Earlier this fall the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics (IFWE) responded to an article I had written in September’s edition of Christianity Today. The article opened by describing the recent IFWE video, “I, Smartphone”—a 21^st Century take on Leonard Read’s influential “I, Pencil” written over a half-century ago. I used the video as a baseline by which to evaluate our conception of the market process, particularly within the Christian faith tradition. Smartphones, it seems, provide an interesting segue by which to open this conversation. Specifically, smartphones possess a mineral called coltan, mined predominantly in Eastern Congo. Sadly, the mines for coltan are often controlled by violent militias, the Congolese government, or even other countries—all of whom violently compete for this precious mineral. This has led to what has been referred to as the “Congolese War”—with death tolls in the millions. Naturally, then, as the price of coltan has increased dramatically over the last decade, this has attracted more and more “suppliers”—which in the case of Congo, has fueled more violence, rape, and death.

As tragic and complex as the conflict mineral problem is in Congo, the purpose of the article was not to zero in on IFWE, Congo, coltan, or conflict minerals. Rather, the piece sought to explore the most morally appropriate way for Christians to conceptualize market activity. One false reaction, I believe, is for people of faith to advocate for a response resembling a planned economy. Equally problematic is the belief that markets have some divine nature to them.

Therefore, my intention was not to attack IFWE’s video, but rather use it as an example to highlight my overarching point: markets can be good, and they exist as the best economic system we have, but they are not perfect—a sentiment that Hugh Whelchel, IFWE Director, shares. More specifically, many have responded to my article with the suggestion that Congo’s problems have little, if anything, to do with markets. Rather, they claim, this is simply the absence of a clearly defined and consistently enforced rule of law. Rule of law is absolutely necessary for a free-market to flourish, which underscores the aim of the article: there are conditions antecedent to markets necessary to allow them to work appropriately. I mentioned three in my article: property rights, regulation, and social convention (which can include morality). Regarding social convention, I would suggest that markets don’t necessarily produce virtue. Rather, they work best when they are embedded in a system of virtuous participants. For this reason, IFWE and other faith-based organizations have committed significant time and resources toward educating and equipping men and women of faith in the modern workplace.

Some would disagree and say that markets do, indeed, cultivate virtue in market participants. I have referred to such virtue as shadow virtue, or virtuous activity that is mimicked because it produces a better consequence. Here, the rightness of a market agent’s activity is bound up in the consequence it produces (if the consequence is good, then the action producing the consequence must be good). Naturally, this formula becomes problematic when exhibiting non-virtuous traits produces desirable consequences. Does that make such traits “good”? Markets may incentivize certain virtuous behaviors, but this does not necessarily make us virtuous.

To summarize, a healthy garden will produce healthy plants. We should not confuse this with the belief that a plant will produce a healthy garden. To carry the metaphor further, Congo’s garden is patently unhealthy (corrupt government, extreme poverty, and interference from other countries to name a few problems). I agree with Whelchel’s suggestion that these issues are “complex [with] no simple answers” and should be analyzed “first and foremost through the lens of scripture.” By recognizing that we make up the economies we participate in—as complex and multi-faceted as they are—we can creatively reflect on ways to fertilize the garden so that plants may thrive. For example, my wife is on the board of a group focused specifically on educating Congolese children so that they can “become servant-leaders capable of taking control of their own lives while serving as change agents in their local communities and throughout the nation” (Giving Back to Africa Mission Statement).

While I stand by the article I wrote, my larger point had less to do with smartphones, and more to do with Christian faithfulness as we navigate a complex global marketplace. As Whelchel states, our task is to be “salt and light in a way that supports scriptural principles like rule of law, human dignity, honesty, and property rights that are necessary for the market process to operate effectively.”

*Dr. Kevin Brown is Assistant Professor of Economics at Asbury University.