| abstract |
In Luke 18:22, Jesus tells a wealthy young man to "sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor." When we look through the historical evidence, both from scripture and across the Roman Empire, we find Christians wrestling with how to apply the teachings of Jesus and how to care for the poor. It is clear that even in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline churches, that an ethic of renouncing wealth never took root, but there was a clear mandate to address the deep wealth imbalances in those communities who were often forced to pay an unfair amount of their hard-earned resources in taxes.
I will demonstrate how the teachings of Jesus were interpreted by the early Christian communities. I will then discuss how Union Congregational Church in Montclair, NJ, a community of some affluence, has attempted to align its financial investments with its values and sense of discipleship. A team at Union worked for a year to understand how to move its financial investments away from immoral industries or companies and toward investments that have the capacity to assist the disenfranchised via impact investing and positive tilting. This has led Union’s members to better understand how mission, ministry, and money can be cohesively and ethically aligned.
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