Schneider’s seventh chapter concentrates on four “parables of affluence,” taken from the gospel of Luke. In doing this he is tackling the central challenge to his thesis, and he is taking it head on. “All the Gospels agree that a great deal of Jesus’ teaching was on the subject of wealth, and that most of what he taught about it was in the negative” (p. 167). Nothing is served by denying the obvious, and Schneider, to his credit, never denies the obvious.
In some respects his position is analogous to those New Testament scholars who are currently trying to rehabilitate the reputation of the Pharisees. That’s fine, and there is much to gained in the process, so long as they remember who it was who trashed that reputation in the first place — which they rarely do. In a similar way, the Christian tradition has long held that wealth constitutes a unique sort of moral peril, and so if someone wants to undertake the rigorous uphill climb of showing us that affluence for all represents God’s creational intent and redemptive design, he has to do so remembering who put the hill there in the first place. Schneider does very well at this, asking himself the hard questions. Talking about the responsibilities of proximity that globalism does or does create, he says this:
But what Schneider does successfully do is mount a compelling case showing that the demands of “radical” Christianity are simply facile. Some have assembled a great new socialist tricycle for the kids on Christmas Eve, and it really looks great. The only unsettling part is the couple pounds of parts left over. Surely they need to go somewhere?
The four parables he addresses are the rich fool (12:13-21), Lazarus and the rich man (16:19-31), the shrewd but still fired manager (16:1-9), and the parable of the pounds (19:11-27). He brings up a number of interesting factors (e.g. in discussing the “dishonesty” of the steward Jesus commended), and I commend his entire treatment. The most important aspect of his discussion, in my view, is the parable of the pounds, which Luke explicitly ties in with the story about Zacchaeus. Schneider argues that the story of Zacchaeus is paradigmatic of Luke’s approach to wealth generally, and I agree with him there. And the parable of the pounds that immediately follows the story of Zacchaeus’ radical repentance and restitution, along with his newly-found generous spirit, is not an egalitarian parable. And the master said to take the one pound from the slacker and give it to the hustler who made ten pounds (v. 24).
One other comment about something that Schneider made me think of, even though he did not address it in any detail. The question of globalization is key to a lot of these discussions. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the definition of neighbor is found to be “the one in front of you right this minute.” How does globalization not place every orphan in the world right in front of us, creating the moral demand that Jesus clearly conveyed in His story of the Samaritan?
My reply is that much more is involved than mere proximity — we also have the issue of complexity. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we have proximity, my neighbor is the one in front of me, and we have simplicity — I have the means to help him. What he needs in order to be helped is right here in my saddlebags. And so we are right not to over-engineer this kind of scenario. It doesn’t matter that you are late to your billiards tournament, that little old lady is standing in the rain next to her car with a flat tire.
But while globalization has shrunk the world, it has also complicated the world. Countless well-meaning endeavors from the West, on the supposition that this must be a simple Good Samaritan set up, have actually conspired to drastically worsen the lot of the people we were intending to help — by plunging them into crushing debt, by keeping their thuggish dictators in power, by chasing stability out of countries for the sake of liberal bromides back home. Compare what Rhodesia was to what it is today, and lay the burden of that disaster squarely at the feet of well-intentioned fussers in the West — fussers, incidentally, with very short memories. The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions, and they say it for a reason. That proverb is talking about a particular kind of mindset, one that presents a peculiar hazard to the poor.
I agree that, everything else being equal, proximity does create responsibility. But it creates a responsibility to move beyond mere gestures. And when the gestures just make things worse, my point is reinforced. Let us take the case of former Rhodesia. If we have a responsibility (because of globalization) then we have a responsibility to actually fix the actual problem. But the actual problem is named Mugabe. The actual problem is that the natives are not capable of running their country responsibly. Skipping just a few steps, this means that “globalization means responsibility” is nothing other than an argument for empire. If we have a responsibility for Rhodesia, then we must assume that responsiblity. We cannot halt between two options. If we don’t have that have responsibility, then we don’t have it. If the one who wants to help says that sending in the Marines will only make things worse, I agree that this is quite a plausible argument. But sending in money without the Marines has already made things terribly worse — which is why I present the question.
Are we responsible or not? If responsible, are we responsible for the whole thing or not? If mere proximity creates obligations period, then this actually means empire at all costs. If it does not, then we need to drop the argument.