This document discusses why Christians should care about economic freedom. It provides 5 reasons: 1) It aligns with the Christian view of human anthropology as image-bearers called to work. 2) It is the best way to serve the poor through market trade that has lifted billions out of poverty. 3) It allows people to find fulfillment through using their talents to serve others. 4) It supports the biblical concept of property rights and stewardship. 5) The Bible does not support massive redistribution through the state but a limited government that protects negative rights. Overall, the document argues that economic freedom correlates with higher levels of human flourishing consistent with biblical values.

1. Anne Rathbone Bradley, PhD
Institute for Faith, Work & Economics
abradley@tifwe.org

3. Why Should Christians Care?
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our
human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over
all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’
---Abraham Kuyper

4. THE FOUR-CHAPTER GOSPEL
Gen 1:27-31 Rom 3:22-23 Rom 3:24-26 Rev 22:1-5
Creation Fall Redemption Restoration

5. Economic Freedom
Individuals have economic freedom when property they acquire without the
use of force, fraud, or theft is protected from physical invasions by others and
they are free to use, exchange, or give their property as long as their actions
do not violate the identical rights of others….
James Gwartney and Robert Lawson et al.
Economic Freedom of the World: 1996 Annual Report

6. Economic Freedom Measures
1. Size of Government
2. Legal System and Property Rights
3. Sound Money
4. Freedom to Trade Internationally
5. Levels of Regulation

7. Overall Economic Freedom Index
and the Top 10
Hong Kong
Singapore
New Zealand
Switzerland
Australia
Canada
Bahrain
Mauritius
Finland
Chile
0 2 4 6 8 10
Score (out of 10)
Source: The Fraser Institute.

8. Economic Freedom

9. 5 Reasons
1. Christian view of human anthropology
2. We are called to serve others, especially the poor
3. We are called to flourishing
4. Property rights are Biblical
5. Limited government is Biblical

10. 1: Human Anthropology

11. Cultural Mandate
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of
God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and
increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over
the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every
living creature that moves on the ground.”
---Genesis 1:27-28

12.  We are image-bearers of God
 We are created to work (Genesis 2:15)
 We are born with something to contribute, we need
freedom to do it.

13. 2. Serving the Poor
The righteous care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern.
---Proverbs 29:7

14. “Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the
most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to
focus on questions of distribution. In this very minute, a child is
being born to an American family and another child, equally
valued by God, is being born to a family in India. The resources
of all kinds that will be at the disposal of this new American will
be on the order of 15 times the resources available to his Indian
brother.

15. This seems to us a terrible wrong, justifying direct corrective
action, and perhaps some actions of this kind can and should be
taken. But of the vast increase in the well-being of hundreds of
millions of people that has occurred in the 200-year course of
the industrial revolution to date, virtually none of it can be
attributed to the direct redistribution of resources from rich to
poor. The potential for improving the lives of poor people by
finding different ways of distributing current production
is nothing compared to the apparently limitless potential of
increasing production.”
---Nobel Laureate, Robert Lucas

16.  The best most productive and well-tested way of helping
the poor is through market trade.
 Enabling people to use their gifts and skills to serve
others has lifted billions out of poverty over the last
hundred years. Billions.

17. Myths about Wealth Creation

18. Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?
April 13, 2008, New York Times

19. 3. Called to flourishing
 God calls us into community with each other
 He gifts us with talents and skills so we can find personal
fulfillment and serve others.

20. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those
I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they
produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for
your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too
may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not
decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to
which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it,
because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
--Jeremiah 29:4-7

21. 4. Property Rights: Stewardship
 Property rights are part of the biblical narrative of
stewardship
 We are given dominion over the earth (stewardship)
 That dominion is reinforced in the 8th commandment
 Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal”
 Theft is a violation of property

22. “The eighth commandment, while one of the two shortest
in the Decalogue (Ex. 20:15; Deut. 5:19), taught that
stealing was not only taking another person’s property, but
it also included
 all forms of coercion,
 fraud,
 or taking another person’s possessions or property
without consent,
 along with all forms of cheating or harming property by
destroying its value in one way or another.

23. Thus theft involved the following:
robbing victims directly;
using indirect and legal means of gaining benefits not
deserved;
or by being part of a corporate group that steals.”
---Walter Kaiser

24. 5. Limited Government
 There is no place in the scripture that calls for massive
redistribution through the state
 The left claims certain aspects of scripture
1. Acts 2-5 (communal property)
1. Not a once and for all divestiture
2. Giving was voluntary
3. Temporary measure
4. Cant get “ought” out of “is”

25. 2. Leviticus 25:10 (Jubilee)
 Restoring property after mortgaged to a creditor
 Lease/sets stage for contracts
 Meant you could never be enslaved
 No debt forgiveness because already paid
 Old Testament/New Testament distinctions
 Israel was a theocracy
 OT prophets did warn other nations about violating
negative rights
 NT state as a protector of negative rights (Romans 13)

26. Stewardship
 Economic Freedom helps us better us our scarce
resources which have multiple and competing ends.
 Free-market economics correlate with certain biblical
truths that can bring us higher levels of flourishing or
shalom.

27. Economic Freedom

29. Are we better off than we were 100
years ago?

30. It’s not just about the Benjamins
Economic Freedom is correlated with
 More income and opportunity for the poor
 Lower child mortality
 Longer lifespan
 Better performing and cleaner environments
 Life satisfaction
 Less political corruption
 Better protected civil liberties
Its about Flourishing!