|
I.C.C.C. |
|
I.C.C.C. |
MORE INFO ABOUT THE ICCC
Introduction | Report back from conference
The International Christian Chamber of Commerce is a world wide organisation established in 1985 by Swedish businessman J Gunnar Olson. His primary vision is to bring Christ to the marketplace through the transformed working lives of business people who seek to make Jesus Christ Lord of their lives, and live that out through their chosen vocations.
Michael Fenton-Jones, the International President of ICCC, is quoted as saying during the period immediately leading up to the international conference held in Johannesburg in June 2000:
|
|
|
Is this a new thing that God is doing in preparation for the final battlefield which, as illustrated in Revelation 18, is seen as involving the marketplace?
Dorothy Sayers, a British essayist is quoted as saying "in nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments . . . she has forgotten that the secular vocation is sacred."
If she is right therefore, then J Gunnar Olson's vision should rather be stated as to restore Christ to the marketplace . . ."
In their book "How Now Shall We Live?" Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, give us the background to what has caused this 'failure' in the chapter on "The work of our hands".
God's word has a great deal to say about work and although the Bible may not endorse any particular economic theory, it does lay out a basic blue print for a society that is free, prosperous and just. "When God placed the first couple in the Garden of Eden, he assigned them the first job description: work the earth and take care of it." (Gen 2: 15)
Throughout Scripture we find the right to private property recognized and defended. As a moral principle, this recognition and defence is implicit in the Ten Commandments: in the eighth commandment, which forbids stealing, and in the tenth commandment, which forbids coveting. And in the Mosiac law, those who stole anothers property were required to make restitution. (Exod. 22)
The accumulation of wealth in itself is not treated as evil in scripture. Men like Abraham and Solomon were very wealthy.
On the other hand scripture makes it quite clear that the right to private property and the accumulation of wealth does not mean we have the right to do whatever we please as a result.
The first counter influence was inherited from ancient Greek culture, which equated the material world with evil and disorder.
Against this the early church defended a high view of the material world as Gods creation.
Nevertheless, many early theologians were influenced by Greek philosophy, especially Platonism, with the result that a distinction came to be drawn between sacred and secular realms. Full-time religious workers, devoted to the service of God alone, embody the perfect form of the Christian life, wrote Eusebius in the fourth century, whereas farmers and traders may achieve only a kind of secondary grade of piety.
This attitude was challenged by Thomas Aquinas, who stood against the Platonic stream in Christian thought and stressed the value of the created world. His philosophy stimulated the Scholastics to explore topics now considered part of economics, such as property, trade, prices, and wealth creation culminating in the work of the sixteenth century School of Salamanca in Spain, praised by the great economist Joseph Schumpeter as the founders of scientific economics.
The Reformers likewise protested vigorously against the dichotomy between the sacred and the secular and its implicit devaluation of creation. When we carry out our vocation in obedience to Gods commands, wrote Martin Luther, then God himself works through us to his purposes. And this partnership with God includes all legitimate forms of work, not just spiritual vocations. Luther totally rejected the notion that monks and clergy were engaged in holier work than shopkeepers and housewives. Seemingly secular works are a worship of God, he wrote, and an obedience well pleasing to God.
The division into sacred and secular had not only made secular work second-best but also held secular workers to a lower standard of devotion and spirituality. The Reformation challenged that concept, insisting that no believer is exempt from the highest spiritual standards. Looking through the biblical lens, Luther wrote, we see that the entire world (is) full of service to God, not only the churches but also the home, the kitchen, the cellar, the workshop, and the field of the townsfolk and farmers.
Drawing from passages such as Jesus parable of the talents in Matthew 25: 14-30, the Reformers also cast aside a common medieval belief that making a profit is immoral. One of the simplest lessons from the parable, writes Father Robert Sirico, is that it is not immoral to profit from our resources, wit, and labour. After all, the alternative to profit is loss, and loss due to lack of initiative does not constitute good stewardship. God expects us to use our talents both our abilities and our money toward productive ends in order to serve others.
These beliefs about the value of work and entrepreneurial talent shaped what became known as the Protestant work ethic. It, in turn, became the driving force behind the industrial revolution, which has raised the standard of living immeasurably for vast numbers of societies around the globe. The impact of the work ethic is one of the great examples of the way a Christian worldview can revolutionize a culture.
The Christian view of work, however, has been opposed by a variety of secular views, which began to emerge after the Enlightenment. The rejection of the biblical doctrine of creation led to a rejection of its doctrine of human nature (its anthropology). No longer were human beings seen as the handiwork of God, living for high moral and spiritual purposes to love God and serve their neighbours. Instead, they were seen as merely a part of nature, driven by self-interest and expediency. As a result, the Protestant work ethic as separated from its Christian context of stewardship and service, and degraded into a creed of personal success.
In the late 18th Century, for example, Adam Smith, the founder of Capitalism, defined work solely as a means of fulfilling ones self interest and for him the economy was an amoral, autonomous mechanism grinding along apart from the moral influence of law or church or family.
Focusing on self-interest proved very effective, for in a fallen world, it is one of the strongest forms of motivation. But instead of raising the moral bar, challenging people to go beyond self-interest, Smiths system seemed to accommodate our sinful state, The system demanded the very impulses Christianity had traditionally renounced as immoral: serf-interest instead of concern for the common good, personal ambition instead of altruism, and drive for personal gain instead of self-sacrifice and charity. Smiths system seemed to glorify those impulses by treating them as the driving force for a healthy economy, thus paving the way for a new ethic of ambition, aggression, and self-advancement.
Moreover, Smith was mistaken in thinking that an autonomous free market would operate most beneficently. Quite the opposite. As the early days of industrialism proved, an autonomous, secularised capitalism exploits both workers and the environment, creating new forms of slavery in what poet William Blake called the dark Satanic Mills. Capitalism is astonishingly efficient at generating new wealth, but it operates beneficently only when the market is shaped by moral forces coming from both the law and the culture derived ultimately from religion.
How do we bring these moral forces to bear on todays economy? This is the major issue facing Christians in this area. How do we transform a secularised, demoralized capitalism into a morally responsible free-market system?
Join the ICCC and find out the answer to that question.
Report
back from conference held in Johannesburg - June 2000
P.E. Church Net has posted this page to
support the I.C.C.C.
last updated 29 September 2000
|
|
