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Wealth Creation Manifesto

Background

The Lausanne Movement and BAM Global organized a Global Consultation on The Role of Wealth Creation for Holistic Transformation, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in March 2017. About 30 people from 20 nations participated, primarily from the business world, and also from church, missions and academia. The findings will be published in several papers and a book, as well as an educational video. This Manifesto conveys the essentials of our deliberations before and during the Consultation.

Affirmations

1. Wealth creation is rooted in God the Creator, who created a world that flourishes with abundance and diversity.

2. We are created in God’s image, to co-create with Him and for Him, to create products and services for the common good.

3. Wealth creation is a holy calling, and a God-given gift, which is commended in the Bible.

4. Wealth creators should be affirmed by the Church, and equipped and deployed to serve in the marketplace among all peoples and nations.

5. Wealth hoarding is wrong, and wealth sharing should be encouraged, but there is no wealth to be shared unless it has been created.

6. There is a universal call to generosity, and contentment is a virtue, but material simplicity is a personal choice, and involuntary poverty should be alleviated.

7. The purpose of wealth creation through business goes beyond giving generously, although that is to be commended; good business has intrinsic value as a means of material provision and can be an agent of positive transformation in society.

8. Business has a special capacity to create financial wealth, but also has the potential to create different kinds of wealth for many stakeholders, including social, intellectual, physical and spiritual wealth.

9. Wealth creation through business has proven power to lift people and nations out of poverty.

10. Wealth creation must always be pursued with justice and a concern for the poor, and should be sensitive to each unique cultural context.

11. Creation care is not optional. Stewardship of creation and business solutions to environmental challenges should be an integral part of wealth creation through business.

Appeal
  • We present these affirmations to the Church worldwide, and especially to leaders in business, church, government, and academia.
  • We call the church to embrace wealth creation as central to our mission of holistic transformation of peoples and societies.We call for fresh, ongoing efforts to equip and launch wealth creators to that very end.
  • We call wealth creators to perseverance, diligently using their God-given gifts to serve God and people.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam – For the greater glory of God
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Read Manifesto in 13 Languages

For a short introduction to the work of the Global Consultation on Wealth Creation and the background to the Manifesto, please read Calling the Church to Affirm Wealth Creators, and also Mats Tunehag’s introductory blog Wealth Creation Manifesto

 

Wealth Creation Manifesto with Bible References

Background

The Lausanne Movement and BAM Global organized a Global Consultation on The Role of Wealth Creation for Holistic Transformation, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in March 2017. About 30 people from 20 nations participated, primarily from the business world, and also from church, missions and academia. The findings will be published in several papers and a book, as well as an educational video. This Manifesto conveys the essentials of our deliberations before and during the Consultation.

Affirmations

1. Wealth creation is rooted in God the Creator, who created a world that flourishes with abundance and diversity.

2. We are created in God’s image, to co-create with Him and for Him, to create products and services for the common good.

3. Wealth creation is a holy calling, and a God-given gift, which is commended in the Bible.

4. Wealth creators should be affirmed by the Church, and equipped and deployed to serve in the marketplace among all peoples and nations.

5. Wealth hoarding is wrong, and wealth sharing should be encouraged, but there is no wealth to be shared unless it has been created.

6. There is a universal call to generosity, and contentment is a virtue, but material simplicity is a personal choice, and involuntary poverty should be alleviated.

7. The purpose of wealth creation through business goes beyond giving generously, although that is to be commended; good business has intrinsic value as a means of material provision and can be an agent of positive transformation in society.

8. Business has a special capacity to create financial wealth, but also has the potential to create different kinds of wealth for many stakeholders, including social, intellectual, physical and spiritual wealth.

9. Wealth creation through business has proven power to lift people and nations out of poverty.

10. Wealth creation must always be pursued with justice and a concern for the poor, and should be sensitive to each unique cultural context.

11. Creation care is not optional. Stewardship of creation and business solutions to environmental challenges should be an integral part of wealth creation through business.

Appeal
  • We present these affirmations to the Church worldwide, and especially to leaders in business, church, government, and academia.
  • We call the church to embrace wealth creation as central to our mission of holistic transformation of peoples and societies.We call for fresh, ongoing efforts to equip and launch wealth creators to that very end.
  • We call wealth creators to perseverance, diligently using their God-given gifts to serve God and people.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam – For the greater glory of God

The Manifesto is based on, among other things, lessons learned from Holy Scriptures. Listed below are some initial Scripture references regarding issues dealt with by the Consultation and expressed in the Manifesto. The list is not exhaustive, but is intended to spur further studies and conversations.

1. God is Creator of all things: Gen 1:1-2:4; Neh 9:6; Ps 104; Rev 4:11
2. Earth belongs to God: Lev 25:23; 1 Chron 29:11; Ps 24:1; 1 Cor 10:26; Gen 2:15
3. God is the giver of wealth: 1 Chron 29:11-12; Prov 8:18-21
4. Our creation in God’s image: Gen 1:26,27; Gen 9:6
5. Our work as people made in God’s image: Gen 1:26,28; Gen 2:15; Eph 4:8; 1 Tim 5:8
6. The command to work (and rest): Gen 2:15; Ex 20:9-11; Deut 5:13-15
7. Bezalel and craftsmen for tabernacle enabled by God: Ex 36:1-2
8. Wealth creation is both a gift from God and a command: Deut 8:11-18; Deut 28:11,12; Eccl 5:19
9. Hard work leads to wealth: Prov 10:4; Prov 13:4; Prov 18:9 (condemnation of idleness); Prov 20:13
10. All useful work is to be done to God’s glory: Col 3:23,24
11. Wise investors are commended: Matt 25:16-30; Luke 19:11-27
12. Examples of “righteous rich” include Abraham (Gen 13:2), Isaac (Gen 26:12,13), Boaz (Ruth 2), David (1 Chron 28-29), David’s supporters while he was in exile, esp. Barzillai, ‘a very rich man’ (2 Sam 17:27-29, 19:32); Solomon (1 Kgs 3:9-14), Nehemiah (Neh 5), Job (Job 1,29,31,42)
13. Markers of a functioning and restored marketplace: Jer 32
14. A business woman, Lydia, who furthers the gospel: Acts 16:14-15
15. Call to equip God’s people for service: Eph 4:11-16
16. Call to witness and make disciples in all nations: Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8
17. Perils of hoarding: Prov 11:26; Luke 12:16-21; James 5:3
18. Encouragement to sharing: Acts 2:44-45; Acts 4:32; 2 Cor 8:1-15; 2 Cor 9:6-15; 1 Tim 6:18; Heb 13:16
19. Call to generosity: Deut 15:10; Ps 37:21,26; Ps 112:5; Prov 11:25; 2 Cor 9:6;1 Tim 6:18; Acts 20:35
20. Virtue of contentment: Phil 4:11-12; 1 Tim 6:6,8; Heb 13:5
21. Examples of different choices of how to handle wealth: Job 29:1-25; Luke 19:1-10; Acts 4:32-5:11; love of wealth does not satisfy (Eccl 5:10)
22. Calls to help the poor: Ex 23:11; Lev 19:10; Deut 15:7-11; Prov 19:17; Prov 28:27; Prov 31:20; Matt 19:21
23. Extrapolating from the microcosm of the family: how the noble woman’s business ventures creates wealth for her family: Prov 31:10-21
24. Israel’s wealth increased because God gave them the ‘ability to produce wealth’: Deut 8:7-18 – through productive agricultural work, through trade/selling & buying, and through mining; also through obedience (Deut 28:1,11-12; 2 Chron 26:4-5)
25. God’s blessing on nations through material prosperity: Deut 30:9
26. God’s blessing of material prosperity through pursuit of wisdom: Prov 3:16
27. The call to justice: Ps 106:3; Prov 29:7; Is 1:17; Amos 5:24; Zech 7:9, Micah 6:8
28. Sensitivity to context: 1 Cor 9:19-23
29. Power of trade to create wealth (and to corrupt the wealthy): Ezek ch 27-28 (ch 27:12-24 is the most complete and extensive list of trading communities in the Bible)
30. Dependency on agricultural production (equivalent of business in contemporary times): Eccl 5:9; King Uzziah understood this, see 2 Chron 26:10
31. Wealthy Christians in the early church known for generosity in helping the poor and/or building the church: Joseph called Barnabas (Acts 4:36-37); Dorcas (Acts 9:36); Cornelius (Acts 10:1); Lydia (Acts 16:13-15, 40); Jason (Acts 17:5-9); Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2-3); Mnason of Cyprus (Acts 21:16); Phoebe (Rom 16:1); Erastus (Rom 16:23); Chloe (1 Cor 1:11)

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Read Manifesto in 13 Languages

For a short introduction to the work of the Global Consultation on Wealth Creation and the background to the Manifesto, please read Calling the Church to Affirm Wealth Creators, and also Mats Tunehag’s introductory blog Wealth Creation Manifesto

 

Wealth Creation and Justice

Executive Summary

This paper examines ‘wealth creation and justice’ through three different lenses. In section one, Paul Miller investigates the claim that the basis for the Christian’s duty of helping the poor, the widow, and the oppressed, is a duty rooted in justice rather than in mercy/charity. Section two, by Tim Weinhold, examines the biblical mandates to employers and business owners: what it means to act both justly and righteously in the economic realm. Section three, by Mats Tunehag,[i] then examines how biblical wealth creation is essential for effective strategies to combat human trafficking. Businesses are key to both prevention and restoration of human trafficking survivors.

In section one, Miller claims to see a dangerous tendency today dismissing ‘charity’—mercy-based actions—as sub-biblical, with justice-based action urged as the proper replacement. The paper critiques the alleged biblical basis for this tendency as argued in selected writings of Jim Wallis, Tim Keller, and Greg Forster, and it critiques it chiefly for its ‘interchangeability’ argument.

That is, Wallis, Keller, and Forster argue that helping the weak and vulnerable is not ‘charity’ but always an act of ‘justice’, basing their argument on the fact that two chief Hebrew words for ‘justice’ (mishpat) and ‘righteousness’ (tzadeqah)—terms often connected with the biblical commands to help the vulnerable— are so constantly ‘associated’ and ‘brought together’ that this shows they are actually ‘interchangeable’, interchangeable to the degree that what is ‘just’ and what is ‘right’ are essentially the same. The danger here is that included in ‘what is right’—tzadeqah, ‘righteousness’—are all the acts of kindness, generosity, and mercy, which are usually categorized as ‘charity’. But if these acts are ‘essentially the same’ as justice, then the line between mercy/grace and justice has been obliterated, and mercy swallowed up by justice. Indeed, Keller comments that Micah 6:8’s command to ‘‘do justice and love mercy,’ which seem at first glance to be two different things… are not.’ This is dangerous.

It is dangerous both in our relationship with God and man: With God, because the distinction between justice and mercy/grace is absolutely fundamental (grace, not justice, is the entire basis of our relationship). With man, subsuming mercy into justice is equally destructive as it encourages a victimization mentality—our needs become others’ problems that they, in justice, must meet. Our own responsibility is obliterated. Wallis, Keller, and Forster are right to insist on the Christian’s duty to help the vulnerable, but to turn that into a duty of justice is not the way forward.

Tim Weinhold’s second section focuses on three areas. First, he lays out God’s justice requirements which condemn businesspeople who take advantage of their workers, particularly through exploitive compensation. Second, he moves beyond simple justice to spell out an even higher biblical duty laid upon employers—the duty of shared rewards. Extrapolating from the biblical command of ‘do not muzzle the ox’, Weinhold notes that God wants something more even beyond the ‘livable wage’ for employees—that they should be allowed to enjoy bonus feedings over and above the normal feedings (wages) provided by the farmer. They are to enjoy the shared rewards of the business’ success.

Third, Weinhold unpacks God’s Old Testament commands concerning ‘gleanings’—farmers allowing the poor to pick ‘gleanings’ from their field. He explains its intention to forge a direct connection between the needs of the poor and the predominant wealth-generating businesses of the day, then puzzling out the reason God left the specifics of this gleaning command so vague—to effect a transformation of the heart of the businessperson in the process. It was meant to solve both parties’ mutual poverty—both the rich businessperson’s propensity to selfishness and the larger community’s physical lack.

In section three, Mats Tunehag examines how biblical wealth creation is critical for liberation of those crushed by economic injustice. As an example, it considers business solutions to human trafficking. A root cause to this modern-day slavery is unemployment. This makes people vulnerable to traffickers and creates high-risk areas where people are tricked and trapped.

Millions of people are held as slaves today; more than were shipped across the Atlantic during the legal slave trade. Today human-trafficking is illegal. While there is room for improvements of laws and law enforcement, we recognize that today, the systemic issue is lack of jobs. Thus wealth creators—businesspeople—are needed. This section shows how businesses are coming to the forefront to bring hope and restoration through jobs with dignity. It describes businesses that exist to fight human-trafficking, called freedom businesses. This section highlights the Freedom Business Alliance, a global trade association, which exists to help freedom business succeed.

[Quotes in italics are excerpts from the report, unless otherwise stated.]

[i] With significant input from Jennifer Roemhildt Tunehag.

Justice

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Wealth Creators’ Contribution to Holistic Transformation

Executive Summary

This report explores the historical and current effect of wealth creation through business on poverty. It provides examples and suggestions for wealth creators to intentionally contribute to holistic transformation.

In defining wealth creation, this report holds true wealth is the ability to fully embrace our Creator’s world complete with relationships, helping others to create wealth and having a sustainable and scalable wealth creation model. Deuteronomy 8:18 reminds us that it is our God who gives us the capacity to create wealth. God intends material blessing for us, but we must remember him in the midst of all our creating.

 We explored the Industrial Revolution and the recent globalization of business and its impact on poverty statistics. The decrease in poverty followed the Industrial Revolution. As productivity increased, the factory system grew. While the countries at the forefront of industrialization prospered, the countries from which the raw materials were gathered—the Global South or the Far East—did not always find it a positive force to bring them out of poverty. It took actually making and selling the goods to do that.

As a country study we looked at Albania as communism fell and the country opened to the gospel. Religious freedom and the growth of the church did not bring Albania out of poverty. Foreign Aid also did not bring Albania out of poverty. Perhaps it could be said that while aid is helpful, when it does not focus on economic development, people remain in poverty. Yes, poverty has gone down about 10 percent, but even that is based on only USD 1.25 per day: clearly inadequate.

 Looking at past successful moves to bring the gospel and wealth creation, we reviewed the historical spread of the gospel along the trade routes. For instance the Nestorians traveled the Silk Road reaching China with the gospel by the sixth century. They utilized the same word for evangelist as businessperson. We also looked at the exemplary business principles of the Quakers, Moravians, and Basel mission.

Asking how we might examine businesses today, we developed a grid to measure businesses on strategic and intentional biblical wealth creation. To make the grid practical we provided examples of three businesses.

Finally, we also suggested forming an organization to provide young business leaders experience and mentoring by experienced wealth creators.

In conclusion:

We believe that creating real wealth is what God desires from us: wealth that blesses families, communities, and countries. That blessing includes sharing faith and love, providing jobs that are meaningful and reflect the creativeness of our God. Building business for the long haul: sustainable and scalable. . . . We trust that these examples will spark the church and business community to consider how they might affirm, align and release wealth creators to the ministry of the gospel.

[Quotes in italics are excerpts from the report, unless otherwise stated.]

Creators' Contribution

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Wealth Creation and the Stewardship of Creation

Executive Summary

The care of creation is one with wealth creation, and wealth creation is key in stewarding creation. First, intentionally stewarding their businesses following the creation mandate, wealth creators witness Christ’s love for his creation to others, and presages creation’s full restoration. Second, wealth creators can apply their innovation and ingenuity to meet the environmental challenges we face.

Wealth creators realize environmental stewardship is a spiritual exercise. It is a reconversion to conservation. It is a spiritual battle against the forces of greed and selfishness with weapons of grace through the creation of wealth for the common good. Seeing creation as good, realizing creation is not ours to own but to steward, realizing we have been commanded to work the ground and prosper from its fruits, gives us the perspective of love as we use all the talents God has given.

The basic biblical premise for man’s interaction with creation and creation with dignified work is clear. In the beginning, God worked to make his creation.[i] We acknowledge him as Creator. His creative work gave us the resources ‘to work it and keep it’ (Gen 1:15). We are stewards. It had been given to us as a good gift to use and care for.

A creation steward sees business as a web of relationships, not a linear progression. The premise of this web comes from an ecological understanding of everything being related to everything else.

This paper is a call to action. It is a call to action for Christians to lead the charge in creation care, to bring back hope to the debate of environmental stewardship. It is a call to collaborate with all people of goodwill to take care of our common home. It is a call to organize scientists and wealth creators to work together to provide solutions for environmental problems. It is a call to provide practical guidelines to help wealth creators to run their businesses and personal life as environmental stewards.

 

[i] Timothy Keller and Katherine Leary Alsdorf, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (New York: Penguin Books, 2016), 34.

Stewardship of Creation

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Wealth Creation: Biblical Views and Perspectives

Executive Summary

This paper explores biblical perspectives on the theme of ‘wealth creation for holistic transformation’: its biblical meaning, basis, purpose, and implications. It first looks at the very meaning of these terms—what is meant by ‘wealth’ and by ‘holistic transformation’. It then moves on to examine the biblical foundations for wealth creation, observing that wealth creation is rooted in God the Creator (Genesis 1 and Psalm 104) who purposed us to express his creative nature through work and carrying for the garden (Genesis 2).

There is, however, good work and bad work, good business and bad business. Thus this paper next explores biblical principles for ‘good’ business. In doing so, it focuses on the concepts ‘shalom’, the ‘common good’ and a business’ ‘proper purpose’—a purpose which is far broader than simply maximizing return on investment.

The subject of wealth and economics is full of thorny issues. These cannot and should not be avoided. Thus, the paper goes on to tackle three contentious issues: partnership with non-Christians in business, simplicity as command or calling, and shared-rewards in the capitalist economic system.

Regarding partnership with non-Christians, the two sides—warnings and encouragements, be in the world but not of it—are both presented. Regarding the question of whether simplicity is a command for all or rather a calling for some, this paper argues strenuously for the latter. And finally, regarding the subject of shared-rewards, the writer here looks at the business implications of 1 Corinthians 9:9-10, ‘For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.”’ The apostle Paul was clear that this biblical injunction was never meant merely for animals. It can and should be applied to business, this paper suggests. Doing so, might well alleviate many of the tensions currently tearing apart our societies worldwide.

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Wealth Creation within Global Cultural Perspectives

Executive Summary

This paper examines culture’s impact upon the biblical mandate to create wealth for holistic transformation, and it does so in four steps. First, it examines the concept of culture itself: what is it and how should Christians respond to it? We are called to be both in the world and not of the world—to have one foot in eternity and transcendence with the other foot firmly in time and immanence—and this is the tension explored in section one.

Next, the paper examines the ‘anthropological temptation’: the temptation to idolize culture, and to overreact by freezing it in time, thus preventing the organic change that is natural to culture. Economic development is an aspect of and partner to culture; and at the same time, it is a challenge to culture. Exploring the push-pull relationship generally between business and culture serves as an introduction to our next section.

The third section of the paper develops further the business-and-culture tension by first scrutinizing three values thought to be key to business development—efficiency, entrepreneurship, and self-help—and asking whether they are biblical and universal or simply culture-specific. Second, this section reminds us of the danger involved in cross-cultural business through a case study of nineteenth-century Hawaii, which lost its independence largely through the failure of business integration. And third, this section then asks whether interior cultural change is key to business success or outer legal structures, concluding that both are important.

Lastly, the paper moves from these big picture foundational issues to addressing the specific attributes for individuals and organizations seeking to actually engage in cross-cultural wealth creation. Attributes such as integrity, hard work, communication styles and the importance of a local mentor are addressed. Only when Christians adopt these attributes can we begin to tackle the cultural challenges involved in addressing one of the many purposes of God’s heart: wealth creation for the holistic transformation of peoples and nations.

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Role of the Church in Wealth Creation

Executive Summary

Ephesians 4 tells us that the church is to equip God’s people for service. This report explores,

What is the role of the church and its leaders in enlightening, educating, equipping, and empowering God’s people for the service of wealth creation? How is the church to be involved in inspiring, commissioning, and releasing people who launch businesses that provide jobs and that bring redemptive influence for the benefit of the whole community, and even for entire sectors of the economy? What is the role of the church in wealth creation for holistic transformation?

We acknowledge that wealth creation is a godly gift. Various material blessings can and should result from its proper use and be beneficial to the greater community.

We believe that businesses can contribute to . . . positive, holistic, and redemptive purposes. We affirm that businesses can and should assess their activities in terms of a fourfold bottom line—financial, social, spiritual, and environmental.

However, the issue of wealth creation is too often neglected or misunderstood. One major stumbling block is the sacred/secular divide. We need to see that ‘God’s concerns are holistic, and so is the mission of the church.’

The lack of business experience and exposure to business among pastors, and the lack of relevant teaching on wealth creation are among the reasons that ‘so many Christians hear little teaching, preaching, or discussion in the church about the activities that engage the greatest proportion of their time in between times of worship—that is, their daily work.’  Other reasons include the perceptions of corruption in the business world and the lack of visible structures for commissioning and sending.

We propose four steps to address these obstacles and to engage the church in equipping business people to serve in the marketplace:

1. Enlighten: to create awareness through conferences and other means.

2. Educate: to accomplish a ‘shift in the minds of people from interest to commitment’.

3. Equip: to serve as a ‘boot camp for aspiring BAMers to become missional entrepreneurs’.

4. Empower: to design a roadmap for action; ‘at this point the church should proactively seek help and collaboration from other ministries or churches for the sake of the Kingdom of God.’

The report also deals with the importance of the ‘creation mandate’, which is a basis for our calling and engagement in entrepreneurship and commerce.

The report suggests that ‘the church can and should be a part of helping individuals, communities, and economic and social structures work toward . . . a state of comprehensive flourishing, with the elimination of both economic and spiritual poverty, to the glory of God.’

At the same time, we are aware of potential pitfalls, and we list some limitations and express some words of caution as the church plays an active role in wealth creation.

The report includes historical case studies on church and wealth creation as well as contemporary ones from China, South Korea, Central Asia, USA, and Rwanda.

Finally, we echo the appeal in the Wealth Creation Manifesto:

  • We call the church to embrace wealth creation as central to our mission of holistic transformation of peoples and societies.
  • We call for fresh, ongoing efforts to equip and launch wealth creators to that very end.
  • We call wealth creators to perseverance, diligently using their God-given gifts to serve God and people.

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Wealth Creation and the Poor

Executive Summary

God has always shown a concern for the poor. It is clear in laws, commands, and prophetic actions in the Old Testament. Jesus and the New Testament affirm this. Jesus even emphasized the critical importance of concern for the poor and needy from the very outset of his ministry (cf Luke 4:18-19). Thus, as the Wealth Creation Manifesto states, ‘wealth creation must always be pursued with justice and a concern for the poor.’

The church has for 2,000 years practically demonstrated love for the poor, albeit primarily through charity responses. The report gives some glimpses of these interventions.

Poverty can be seen as the absence of shalom (peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, and safety) in all its meanings. It is not just a matter of money; it can also include spiritual and social poverty. The report also discusses the difference between absolute and relative poverty, as well as various causes to poverty.

From the Manifesto: ‘Wealth creation through business has proven power to lift people and nations out of poverty.’ 

History clearly shows that increased production of goods and services lift people and nations out of poverty. There is biblical support for this strategy. This kind of wealth creation is correlated with life expectancy, less diseases, higher literacy, and healthier environment. Aid alone cannot achieve this.

The church has most often ‘responded to poverty and suffering through charity and aid for temporary and short-term relief. Yet, more often than not, that response has not addressed long-term needs, such as employment, and even worse, these interventions have hurt detrimentally instead of helping.’

Historically, the church has mainly been involved in wealth distribution, and overlooked the importance of wealth creation. ‘Imagine the increase in impact if the church fully embraced its mission to create wealth in addition to the distribution of wealth.’

Our individual response to poverty is reviewed from various aspects, whether we are rich or poor.

This report goes on to argue for a ‘need to continue making this crucial shift, from the giver-receiver mentality to a truly dignified approach to walk alongside people as they work themselves out of poverty.’ To that end, ‘it is time to engage, affirm and support a global movement of entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes.’

We recognize the intimate relationship between work and worship. God created us to be creative, also in business; and wealth can and should be created. From the Manifesto: ‘Wealth creation is a holy calling, and a God-given gift, which is commended in the Bible.’

Wealth creation is good when done for God and for people. ‘God is not opposed to money and wealth, but he is opposed to wealth wrongfully gained and wrongful attitudes towards it. However, for the purpose of this paper, we are focusing on wealth that honors God in its creation as well as distribution.’

The report also deals with prosperity theology and liberation theology. It examines these concepts through the lens of the biblical creation mandate.

Entrepreneurs, professionals and businesses are essential for the creation of wealth. From the Manifesto: ‘Good business has intrinsic value as a means of material provision and can be an agent of positive transformation in society.’

But the report also covers the crucial role of government for property laws and security, for infrastructure and education, as well as the importance of rule of law.

As we do business, we create financial, social, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual wealth. . . . The wealth we create has the potential to make a great difference in the lives of individuals, families, and communities. The gift and calling to create wealth is beyond a microfinance loan or a single small or medium-sized business. It is about building nations and seeking the welfare of communities.

CWC1 Cover 300

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