Theological Meaning of Money

From an address given to Compassion Australia – a charity helping 2 million children worldwide.

The perennial question: ‘How to handle wealth’?

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12).

There is nothing wrong with wealth. Without it, we live in poverty. But we are warned about loving money:

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evils (1 Timothy 6).

An interest in created realities, including money and property, is a good thing, but love of money is not. As one smart fella said to me, ‘People spend way too much time on working out how to make money, rather than thinking about what they will do with it when they get it.’ A generous attitude is crucial.

 

Christian Practice
Rodney Stark, Rise of Christianity, discovered, from a sociological, not faith, perspective that the Christian faith grew rapidly for two reasons in the early centuries after Christ. Both are based upon the generosity of Christ:

One, Christians really loved each other and had much higher survival rates when pandemics went through ancient societies. Simply giving someone a cup of water, rather than throwing him out on the street, saved him.

Two, Christians believed in the dignity of marriage and life. Men were made accountable. So, no divorce, no infanticide, no abortion, openness to having children.

Industrial Revolution
The movement away from an agrarian society to an industrial society delivered an explosion of wealth, bringing two great challenges:

Disparity of wealth and Marxism.

The first truly modern pope was Leo XIII who issued the first Social Encyclical in 1891 in the modern period called ‘Of New Things.’ This is the seed that has led to an extraordinary deepening of what is known as the Social Teaching of the Church. Many outside Church circles, including unbelievers, recognise the extraordinary contribution it is making.

Leo responded to the two challenges by dismantling socialism first. He gave both philosophical and practical reasons for not abolishing the right to private property, as Marx had argued.

For one thing, once initiative is killed, so too is wealth, and suddenly, we don’t have any wealth to distribute. It was his prophecy that if nations followed the Marxist ideology, they would experience abject poverty. When the Wall came down in 1989, the poverty was on display.

Leo also strongly defended the right to association, which has been important, too, in aiding wealth distribution.

Forty years later, Pope Pius XI faced the challenge of worldwide depression and declining social participation by developing the principle of subsidiarity:

Higher bodies should not interfere with the functioning of lower bodies.

Defending the nature and role of intermediary bodies that lie between government and individual is most important for free and fair societies. Think, in particular, the mix of public and private health and education we have in this country.

Fast forward to the pontificate of the 1 in 1,000 year pope – John Paul II – and we have articulated in the most wonderful way the proper relationship that should exist between private property/action and the common good:

All private action and property has a social mortgage on it. That is, all private action and property is orientated to the common good.

It is the distinction between possession and use. We have the right to possess things, but we must own and use things in such a way that they are made available to others.

Of course, the best example is the home purchased by a young couple, who make their home available to the children that they hope to conceive and nurture.

As the parable encourages us, we have to stop, perhaps more regularly than we think, and see if we have this generous attitude, which is the heart of good interpersonal relationships and in fostering free and fair societies.