Brief History of Christianity and Capitalism
It wasn’t always thus. For most of its 2,000 year history, Christianity not only frowned on capitalism, but banned it outright. Capitalism is making money with money. Interest, capital gains, investment income — everything we call “unearned income” — these are the lifeblood of capitalism. But until fairly recently, they were all banned by the Christian churches. Even buying and selling at a profit was proscribed. It was unthinkable for a Christian to be a businessman.
This Christian view of economics is grounded in the Bible. The law against charging interest goes back to Exodus 22: 24-25, “If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him.” This prohibition is repeated 22 times in the Old Testament. Proverbs 28:8 says, “He who increases his wealth by interest and overcharge amasses it for someone else who will bestow it on the poor.” Psalm 15 says, “Yahweh, who can find a home in your tent, who can dwell on your holy mountain? Whoever lives blamelessly, who acts uprightly, who speaks the truth from the heart, … who asks no interest on loans, who takes no bribe to harm the innocent. No one who so acts can ever be shaken.”
Deuteronomy 15:1-11 orders the cancellation of all debts at the end of every seventh year. And it cautions against refusing to lend to one in need because this time is near. So your loan will never be repaid to you. So what? The Lord will take care of you. But if you refuse one in need, the Lord will hold you “guilty of sin.” “I command you to open your hand to your countrymen who are poor and needy.” Deuteronomy 24: 19-21 establishes gleaners rights for “the alien, the fatherless, and the widow.”
The New Testament also has some things to say about economics. Most of them should be profoundly troubling to the wealthy. James 5:1, for example, says, “Next a word to you who are rich. Weep and wail over the miserable fate overtaking you: your riches … will be evidence against you and consume your flesh like fire. … You have lived on the land in wanton luxury, gorging yourselves — and on the day appointed for your slaughter.”
Jesus himself had much to say on the subject. Perhaps the most famous is Matthew 19: 21-24: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. … Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
The early Christians took these sayings very seriously. The first century Didache said, “Do not claim that anything is your own.” Around the year 200, Clement of Alexandria said, “All possessions are by nature unrighteous; when one possesses them for personal advantage and does not bring them into the common stock for those in need.” Basil the Great, about 400 A.D., said “That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat in your closet, to the naked.” St. Augustine said, “Business is in itself an evil.” Jerome, who disagreed with Augustine on many things, did not on this. He said, “A man who is a merchant can seldom if ever please God.” St. John Chrysostom put it this way, “How did you become rich? Can you show the acquisition just? It cannot be. The root and origin of it must have been injustice.”
For 1500 years, the church banned charging interest. The reason Jews got such a bad reputation as bankers and merchants was that they were engaging in practices forbidden to Christians. (The irony is that all the Biblical passages against interest are in the Hebrew scriptures, not the New Testament. For some reason, the Christians took them more seriously than the Jews, at least for a while.)
In 1635, a Boston merchant was convicted of greed because he sold goods at a 6% markup — 2% higher than allowed by law. The charges against him were brought by the elders of the church, who said he had defamed God’s name. But the fact that he was allowed to make any profit at all was a change brought about largely by the Protestant reformation.
By the 1800s, the restrictions on Christian participation in commerce were being widely ignored. Yet even in the twentieth century, Christian leaders have occasionally spoken out. Pope Pius XI, in his 1931 encyclical Quadragessimo Ano, said, “The free market, of its own nature, concentrates power in those who are anti-social, in those who fight most violently and give least heed to their conscience.” Even the conservative and very anti-communist John Paul II has had strong words about the abuses and dangers of unbridled capitalism. (Why is it that conservative Roman Catholics who hang on every word the Pope says when condemning homosexuality or prohibiting women priests pay not the slightest attention when he condemns the gulf between rich and poor under capitalism, or when he condemns nuclear weapons and militarism or the death penalty. It would seem that those who ignore the ban on birth control are not the only “cafeteria Catholics.” For that matter, why is it that Protestants who take the Bible very literally when it comes to sexual practices someone else engages in, are able to explain away the clear Biblical prohibitions on economic activities they engage in??)