The Methodist Church engaging with Business Industry and Commerce






The text also gives valuable reflection on such issues as consumerism, globalisation, diversity and inclusion, civil society and the vitally important issue of care for the planet. Of particular help to the reader are the side notes in italics that help focus thought as extracts in the general text. e.g. the four pillars of care- individual effort, government, charities and the private sector- are too often seen as rivals, or one as subordinate to another.

For me this helped underline in my mind that not only the common good but common purpose has to be achieved if there is to be human good for all on God's planet Earth! This is incarnational and underlines the divine motive of solidarity in the person of Jesus Christ.

There is also reference made to the familiarity that the concept of the common good has with Judaism and Islam. In one of his books the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reminds us that Christianity has to grapple with the danger of being preoccupied with the next world, neglecting the realities of this one.

People of goodwill seeking the best for human prospering are allies in the cause even when we are cautious of their bottom line ethic. Jayme Rolls writing in the MODEM book Leading Managing Ministering believes there is importance for business and industrial mission to work together to foster community with a purpose beyond itself.

At the end of this good read I found myself endorsing the words in the second paragraph of the opening section on the ethics of prosperity: "A well-ordered community -local, national and global- (I prefer the term regional to national) will be one in which individual and social rights and responsibilities are in balance, serving the general common wealth."

The quoted words remind me that balance in human terms is like the see-saw rather than the scales; to have equilibrium does not provide balance but frustration. There are ups and downs depending on the participants to the game of see-sawing!

I would like to see this publication as required reading for preachers, ethics teachers as well as workplace chaplains and church leadership as well as those who run the business of the economy, government and civil society.


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Prosperity with a Purpose




Malcolm Cooper writes ---

Some years ago while I with many others struggled with the issue of apartheid based on race in South Africa, it was not lost on some that the matter of economic class and prosperity was easily hidden from the struggle. Some of the lay preachers in the Methodist Societies I served were on all sides of the work spectrum and affected in one way or another by the issues relating to wages, poverty, prosperity and social values, yet for most these matters were not tackled in pulpit or church life.

Maybe it was because there was not sufficient clarity about what side God would be on! Is God capitalist or socialist? Are poverty and the poor the only clear option for God? Is God against the rich as some prophets seem to indicate?

I also remember a prolonged stay in Britain in 1982 when it seemed to me that in Methodism there were two schools of thought. Those who wanted to ensure fair and equal distribution of all wealth and the others who dared to pose the question: 'If the wealth is not created what is there to distribute; so what shall our mission be to the wealth creators' (the prosperous!)?

I recall also the influence on my thinking when reading Peter Berger's work 'Pyramids of Sacrifice'. In this work the author examines the issues of market freedom and centrally planned economies. In conclusion he reflects on a hardnosed utopianism!

Reading the publication Prosperity with a Purpose brought these background thoughts to my mind. It is not a long publication being the 'slim volume -- containing the [longer] study's conclusions and recommendations'.

I have not yet read the essays in that longer study but found this a very helpful condensed version. I am inclined to appreciate the title and contents more when its subtitle is brought into play- what I use to pose the question: How do Christians deal with an Ethics of Affluence? Is such a concept feasible in Biblical Christianity?

The publication begins with a handy three pages of bulleted principles and proposals, which prod the reader into the text to find more material. Indeed I sensed as I read them through that a good number could provide helpful titles for preachers.

The text develops the challenge of an ethic of prosperity along the lines of prosperity, self interest and the common good in some contrast to poverty, prosperity and the market economy. These two topics are important considerations to help me grapple with the issues that I outlined in my own journey above.