By Mark Zirnsak
With Advent upon us, I have been reflecting on Charles Dickens’ 1843 ‘A Christmas Carol’ and its connections to the New Testament.
Dickens follows Ebenezer Scrooge, intent on hoarding wealth, as three spirits visit him.
Professor of theological studies Matthew Robert Anderson postulates that the Biblical inspiration for the story is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus at his gate (Luke 16:19-31).
The parallel was also drawn in Dickens’ own time.
The Sunday after Dickens was buried in Westminster Abbey, Dean Arthur Penrhyn Stanley preached on Dickens as a “parabler” and “through his genius, the rich man … was made to see and feel the presence of Lazarus at his gate”.
The rich man gets a second chance in Dickens’ version of the parable.
The Biblical text contains a wide range of perspectives on wealth.
The diversity has allowed many Christians to choose their own adventure in understanding how their faith should impact their behaviour towards wealth.
We often have a focus on “distributive justice”.
Distributive justice means that we should share with those in material need and there are plenty of Biblical passages that encourage this.
For example, in Acts 2-5, the early Jesus movement gave and shared their wealth generously.
Distributive justice underpins our income tax and social security systems.
However, our focus on distributive justice may be concealing another theme in the New Testament, Christian “limitarianism”.
Limitarianism argues there should be a cap on the amount of wealth any one person can have.
The New Testament suggests that possessing far more than you need for a decent life is a barrier to being in the right relationship with God and other people (for example, James 5:1-5).
In Luke 12:16-21, God labels the wealthy farmer a fool for building bigger barns to horde his wealth.
Ethics Professor Ingrid Robeyns, at Utrecht University, has argued in her works, ‘Having Too Much’ (2023) and ‘Limitarianism. The Case Against Extreme Wealth’ (2024) that:
- It is morally wrong for a person to have far more than they need when others do not have the basics needed for life;
- Wealth allows people to skew political systems to their interests, undermining the principle that in a democracy, all people should have an equal say – one person, one vote; and,
- Excessive wealth results in many who possess it using well beyond their fair share of our common resources. For example, recent research by Oxfam found that the wealthiest one per cent of the global population is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the financially poorest two-thirds of humanity.
MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, announced upon their divorce that she would donate her fortune to organisations working to make society more just and caring.
“There’s no question in my mind that anyone’s personal wealth is the product of a collective effort and of social structures which present opportunities to some people and obstacles to countless others,” she stated.
Advent is an opportunity to reflect on how redistribution of wealth and limiting the excessive accumulation of wealth could create more peace, joy and goodwill in the world.
Mark Zirnsak is the Synod’s Senior Social Justice Advocate
