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In general, Shakespeare’s advice, that we should neither borrowers nor lenders be, is sound. The more our nation slips into what seems like an abyss of personal, corporate, and national debt, the more we as a people are beginning to realize the need for economic principles beyond mere getting-and-spending to rein in our lust for things and penchant for going into debt. But in some cases it is not only appropriate but altogether wise to borrow. When, for example, we discover principles of economic activity which take into account the dignity of human beings, the value of persons, and the importance of such concepts as freedom, fairness, and justice, we would be wise to borrow as much as we can.
This is precisely what the first American colonists did, as they arrived on the shores of the New World and begin to create laws to guide their social and economic practices. Because there was not in the colonies an established system of justice with adequate lawyers and judges to staff it, the writing of civil codes took on urgency. Writers of the early colonial statutes borrowed freely and often from the Law of God, including various of the civil laws, frequently copying down the very text of Scripture rather than try to invent better language.
As scholar W. Keith Kavenagh has written concerning the New England colonies, “the Puritan concept of the role of church and state rested upon the belief that God’s word was clear, that it had been interpreted correctly, and that no one could deny the rightness of insisting upon the application of the laws of God to all aspects of society” (Foundations of Colonial America: A Documentary History, Volume 1 – Part 1, Northeastern Colonies). What was true in New England was true throughout the colonies, albeit to a lesser extent. And, while our colonial forebears at times overreached and at other times misinterpreted the application of Old Testament civil statutes, nonetheless, their free and frequent borrowing from those statutes bred a wholesomeness and robustness into the American economy and society where human beings could be free and could flourish.
To this day we acknowledge the wisdom and decency encoded in many of those Old Testament laws, although our borrowing at present is not nearly as self-conscious as was that of our forebears. Not long ago, for example, President Obama held a gathering in the White House to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This act, which has “leveled the playing field”, opened up new opportunities, and helps to preserve the inherent dignity of the disabled, is not quite what you would expect from a society infused with an evolutionary worldview. In the evolutionary worldview the weak and sick are to be culled so that only the strong may survive.
But in America, even though our public position on the origins and development of humankind is officially that of evolution, in our social practice, love for those in need has been encoded in law. This tradition and the practices encoded with it do not derive from evolutionary or progressive law, but from fixed law which insists that human beings all have dignity and worth, and that, in a wholesome society, it is the duty of the strong to care for the weak, and neither to take advantage of them nor to put unnecessary obstacles in the way of their freedom and flourishing.
And this tradition – a tradition of neighbor love – can be seen to be grounded squarely in the Biblical teaching that people are the image-bearers of God and that it is the responsibility of each one of us to care for our neighbors in need. So then, since we have in the past, and are still today, borrowing from Biblical law in order to create a fair and just society, let us take to those Old Testament statutes to discover what else we might borrow from them to bring into being more of an economics of love.
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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
VP Economics of Love
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