Production and Consumption

In mainstream Economics, there has been an unjustified deviation away from the study of production (characterised by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, et al) towards the study of consumption, as embodied in terms such as "consumer sovereignty".

I suggest that Mainstream Christianity has committed a similar ploy. It sees faith as consumption, posing the question, "what we can get for the lowest price?". The miracle, in this paradigm, is that the good consumed (salvation) has no price.

However, we are also producers. We are meant to ‘bear fruit’. And isn’t that what God made us for in the first place?

Some of our production involves getting people to consume salvation (of course, only God ‘produces’ salvation; so in this sense it is ‘distribution’). But their consumption should likewise be a conduit for good works. So production is not only a means to consumption; it a crucial part of salvation. Maybe this helps explain why James was so adamant that faith without works is dead.

Interestingly, when everyone wants to consume and no one wants to produce, we have problems. Problems, say, like those which afflict the Modern Church...