight & promote correct thinking when this important issue arises.

ciao
(in the name of Jesus)