This is a very good book and I wish we could live in communities as suggested, sharing with each other and looking after the needy. The author explores tactics for living in God's economy according to the Scriptures.

Wilson-Hartgrove is always personally challenging. This book exhorts us to trust God in the area of finances, and open our hands and share life, friendship and our wealth with the vulnerable. Wilson-Hartgrove is one of the key voices of the New Monasticism and this isn't a book for people who want to follow Jesus without changing their life. ( )

The book God’s Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove provides an interesting look at a controversial subject: How should Christians understand money?

The first four chapters prepare us through a combination of autobiography on the part of the author, examination of biblical texts, and theological discussion on the issues of poverty, money, and power. The latter four chapters explain four “tactics” Jonathon suggests Christians use in the world to help us create a new understanding of abundance.

Towards the beginning of the book Jonathon challenges many fundamental aspects of the “American dream.” In speak of Joseph, for example, he says that his life was one “marked less by teh abundance of possessions than by abundant relationships.” He takes the rest of the book to discuss how Christians might re-order their thinking around relationships instead of possessions. He says elsewhere that “what concerns Jesus about money isn’t so much how we should use it…as how it affects our relationships with God.”

He also spends the first four chapters attempting to get rid of the popular ideas that problems in the world are either: (1) The fault of the rich having too much, or (2) The poor being lazy. He explores a kind of “third way” where the lines aren’t so finely drawn, and where relationships are central. His main example for this kind of life is St. Francis of Assisi who valued the relationships in his life over his wealth and possessions (indeed even ripping his own clothes off his back to return them to his father). Money has away of “quietly colonizing” us in ways we least expect. He notes, as many authors have noted as of late, how the ‘protestant ethic’ has separated ’spiritual’ and ‘material’ realities into separate spheres (to the point of excluding God in the ‘material’ reality).

Another preparation Jonathon makes before delving into his four tactics is understanding the importance of first century economies and the importance of the feast-table. The biggest problem that modern readers of the biblical text have is understanding first century economies. We have to understand that the household was also the primary means by which commercial ventures took place. There was no separation between the two in this time period, and thus to understand Jesus’ teaching about family, we must understand that family household economics was all their was. There was not other way of doing things. The point of such household economies was to create as big and powerful a household as possible with as many servants as possible.

From here, Jonathon goes into his first tactic: subversive service. We are called, not to be the great fathers of great households, but to be like children. To read the text as Jesus speaking of childlike faith is incoherent to a first century economy. Rather, the authors seem to be calling us to be ‘nothing’ – or, at least, nothing as a child was considered nothing in a household economy structure. We are to BE the least and the last.

The second tactic is what Jonathan calls “eternal investments.” When I first read the title of this chapter I was a little unsure of what to think. I don’t like the idea of someday you’ll be rewarded in heaven for all the good things you do on earth. Luckily, that’s not at all what he was referencing with this second tactic. Rather, he was talking about investing in things that don’t fade away (i.e. people rather than possessions). He talks about the difference between investing eternally and investing effectively. If our investments are to be “effective,” Jesus would have sided with Judas in criticizing Mary when she anointed his feet with oil.

The third tactic Jonathan refers to as “eternal friendships.” For the example here Jonathan speaks of the shrewd manager who made friends in order to save his job. I enjoyed Jonathan’s interpretation of the shrewd manager, and I think he makes some good points that I had never really heard in church before regarding the important parable. He charges those reading to try and understand the “wisdom of the weak” and not just ’serve’ them. He talks about many organizations serving the poor who don’t actually consult the poor (thinking that they will only ’slow them down.’). In order to be the people of God, we need to get rid of the lines of separation and create a life of abundance now in the friendships we make (without fear).

The fourth and final tactic is relational generosity. Relational generosity is different than most Americanized charities because it calls us to be in relationship with those who we serve. We are not to be part of some philanthropic organization that gives to the poor, but then goes to live apart from them for most of our day.

The book, as a whole, is a very well thought out way to live as Christians in the world. It is about more than money and health and wealth because it deals with our entire lives. There will be some for whom the book will be too radical. I am also sure that Jonathan will be called a ’socialist’ by those who do take a few of things he says in the book out of context. There are parts in the book where he talks about new monasticism and the rich giving to the poor in churches. All of these things will make his message difficult to swallow if you hold capitalism too tightly, but he seems to be right on in his theological and biblical analysis of the Christian life. The book is both imaginative and grounded.

If you give his book the chance to speak to you, I’m sure it will change you in some way, shape or form. ( )