The first of a three part series on faith with just a hint of economic insight added for seasoning.

Well, it wouldn’t be the soon-closing tide of summer around the Bereans home base if we hadn’t been graced once again by the penmanship of my co-author and dear friend, Stanley Schwartz. From my understanding, he has taken it upon himself to perform a rather literal form of “mental gymnastics,” though unlike most who do such things, Stan does so for our betterment rather than our befuddlement. In short, go read his latest work; I doubt you’ll regret it.

With his erstwhile return, I figured it was time to emerge from my writer’s cubby to add my own lesser contribution to public discourse. Recently, my mind has been set a-wanderin’ on the intersection of faith and economics, and it’s occured to me that while we have plenty of discussion on how faith impacts our economics, I can’t say I’ve ever seen much discussion of economics impacting our understanding of faith. So, with a teaspoon of trepidation and two cups of fear and trembling, I invite you all to the first of a short three-part series on an economic look at the faith, for the better or worse of what may come.

Being in economics is a funny world, some rather remarkable mix of self-loathing, acute reasoning, smug self-satisfaction, and gaping despair at the bad policy around you. Not that we’re free from all critique. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve come out of the closet as an economist and been swiftly greeted with a telling look, “Ah so you’re one of the people who runs things, right?” Ideally, no. And yet, the critique bears merit nowawadys, what with the pretense of knowledge having swept up fine and promising intellectuals in its sticky fingers. How very “man behind the curtain” of you to say…but at its heart, economics is a social science, not one of dollar signs and economy-wide lever pulling.

As I without fail remind people at those moments, most individuals instinctively understand some of the basic principles of economics. Hopefully, economists are just better trained at being consistent in applying them. Take for example the diminishing marginal utility principle within economics: The more you consume of something, the less satisfactory each successive unit becomes. The first piece of pizza after a long day’s work is immensely satisfying to a hungry worker. The second piece is also highly satisfying, but it can’t satisfy as much hunger as the first piece did. On this pattern continues until the person hits a point of satisfaction, past which there be an increasing potential for clean-up on aisle 9.

Yet, an important point to remember with this example is that humans rarely have just one “input,” in this case with a food example. A satisfactory amount of pizza may be consumed at some point, but there may still be room for improvement with other foods at some period of time. Speaking of time, we can reasonably assume that over time, we would get rather sick of just eating pizza all the time as our familiarity with it breeds contempt of the palate. Switch to ribeye or salmon all of a sudden, and a man’s marginal satisfaction with each piece of food will instantly increase. It’s not just about adding more food to satisfy our needs; the variety or heterogeneity matters as much if not more. In short, the satisfaction of our wants and needs hangs on multiple pegs — timing, quality, quantity, and variety all matter. Simply consuming more will not always do the trick and is unlikely to bring continual, sustainable growth.

Remembering then what my father has wisely told me — “The Creator is consistent” — some applications to our faith lives should become apparent. First, I believe making this connection to our faith helps to explain part of its changing nature. Have you ever contemplated why some sermons that used to strike home seem rather dull now? Are you struggling to recapture the vigor and vitality of faith in ages past? Do you find yourself feeling spiritually dry? While it would be reductionistic to attribute this all to diminishing marginal utility, the principle can help explain a piece of the puzzle. Consider, in addition to other matters of introspection, whether the spiritual dryness you feel and the present difficulty of strengthening your faith may be due in part to the diminishing gains of your present spiritual disciplines.

Christ bids us to grow, but the particular nature of that growth changes with time, what C.S. Lewis correctly pegged as the divine gift of rhythm. Sermons, songs, and study that serve your turn in one period may run their course for a spell, giving way to service and suffering and then back again. In like manner, I do not think it would be outside the divine prerogative for God to use this principle for our benefit, permitting suffering and trials in our lives in particularly those areas where the increase to our own weak spots will be greatest. Not that this need always be his sole objective though; I equally suspect the master strategy does not always revolve around this sole directive.

Second, I take a great risk in saying this, but I do not think the answer to a dry faith is always as simple as reading more Scripture or praying longer and harder. Prayer and Scripture remain critical components, but we must recall two facts: (1) The Bible is not our self-help book; it is the message of God’s redeeming work and a call to participate in it. (2) It is interesting how many brothers and sisters in repressed areas go without the Word and still persevere in the faith. In light of this principle, it makes sense how overjoyed and thankful they are when they finally do gain access to it (as a friend’s mentor relayed to me not too long ago in a story). For them, it was the freshness and newness of finally gaining access to God’s Word that brought such growth. It may be then that the newness of undertaking a discipline such as service, fasting, or silence could do the same for us. *

Finally, if we permit it to do so, I think understanding this principle can drive us to a greater humility in our assessments of other people’s spiritual lives. Many years ago, I remember an elder in the church sparking a good deal of my own giggling amusement when he confessed that he found family devotions — a sacrosanct part of any good, wholesome family surely! — to be of little use. The way he saw it, too much time was spent in the formalities of the process, and better fruit was produced in the organic conversations shared around the dinner table. Well and good for his family I say, and just as much power to the family that holds them with exacting regularity. In working out our own salvation (Phil. 2:12), let us hold in tension the paradox that we grow both communally and in wholly, individually distinct manners.

That’s all for this week, folks. I pray I haven’t lost too many of you to glazed looks, but I’ll make my best efforts to alienate the rest of you with part two of this series, I’m sure.

In all seriousness though, do keep the faith, brothers and sisters. And always remember, you are loved.

* I do not intend this to mean we should neglect Scripture or prayer, nor is this a call to perpetual novelty. Rather, I am simply reiterating that simply increasing one’s devotional time, say from 15 to 25 minutes, may not be the wisest use of our time. Perhaps, for example, those ten extra minutes should be given to practicing silence, and the alotted 15 minutes of devotional time should change its Scriptural focus. We are called after all to move on from milk to meat, and this requires that we train ourselves to know where, when, and what to change (Heb. 5:11-14). We do ourselves no favors by neglecting the many avenues for growth he has granted us.