Logic of the Market vs. Logic of the Kingdom

The market assigns value based on productivity and wealth, is this compatible with the Kingdom?

I have a haunting worry most days that I am not being productive enough. In a culture dominated by market logic, my value is based on what I produce. One of the most ubiquitous replies in our culture to “how are you” is “busy.” We spin and toil to prove worth, generate value and produce.

There are so many books, articles, apps, tools, hacks and tricks to ‘maximize your time’ and ‘do more with less.’ The push towards performance, acquisition and accumulation is a relentless march.

But this isn’t how the Kingdom of God works. Instead of scarcity, where resources are limited and I have to fight and hoard, Kingdom logic is all about superabundance, generosity and giving away. Where success and security in the mind of the market come through wealth accumulation, piling up things and consuming, Jesus encourages us to consider other’s needs before our own, to give things away when we have more than we need, and not to worry about what we we will wear or eat or drink.

Jesus asks us to imagine that the world is actually governed by a ridiculously wealthy, generous, all powerful father, who loves to give and provide and lavish gifts on his children. To remind us, Jesus suggested we look at the fields, flowers and birds. They don’t “spin or toil” nor do they worry about mundane things like ‘what they will eat or wear.’ And yet, this generous, doting father takes care of them, and he will take care of humans too (Matt 6:26-34).

Pain, in the thinking of the consumerist world, comes when we fail to acquire something or we’ve not been productive enough or haven’t generated enough work and wealth. But pain and suffering in the logic of the Kingdom is a product of our liminal state. We are in between kingdoms, waiting for redemption and restoration… suffering is expected and an opportunity for perseverance, character and hope (1 Pet 4:12).

These ‘logics’ of market and state, and left and right and many political theories are what Tim Keller calls ‘reductive heresies.’ They take the story arc of the Kingdom (creation, fall, redemption restoration), the good news that Jesus preached about the hope of complete restoration of the entire cosmos, and reduce it to an election cycle, secure borders or an earnings quarter.

These systems of the world at times complement Kingdom purposes. The state is a good thing ordained by God. Even Jesus acknowledged that God had given authority to Pontus Pilate (misguided as it was). The market economy, when functioning fairly, provides work, resources and food for people’s needs.

But the danger is in seeing any of these as ultimate. Christians have a King to whom they’ve given allegiance, who has been coronated over the cosmos and sits at the right hand of God the Father on a throne in heaven (or is he standing? Acts 7:56). Christians belong to this Kingdom as citizens and are its ambassadors. The church, as the ambassadors of the Kingdom, must maintain a critical distance pronouncing blessing when the market or state does good and prophetic warning when it does evil.

Christians must guard against the logic of the market (and of the state) keeping the logic of the kingdom, in all its wonder, front and center. Regardless of what state leader, monarch or president is currently in office, the universe is in good hands. Regardless of how the stock market is performing, there is a super-abundance of resources managed by the sovereign treasury.