Transcript Chapter 1 An Overview of Managerial Finance

How Now Shall We Live?
Charles Colson &
Nancy Pearcey
1999
C&P Chapters 36-39
There Goes the Neighborhood (Chapter 36)
 Crime and Disorder
 Demographic shift of baby-boomers
 Bad policies of 1960s and ’70s
 Poverty causes crime (?)
 Insufficient number of police (?)
(p. 361)
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There Goes the Neighborhood (Chapter 36)
 Crime and Disorder
 Bad behavior as a “Civil Right”
 “In the 1972 case, Justice William O. Douglas
waxed colorful about the rights of ‘rogues and
vagabonds’ to roam the countryside as ‘loafers or
litterers,’ as if drunks and panhandlers were
merely romantic wanderers” (p. 362)
 From vagrant and drifter to a persecuted
minority social class
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There Goes the Neighborhood (Chapter 36)
 Crime and Disorder
 Civil Liberties: the mentally ill are “oppressed”
 “…result was a massive movement to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill, unleashing a flood
of mentally unstable, disoriented people onto the
streets of the nation’s cities” (p. 363)
 civil liberties defined “in excessively individualistic
terms, denying the right of communities to
promote their values or to insist on standards of
behavior” (p. 363)
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There Goes the Neighborhood (Chapter 36)
 The Broken-Window Theory
 George Kelling
 James Q. Wilson
 early 1980s
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Real Shalom
 Shalom:




peace in a positive sense
the result of a rightly-ordered community
reduce crime by discouraging it
St. Augustine (4th c.): peace = “the tranquility produced
by order” (tranquillitas ordinis)
 Biblical basis: the doctrine of creation
 created for community
 “as long as we live in the ‘City of Man’, it is morally
imperative for us to work for the peace of that city” (p.
365)
 “Converting chaos into the tranquillitas ordinis, one house
at a time, one block at a time, one community . . . .” (p.
372)
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Creating the Good society (ch 37)
 What is the good life?
 The life of virtue
 “Without virtue, a society can be ruled only be fear, a truth
that tyrants understand all too well” (p. 373)
 Relativism
 “Relativism provides no sure foundation for a safe and
orderly society. If all people are free to choose for
themselves what is right, how can a society agree on, and
enforce, even minimal standards?” (p. 374)
 “Can man be good without God?” (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
 “marching toward moral oblivion [saying] . . . ‘I Did It My
Way’” (Richard John Neuhaus)
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No virtue, no self governance
 Why does virtue matter?
 “A nation without virtue cannot govern itself” (p.
377)
 Loss of virtue leads to loss of self-government,
which leads to tyranny and the death of liberty
 Biblical Worldview:
 Creation: we are created by a holy God who is
the standard of morality (Lev 19:2)
 Fall: we are prone to evil and need moral
restraints for society to function (Mark 7:20)
 Redemption: gives us the power to overcome
the rebellious human will
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Change the world?
 Today: change the world, not yourself
 Result: changing the world for the
worse
 “Moral crusaders with zeal but no ethical
understanding are likely to give us
solutions that are worse than the
problems” (p. 378)
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The importance of integrity
 “Integrity of character runs through large and small
matters, through public and private actions” (p. 378)
 Luke 16:10: Whoever can be trusted with very little can
also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with
very little will also be dishonest with much
 Integrity comes from the verb “to integrate” = “to
become united to form a complete or perfect whole”
 “But the very idea of right and wrong makes sense
only if there is a final standard, a measuring rod, by
which we can make moral judgments” (p. 379)
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What is conversion?
 Conversion is when the will is transformed
and turned around
 “At the heart of Christianity is a supernatural
transforming power that enables us not only to
know what is right but also to do it – to become
virtuous” (p. 381)
 Natural Virtue = conscience (Rom 2)
 Even non-Christians have this
 Conscience belongs to our created selves
 So, Christians should cultivate ethical knowledge
among non-Christians
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The Work of Our Hands (ch 38)
 The biblical view of work
 Creation:
 “all work has dignity as an expression of the
divine image” (p. 384)
 Gen 2:15: work the earth and take care of it
 Fall:
 Work is fraught with pain and difficulty
 Redemption:
 “Enables us to restore the original meaning
and purpose of work” (p. 385)
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The Economics of the Bible
 The right to property
 “is not a defense of material things per se, but rather the
dignity of human creativity, ingenuity, and inventiveness”
(p. 385)
 Commandments: Do not steal (#8) Do not covet (#10)
 “private property is a gift from god to be used to establish
social justice and to care for the poor and disadvantaged”
 Isaiah 1:17: “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend
the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow”
 “Ultimately, of course, we do not own anything; we
are only stewards of the things God has entrusted to
us”
 Ps 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”
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The Economics of the Bible
 The poor in the Bible
 The able-bodied are required to work in
exchange for benefits
 OT Law: leave margins unharvested so the
poor can glean enough to eat (Lev 19:9-10)
 “The poor are to retain their dignity as
competent and responsible people who are
capable of helping themselves” (P. 386)
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Secular Work is Sacred
 Greek worldview
 Thought the material world is evil and chaotic
 Devalued manual labor
 Valued the “nobler” pursuit of culture &
philosophy
 Biblical worldview
 The material world is God’s creation
 But . . . sacred/secular dualism
 Eusebius (4th c.): “the perfect life versus secondary
piety”
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Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”
 Adam Smith
 Founder of Capitalism (late 18th c)
 Defined work “solely as a means of fulfilling one’s
self-interest” (p. 389)
 Self-interest
 Turned the vice of self-interest into a virtue for
the “good of society”
 Self-interest is a great motivator in a fallen world
 Paved the way “for a new ethic of ambition,
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aggression, and self-advancement” (p. 389)
Critique of Adam Smith’s “Invisible
Hand”
 The economy is NOT an autonomous
mechanism
 It depends on a juridical framework
 Government is the referee
 It depends on a sound moral culture
 “Morality in the marketplace depends on the
decisions made by each individual economic
agent”
 Bottom line: “Economic success depends
on morality”
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The Value of Work Today
 Problems:
 The workplace as the primary social environment
 Weakened ties to family and church
 Work is reduced to a utilitarian function: a
means of attaining benefits for this world, this
life
 The Biblical Worldview
 Work is fulfilling only when it is tied to moral and
spiritual moorings
 “Work is still a gift of God that imparts a sense of
personal fulfillment and useful service” (p. 395) 18
The Ultimate Appeal (ch 39)
 Two types of laws:
 The just and the unjust
 “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just
laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey
unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law
is no law at all’” (MLK Jr.)
 Civil Disobedience
 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego:
 We will not bow down.
 Martin Luther:
 “Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me”
 John Bunyan:
 “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of
my conscience”
 Thomas Jefferson:
 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal”
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The Law and Biblical Principals
 A transcendent law above human law
 “The government is not simply a social contract between
the people and those who govern, but a social contract
made under the authority of a higher law” (p. 400)
 The higher law is critical to the preservation of liberty and
justice
 Even the king stands under the law (Samuel Rutherford)
 Limited Government
 Catholic theory: subsidiarity
 The higher social institutions exist to help subordinate
institutions (like the family)
 Reformed theory: sphere of sovereignty
 State is ordained by God yet limited by other divinely
ordained social institutions
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The Law and Biblical Principals
 Separation of powers
 Based on the doctrine of the Fall:
 Since everyone is prone to sin it is a fatal mistake to
entrust too much power to any one individual or group
(p. 403)
 No Direct Democracy
 The electoral college system is where “the will of
the people is sifted”
 The founders did not want a system where “the
voice of the people is the voice of God”
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Judicial Imperialism
 Pragmatism:
 truth is the hypothesis that works best
 Deconstruction:
 language does not reveal meaning (which
would imply that there is a transcendent
realm of truth); rather, language is a
social construction
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The Results of Losing Transcendent
Authority
 1. There are no restraints on individual behavior.
 2. Government is reduced to utilitarian procedures.
 Procedural republic = the laws are procedures for helping
people get what they want (Michael Sandel)
 3. We can no longer engage in moral debate.
 4. We have forfeited the rule of law and reverted to
arbitrary human law.
 “If no appeal to transcendent authority is permitted,
then the justices themselves become the supreme
authority” (p. 406)
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How can the chaos be reversed?
 Persuasion
 Modeling
 Christians must be good citizens.
 Christians must carry out their civic duty in every
walk of life.
 Christians must be engaged directly in politics.
 The church must act as the conscience of society,
as a restraint against the misuse of governing
authority.
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Coming up . . .
December 6: C&P chs 40-44
Brown-bag lunch in the classroom
from 1 to 2 pm.
December 13: Final Exam
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