I wrote this in the year of publication of my book on Genesis.
Today, you can download it for free here:
I always answer as follows: “Yes, there really is a Christian economics. It is called economics. Anything else is pseudo-economics and a fraud. Other types of economics are systems that have been constructed with premises stolen from Christianity, and then restructured to conform to the rebellious speculations of self-proclaimed autonomous men. There is Christian economics, and no other kind.”
Can such a claim be proven? The evidence is available. The more sophisticated secular economists have already admitted philosophical defeat You can read their admissions of defeat in Chapter 4 of The Dominion Covenant: Genesis. If it is true that they have no case — and it is true — then it is our task, as Christians, to press home God’s claims and to confront them with an alternative: Christian economics. The Dominion Covenant: Genesis is, appropriately, the beginning
There are many Christians who argue explicitly that God has no dominion mandate for mankind in the post-Eden world Many more Christians assume this, even when they are afraid to say it Man is supposedly not required to extend the reign of God’s law in every nook and cranny of existence. There is therefore some neutral area of life which is beyond the rule of God’s law. Verse by verse, chapter by chapter, this view of God’s law is refuted in The Dominion Covenant: Genesis.
The three most successful ideologies today are Marxism, militant Islam, and modern science. They share three fundamental beliefs. First, the doctrine of predestination. History is the rule of unbreakable laws. Nothing happens by chance. There is order in history. Second, man can be optimistic. They can join a movement which represents the wave of the future. Nothing can stop the march of history’s chosen people. Third, the doctrine of law. These groups believe that their version of law can and will unlock the secrets of the universe. Their unique law-order will give them power over events. The predestined world of the future is theirs, for they possess the key to history: a proper understanding of universal law.
Christianity has been paralyzed in our day precisely because the vast majority of those who profess themselves to be Christians have abandoned all three doctrines. They believe in a chance-fi1led universe. God has not predestined all things. They also believe in earthly failure. God has not ordained a special social law-order. Any law-order can be used by Christians, except one: the law–order of the Old Testament. That, and that alone, has been rejected by God as a valid source of social order in our era. That’s what we are told by most theologians, pastors, and “Bible students”.
Christians have abandoned any belief in the dominion covenant because they feel unprepared to fulfill its terms. They are unprepared, for they have abandoned the three doctrines that make possible the long-term social reconstruction of a civilization; predestination, optimism, and law. This combination is a powerful package. By abandoning it, modem Christians have steadily abandoned power. “But ye shall receive power,” Christ promised (Acts 118a). If we do not exercise it, then something is radically wrong.
What is wrong is that Christian scholars and social philosophers have abandoned the foundation of power, namely, orthodox theology. They have substituted pietism and neo-platonism for orthodoxy. They have rewritten theology in order “to let themselves off the hook” of the responsibility of transforming all culture.
(For the rest of my article, clock the link.)
