‘Doing Well by Doing Good: The Missional Benefits of Church-Based Economic Enterprises’

To demonstrate this point, Brueggemann argues that the Deuteronomy calls for a covenant between all humans and God, which includes “economic neighborliness.” Deuteronomy articulates an ethical use of money in response to the predatory practices that had worked their way into Israel’s economy. Deuteronomy introduced the Year of Release, which cancelled all debts in their seventh year (Deut 15:1–11) and issued prohibitions on usury (Deut 23:19–20; Deut 24:10–13, 17; Deut 24:14–15; Deut 24:19–21). In addition, Deuteronomy provided a renewed focus on the needs of one’s neighbor. In particular, it called for protection of the most vulnerable: widows, orphans, and immigrants. Brueggemann points out that in a predatory economy, like Israel’s during the writing of Deuteronomy, the economically powerful are trying to exploit the poor and weak. Therefore, Deuteronomy seeks to replace a privatized economy with an economy that includes social protections for all people. The challenge of economic neighborliness resonates through the subsequent books of Scripture.

The Psalter reiterates the ethical standards outlined in Deuteronomy. Psalm 112 describes the benefits that come to the person who gives to the poor, lends freely, and operates with justice. Psalm 112 reinforces the notion that righteous behavior is supposed to create good outcomes for the individual, and more important, for the community. Psalm 49 goes further when it reminds readers that it is impossible to take wealth beyond this life. Wealth cannot provide security, because security comes only from God. Trusting in anything other than God runs the risk of idolatry. In Proverbs, wisdom is attributed to the person who behaves responsibly with money, and that responsibility includes providing hospitality to those in need. Proverbs 1:19 also warns the greedy: “Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.”

Jesus consistently addressed these themes in his ministry. In the gospels, he advocated for an alternative economy that included a set of social practices and relationships consistent with covenantal Judaism. In this economy, wealth would be seen as a gift from God to be used for God’s people and for God’s creation. Wealth had an appropriate place in the missio Dei. Christian notions of justice strive for the inclusion of all people in God’s creation and for sharing all resources. In Jesus’s “alternative economy,” people would avoid envy, rivalry, and individualism in favor of love, grace, and community. Despite the strong suspicion of wealth in Scripture, Christianity has been conflicted about wealth, partly because the core Christian teachings are not entirely consistent.

The early church adopted two different and somewhat conflicting views of wealth. On the one hand, Jesus was deeply skeptical about money and possessions, but on the other hand, he recognized the importance of money for providing support and hospitality to those in need. Biblical scholar Sondra Ely Wheeler characterizes these approaches to wealth as “peril and obligation,” each of which demands different behavior. Jesus’s suspicion about money is evident in his response to the “rich young ruler,” who he directs to sell everything and follow him (Matt 19:16–29, Mark 10:17–30, Luke 18:18–30). He also commends the rich tax collector Zacchaeus for paying back those whom he had defrauded and for giving half of his possessions to the poor (Luke 19:9). The Sermon on the Mount captures these two views of wealth. Jesus begins by reinforcing the importance of almsgiving and the obligations of wealth. “Give to everyone who begs from you” (Matt 5:43). Then, he proceeds to advise his listeners to rely upon God, and not upon individual wealth: “No one can serve two masters . . . You cannot serve God and riches” (Matt 6:35). Since these admonitions are not entirely consistent, it is understandable that Christians have developed conflicting under-standings of wealth.

Throughout Christian history, theologians have articulated a commitment to shared wealth, which they have based on Scripture. Chapters 2–5 of the Acts of the Apostles illustrate how the early Christians shared their money communally, and they established community standards.

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. (Acts 2:44–45)

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. (Acts 4:32)

In addition to the Acts of the Apostles, the Didache provides one of the earliest references to shared wealth. Similarly, the Epistle of Barnabas, which scholars believe was written around 135 CE, describes sharing wealth and possessions. As early as the second century, theologian Clement of Alexandria developed the first Christian theological treatise on faith and wealth. He cautioned Christians about the dangers of wealth but also stressed that wealth is not inherently corrupting. He understood that wealth had a role in God’s mission.

The second-century Apostolic Father Hermas, along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, proposed almsgiving as a means for wealthy people to share their resources with God’s people. By the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea openly criticized the aggressive accumulation of wealth and proposed a sufficiency test for personal spending and consumption. His sufficiency test held that individuals keep only the money and property that they needed for their basic survival. He called upon Christians to share the rest of their wealth with others. Historian Peter Brown observes that while the early Christians were critical of wealth, few of them actually had any wealth. The initial Christian discourse on wealth impacted only a very small portion of the world’s population, because most people, including early Christians, lived in subsistence poverty.

Theologian Justo González notes that after the fourth century, economic issues received much less attention from church theologians. After Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, the post-Constantinian church attracted wealthier people. Subsequently, the church was far less critical of wealth. The Roman Catholic Church spoke less than the early Christians about the peril of wealth and more about the obligations of wealth. As the Roman Catholic Church grew, it moved from renunciation of wealth toward an emphasis on detachment from wealth. Theologians started to develop a virtue of sufficiency, like the one first articulated by Basil. Over time, however, the church became increasingly supportive of wealth. Augustine famously called wealth a mysterious “charisma.” He taught that wealth should be used to extend the influence of the church. However, Augustine was not necessarily as focused on how wealth could increase the broader responsibilities of the missio Dei. By the seventh century, the church also had developed a very strong financial position of its own. By some estimates, the Roman Catholic Church controlled as much as one-sixth of all the land in medieval Europe. Not surprisingly, with its increase in power and wealth, the Roman Catholic Church was increasingly supportive of the economic status quo.

Since the sixth century, there have been theologians and religious leaders who have raised concerns about the church’s ambiguous position on wealth. For example, in the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia established strict prohibitions against private ownership in his monasteries, and he stressed the importance of sharing necessities. In the eleventh century, Francis of Assisi cautioned against greed, which he defined as wanting more than what one needed to survive. In the fourteenth century, Thomas Aquinas vehemently argued that greed was antithetical to God. He condemned usury and wrote about the ethical pricing of goods. In the sixteenth century, Protestant reformers Rudolf Gwalther and Peter Walpot stressed the importance of caring for those in need and the priority of sharing goods in common. They represented an attempt within the Reformation to return to some of the church’s pre-Constantine positions on wealth and equity. In the eighteenth century, John Wesley renewed Basil’s call for sharing resources and for adopting a virtue of sufficiency. He laid out strong expectations for Christians’ obligation to care for the poor. Like Basil, he insisted that Christians use their money to cover only their basic necessities and to give the remainder to the poor. He established standards that provided economic guidance for individuals based on his Christian theology.

In the early twentieth century, Walter Rauschenbusch introduced the Social Gospel as another reaction to excessive wealth. He argued that the Social Gospel was merely attempting to bring Christianity back to its pre-Constantinian mission by expressing a deep care for the poor and a skepticism of wealth. Over the years, other voices have observed the economic injustice in humanity’s midst and the ways that economic injustice contradicted the missio Dei. Christian Socialism, the Catholic Worker Movement, and other faith-based groups have tried to return to a notion of wealth as peril and obligation, but they have found little support in mainstream Christianity. Instead, the Christian theology of wealth and money has largely been determined by those with the greatest wealth. For example, in the early twentieth century, Andrew Carnegie and John T. Rockefeller both published theologies of wealth that largely blessed their riches and the privileges of those like them. Their voices and those of their acolytes overpowered the voices of those who were skeptical of wealth and saw wealth as a challenge to God’s mission. In the mid-twentieth century, Msgr. John Ryan drew on the Thomist virtue of temperance to argue for a virtue of sufficiency. He developed a social economic ethic that provided for living wages for working people. He even enumerated what expenses should be covered by the living wage. His advice was imminently practical, and it demonstrated the application of practical economic theology to livable wages and individual spending.

In the late twentieth century, Latin American liberation theology again sought to offer an alternate view of wealth. Gustavo Gutiérrez and Ignacio Ellacuría focused on the link between salvation and liberation. Ellacuría more explicitly focused on praxis, arguing that a liberating praxis is necessary for social transformation. For him, liberation frees humans from material oppression, political repression, and rampant individualism. The poor are critical participants in a liberating praxis. Therefore, he concluded that the church must be “configured as a church of the poor.” His work was deeply decolonial because he tried to unlink the church from wealth and tried to offer a new view of liberation and salvation. Like Rauschenbusch and Ryan, Gutiérrez and Ellacuría offered a renewed skepticism of wealth and demonstrated how it can interfere with the missio Dei.

As Christians consider liberation and salvation, they are compelled to action. In addition to journeying with the oppressed, Christians are called to ask, “What liberative action should I follow now?” The answer to this question requires careful discernment. Christianity has the potential to advance social justice by offering economic alternatives that reflect Jesus’s views on money and wealth. It is clear from Ellacuría’s work and from the case studies in this book that careful discernment is a key element of liberation and mission. Understanding God’s call is the first step toward missional renewal, congregational growth, social justice, and financial sustainability. Unlinking wealth from God and from the church is critical to understanding God’s mission for humanity and creation.

Consistent with these past theologians, this book seeks to provide an alternative view of wealth and possessions. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to highlight the hopeful message that churches can offer to the world when they change their missional and financial models. They can start new economic enterprises, and they can help others to start new enterprises. Collectively, churches and the businesses that they incubate can demonstrate new ways of transacting commerce and economic activity. They can create enterprises that are unlinked from past economic practices and oppressive economic systems. In so doing, they can drive missional renewal, social justice, and financial sustainability. In terms of global capitalism, church-sponsored economic enterprises may seem too small to make any difference. However, as these case studies reveal, these enterprises can make a big difference to their congregations and in their local communities. They can offer a new perspective and new hope to their neighbors by offering a new economic vision. When guided by the Holy Spirit, these churches can make changes that more fully reflect the presence of the Triune God in the world today and the liberation of all God’s creation, thus advancing the missio Dei. . . . the church must not live in a nostalgia for the past. Instead, the church can lead God’s people boldly into the future with new missions, new models, and new visions of becoming God’s Beloved Community.

Excerpted from “Doing Well by Doing Good: The Missional Benefits of Church-Based Economic Enterprises” by Brendan J. Barnicle. Copyright ©2026 Fortress Press. Used with permission.