Upside Down Kingdom

Posted: Thursday, July 29, 2010 by Morgan in
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[As a disclaimer, the topic I'm about to talk about is SO HUGE that I can't possibly address it in this post without writing a book at the same time. There have been books written on it (The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a good example), so I won't write another one. These are just some of my thoughts on the subject of Christian stewardship.]

As I was listening to a song today (called Upside Down Kingdom...go figure), I was reminded of a book by the same title written by Donald B. Kraybill, a leading scholar on the Anabaptism and Amish Studies. I read parts of this book in my Old Testament Survey class last semester. Okay, I only read one section of it one time, but the single chapter I read literally changed the course of my life. I only have a sense of  what I read, but the idea that was planted in my mind from that brief reading matured and became a clear course of action. The chapter was about the relationship between wealth and social justice and salvation. Before reading this chapter, I only had a very vague idea of what I would do with my future career when I got there: get a steady job at a great engineering firm, make a comfortably large amount of money to provide well for my family and get really nice cars (Acura TL Type-S as an everyday driver and a Lotus Elise/Subaru WRX STi for fun). 

Now that's great from the world's perspective and loosely follows the biblical imperative for fathers/husbands to provide for and protect their families, but in the back of my mind I knew that if that was the extent of my goal, it would really be meaningless. Families and marriages don't have the same meaning in eternity, every physical possession we have on this earth will burn, and wealth is shown all throughout the bible to be a major point of contention between the Christian and God, causing the Christian to become self-sufficient and worldly. It just didn't sit right with me, but I wasn't really looking for a solution because the sinful nature inside me liked the idea of being wealthy so that I could enjoy the pleasures of this world.

But after I read The Upside Down Kingdom, the dangers of wealth to the Christian and the importance of good stewardship became very apparent to me. The importance of these issues struck an inexplicably heavy blow on my heart. The chapter "Luxurious Poverty" addressed Jesus's teachings on wealth, which was all well and good, but many of you know that  raw theology is at best annoying to me, so I read further to see if any course of action to go with the theology existed. Sure enough, there was. It was all about good stewardship, living within your means, and various ways of tithing in the "jubilee spirit," a main theme that is present in the book.

Anyway, this section went into many examples of how to give responsibly and in the correct spirit. The specific example that really struck me and set a goal in motion was the idea of a graduated tithe, where, for example, a family establishes a basic budget of $30,000 per year and tithes 10% on that amount and then a 5% tithe is added for each thousand dollars of income above the basic $30 grand. "When the income reaches $48,000, all of the last thousand is given since the graduated tithe has jumped to 100%...Such a tithe embodies the jubilee spirit and nudges us in the direction of generous stewardship."

That idea stuck with me. The idea of having a steady, unchanging income and giving all the rest to my church and various effective ministries was (and still is) very attractive to me, so I decided to make that the goal for my career. I have seen the impact Christian organizations can have in the lives of young and old, the well-fed and the starving, the wealthy and the impoverished, but I have also seen some organizations cease to be effective because of a lack of funds. A desire was sparked in me to employ the graduated tithe system (or something like it) to provide the means for those ministries to go on. This way, I can strive to make as much money as I can for the purpose of advancing the kingdom. 

I could go on to delve into the issues of storing up treasures in heaven, the specific dangers of wealth, the dangers of legalism in tithing and the principle of "living within your means" as a loophole for extravagant living, and other things like that, but people would stop reading. Also, this is long enough as it is. Sure, this is an idea that I think will work for me, but it's not for everyone. It's really the heart that matters. Jesus sums it up quite nicely, so I'll give him the last word...

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Luke 12:34

P.S. If anyone is interested in hearing the song, I feel obligated to warn you that it's Christian hardcore metal... but if that doesn't rub you the wrong way, here's the information and a link: 

Upside Down Kingdom by As I Lay Dying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBzBivZBRwY

2 comments:

  1. Allison Allison says:
    August 2, 2010 at 12:38 PM

    This pursuit fits you well. I applaud your evaluation of tradition while you pursue truth.

  1. Matt Jones says:
    December 1, 2010 at 5:03 PM

    You should read other Anabaptist (or Neo-Anabaptist) theology. People like John Howard Yoder (The Politics of Jesus; Christian Attitudes to War, Peace and Revolution) and Stanley Hauerwas (Resident Aliens) are all pretty great. Neo-anabaptist theology is strictly rooted in action and a firm commitment to understanding what it means to follow Christ in this world, focusing heavily on how we interact with seemingly unavoidable cultural values such as government, wealth and violence. Super good stuff.

    Anyway, your plan is a good one. I know of a family that wanted to be missionaries but the husband inherited his dad's huge business, so they decided to live on a missionary income (30k) no matter how much money they made. Needless to say, they give away millions a month and don't really miss it. Evaluating products by whether or not they're a "tool" for the Kingdom or just a "toy" of this earth was a central part of their life and their whole family would discuss each purchase (4 kids I think). So yea, it's totally doable and *totally* way way way more Biblical than the "American Dream" or nice house/ nice cars/ nice food etc.