How to Avoid Needless Guilt for Your Personal Success
Oct. 8, 2009
This was posted on a forum yesterday.
"What would you say to a Christian who feels guilty that he has stuff. Because Jesus didn't have anything, and every thing that you buy is money that you could be giving to poor people or buying bibles to send to third world countries, or supporting missionaries, etc. I have never felt guilty about buying...anything really. But some people do apparently and I don't really know how to address that."
This is a problem in certain Protestant circles. It is the obverse of the "name it and claim it" crowd, who make people feel guilty for not being rich and healthy.
The first group refuses to guide their thinking by Deuteronomy 28:1-14: the promises of success as a result of obedience to God. The second group refuses to take seriously the Book of Job, especially the story of his first ten children.
In our day, the premier proponent of this poverty-for-Jesus outlook is Ron Sider, a well-paid professor at Eastern Baptist University. His book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, was co-published in 1977 by the liberal Roman Catholic Paulist Press and the evangelical InterVarsity Press. Call it a joint effort in guilt-manipulation.
I hired David Chilton to write a response: Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators (1981). It remains the most powerful refutation of anyone, any time, on any subject that I have ever read. You can download it for free here:
Sider never responded in print. He never mentioned the existence of this book -- not in three revised editions of Rich Christians and not in his call for a welfare state, Just Generosity, which is in fact a call for unjust state compulsion. My son-in-law, Joel McDurmon, has just finished writing a refutation of Sider and his two ideological compatriots, Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo. It should be out before the end of the year.
The preposterousness of the call for poverty-for-Jesus is that the highly paid, tenured professors who promote this perspective live in the richest society in the history of man. Compared to Jesus, they are wealthy. Compared to Caesar, they are wealthy. Compared to a king in 1914, they are wealthy.
They expect God to grade on the curve. (So did Adam.)
"Abram was rich in cattle, silver, and gold" (Genesis 13:1). "That's Old Testament stuff!" cry the tenured rich professors.
Solomon said that "the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Proverbs 13:22b). "More Old Testament stuff!"
Jesus said that "the meek will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). "That doesn't refer to history!"
Jesus taught that the man who made ten to one on his master's coin did a better job than the servant who made only five to one (Luke 19:16-19). "Allegorical!"
Joseph of Aramathea had enough wealth to donate an expensive burial cave to host Jesus's body. "Well, he knew it was only for three days -- max! Just a rich guy showing off."
And so on, text by text.
Never forget this: "You can't give it away if you ain't got any."
Better to tithe on a million dollars a year than on $10,000. Doubt me? Ask your pastor.
Then read Chilton's book. You will never again feel guilty for your success, assuming that you tithe. On tithing, read my book, The Covenantal Tithe. Download it here: