If God always looks at the heart… where does sin come in? In other words, just because I think that smoking pot is ok because my heart is in love with Jesus, does that make it right or good? Scripture seems to lend itself to the belief that anything that takes over your mind or self control is wrong. The bible also teaches that anything we can do to treat others with the love of Christ, we ought to do as well.

The bible is flooded with examples of economic practices that oppress the poor. Check out this passage in the book of Amos 8…

4 Listen to this, you who rob the poor
and trample down the needy!
5 You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over
and the religious festivals to end
so you can get back to cheating the helpless.
You measure out grain with dishonest measures
and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.
6 And you mix the grain you sell
with chaff swept from the floor.
Then you enslave poor people
for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals. Amos 8.4-6

If what you buy is aiding in the oppression of the poor, is this not a sin issue that transcends the heart in some ways? Now, this is not to say that we can ever fully escape such tensions (between living in an unjust society and having to make a purchase), but to simply point out that sin issues (whatever they may be) are not always about my individual heart… they are also about how my actions affect another person or group of people. God hates oppression so if what we do causes this, I think we ought realign our heart and our actions to honor God. Does this make any sense to ya?

Please don’t read this as a defense or an angry critique (its not!) but simply a push to dig a bit deeper on these issues. Any thoughts?

I think we spend way too much time trying to work out our salvation in our own human endeavors. Rather, we should be seeking God always, allowing his Holy Spirit to work in our lives, and then obey. It is so simple…and yet so hard.

Do I think what you are doing is wrong? Absolutely not. It is a very good and noble thing. However, it’s not going to make God love you more, or move you higher up the ladder of Christian success.

Humble obedience and trust is all God asks of us.

What I would pose, just as I’m thinking about it, is that ethical standards are there for benefit of all, not for judgment of any.

For example, if I find myself judging people for shopping at WalMart, I need to consider how they would know otherwise and whether I’m making people aware of it in some way. It’s important to me, so I need to do something about it, not spend my energy keeping people from doing it too, energy that I could spend positively instead. And if you’re limited (like store options), how could you do any better?

Beyond individual limits, there are also other areas of involvement. We’re talking about political involvement, community work, conservation, etc. And that can be a lot, or too much, or the only other options.

But if I don’t find myself evaluating how I behave, so that I could be harming people and not caring about that harm, then I have traversed to the reverse, and my resources are not benefiting anyone but me. Selfishness should never be an excuse to avoid legalism.

My point is, I guess: We don’t have to do everything, but there’s always some amount we can do without feeling a burden. We aren’t perfect, and people were made to work together. There is always something to contribute, and there’s always a chance to love your neighbor.

Most times I think process is more foundational than product. Good challenge!

As I prayed about the how to live and purchase ethically, I felt the tugging of the Lord to keep my mind focused on the position of my heart. Is my heart moved toward justice enough to affect my actions? Or am I just talking the talk?

I don’t think a black and white analysis of where my money goes matters as much as an honest look at the position of my heart. I think this is true in regards to ethical spending as well as every other way we can borderline on legalism. Legalism is the result of looking only at the tangible things, the results, and not the process or the position of the heart.

I want my heart to be transformed so I can honestly say “I care about justice” and really mean it, to the point that my actions fall into line with my words. I want to not get so caught up in the many problems in the world that I believe I can’t make a difference. I want to be changed so that living justly and ethically is like breathing, not just a hurdle I am trying to overcome.

I am not there yet, but at I am trying.

Rather than post a comment here, I will probably use my next post as a ‘response’ / pondering…

Of course, here in America where the churches are often conservative politics’ biggest cheerleaders, this message has unquestionable political overtones. . .not because we should somehow reform the behavior of the secular world, but precisely because we are embedded in, and even at times apologists for, that world.

While I wouldn’t call it “legalism”, maybe the subtle danger I see with much of the “ethical buying movement”, particularly as it relates to followers of Jesus, is that we can get so caught up in trying to avoid oppressive companies and products, that over time, we can almost subconsciously start to buy into the idea that we can change the nature of the human heart through our patterns of consumption.

It’s easy to look at things like child labor, sweat shops, inequality, shoddy or unhealthy products, etc. as the real problems, when in reality, they are only symptoms of the deeper problem. The true culprit is the fallen condition of the men and women who cumulatively make up all these global scenarios. It’s easy to think of issues as “isms” or causes, instead the aggregated effects of individual decisions made by people who are striving to propel their own interests on this earth.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t buy organic (cuz otherwise who knows what you’re actually eating…) or make decisions to support companies that aren’t blatantly doing wrong. But like you already explained, at some point, it’s easy to reach this stage where you are agonizing over every decision, every purchase, every thing you do in the modernized world, as if those decisions were the only thing that can make a difference. This of course is how the World thinks, because it does not believe in the fallen nature of human beings. In the world’s eyes, everything really is a matter of systematic failure, which must have some sort of systematic solution. It stands in stark contrast to the perspective of the gospel, which points a finger at the human heart first, calling men and women to repent, to forsake their earthly ambitions altogether, and seek a citizenship and inheritance that comes from above, which cannot be attained through any type of social action, or supported by any of the choices we find on the supermarket shelves…