{"id":31180,"date":"2023-02-18T22:12:58","date_gmt":"2023-02-19T06:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31180"},"modified":"2023-02-18T22:12:58","modified_gmt":"2023-02-19T06:12:58","slug":"does-it-make-cents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/does-it-make-cents\/","title":{"rendered":"Does it make cents?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Weber\u2019s work, Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism<\/em>, gives some insight into the influence of the Reformation, especially Calvin\u2019s thoughts on predestination, on the development of capitalism. More exactly, Weber\u2019s thesis is that Calvinistic predestination created an anxiety amongst Christians that found its resolution in the doctrine of providence. That providence was believed to be seen in the accumulation of wealth through the working of one\u2019s vocational calling and further grown by living an acetic lifestyle and investing as morally good.[1]<\/a> His take was contrary to that of Marx\u2019s materialistic view that Capitalism arose to meet material needs. Weber postulates that \u201ceconomic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs.\u201d[2]<\/a> Man wanted to make and accumulate money, not to meet physical needs, but perhaps because it was the \u201cfaithful\u201d thing to do. Jason Clark\u2019s dissertation, \u201cEvangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogeneses in the Relationship\u201d was helpful in detailing some assumptions that Weber makes that were both helpful (like Clark\u2019s mention of Weber\u2019s use of Ideal Types)[3]<\/a> and unhelpful (Weber\u2019s heavy reliance on Benjamin Franklin as an archetypal protestant)[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The church I attend recently discussed hiring a worship pastor. Part of the elders\u2019 process was to decide what we could afford; a conversation that brought up an interesting question. What does the relationship between good stewardship of monetary resources and making actions in faith look like? Some felt that we needed to be good stewards by making sure our offer left us with at least two years of monetary \u201cburn\u201d at our current income\/expense rates. Others felt that if God was calling us to hire a candidate, we should extend an offer to them at whatever the candidate deemed they needed. There was, to some degree, a tension between the two. We decided to follow a process of asking for monetary faith commitments and using the two year \u201cburn\u201d measure to decide what we could offer. Prefacing that I have no idea what the \u201cright\u201d approach is, the readings this week lead me to wonder how much our view of monetary stewardship is influenced by our dependence on providence for assurance of God\u2019s working and leading. Even in the establishment of a process by which God could lead us to an offer, were we acting out a manifestation of Weber\u2019s hypothesis?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m convinced there isn\u2019t an answer, but it has been fascinating to continue to examine and question the reasons we do what we do. Perhaps the best way forward to is to mine the past for insights into how we got to where we are now. In a way, it helps to ensure that we operate with a sense of integrity. And as Friedman says in A Failure of Nerve<\/em>, \u201cit is the integrity of the leader that promotes the integrity or prevents the \u2018disintegration\u2019 of the system he or she is leading.\u201d[5]<\/a> (26)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Jason Clark, \u201cEvangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogeneses in the Relationship\u201d (Faculty Publications, Portland Seminary, 2018). 82<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism <\/em>(London: Routledge, 2001). 18.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Clark, \u201cEvangelicalism and Capitalism\u201d. 86.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 93<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em> (10th Anniversary, Revised Edition) (Church Publishing, Inc., 2017). 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Max Weber\u2019s work, Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, gives some insight into the influence of the Reformation, especially Calvin\u2019s thoughts on predestination, on the development of capitalism. More exactly, Weber\u2019s thesis is that Calvinistic predestination created an anxiety amongst Christians that found its resolution in the doctrine of providence. That providence was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2625],"class_list":["post-31180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp01-weber-clark","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31181,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31180\/revisions\/31181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}