Plundering Egypt: A Subversive Christian Ethic of Economy

Christian engagement with economics tends to baptise pre-existing sociopolitical perspectives, thereby assuming a predetermined metaphysical narrative. What happens when the story of the development of economics, told from an anthropological and sociological perspective, is juxtaposed with a biblical theology that focuses primarily on relationships? Wagenfuhr tests a theological method grounded in three kinds of relationships: Creator-creature, estrangement, and Reconciler-reconciled, by comparing these with a fourth relationship: the economic. He argues that economic relationships, and the worlds they have created throughout history, are the fruit of relationships estranged from God. Much theology has been committed to a metaphysic rooted in the reality of economics and has told a metaphysical story that legitimises current sociopolitical realities. Wagenfuhr’s contention is that reconciliation with God is entirely subversive to economic relationships. No economic relationship or system is established or justified by God; but neither does he reject them. Instead, the love of God in Christ speaks the economic language of a people, with a critical edge, leading to loving subversion of any and all economic relationships. Plundering Egypt calls for a robust theology that offers the post-Christendom church a renewed sense of the total scale of God’s mission of reconciliation.