Salvation's Default Setting

Default settings influence behavior. According to Behavioraleconomics.com

Requiring people to opt out if they do not wish to donate their organs, for example, has been associated with higher donation rates (Johnson & Goldstein, 2003). Similarly, making contributions to retirement savings accounts has become automatic in some countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

These default settings are more than just organ donation and retirement accounts. Default settings impact our understanding of salvation.

What do you think is salvation's default?

Important - This is not a real poll.

Some of us hold that all of humanity is defaulted to hell or separation from God. The way to change the setting from the default (hell) to a different option (heaven) is by accepting Jesus as Lord and be baptized. The rest of life is working to ensure that the change in the salvation setting sticks and does not return to the default setting. There is a concern that living an unchecked life our salvation setting will return to the default.

Some of us hold that all of humanity is defaulted to heaven or union with God. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. There are times when the consequences of our actions change the setting, but God is quick to change the setting back to salvation. The rest of life is living out of thanksgiving for the Good News of God’s saving grace and love.

Salvation’s default setting does not mean that is what salvation will be: not unlike defaulting into being an organ donor means you will be an organ donor. Things change. We live with the consequences of our actions and no one knows for certain what is to come.

Perhaps our approach to “the other” is dependent upon how we see salvation’s default setting? Perhaps our approach to our own lives is dependent upon how we see salvation’s default setting?

And so, what is salvation’s default setting?

Simple Insight from Economics Dramatically Changes the Church

A few years ago, Daniel Kahneman was awarded the Noble Prize in Economics. He is the credited as one of the grandfather of the field known as Behavioral Economics. As I understand it, standard economics assumes that people act as rational beings. That is to say that if given the proper information, people will choose to act in their best interests. It assumes that if a person does not act rationally, then that person is either ignorant, inept or a jerk. Behavioral economics argues that human beings are not rational beings, because all humans often act irrationally. For instance:

https://kahneman.socialpsychology.org/

• We do not save enough money for the future
• We will watch the whole movie even if after 15 minutes we know we will not enjoy the movie
• We chose more often when there are fewer options than if there are more options
• We don't go to a doctor because we don't want to know what is wrong

According to standard economics these are irrational actions.

Kahneman shared that there are two forces that drive human behavior: driving forces and restraining forces. This is rather intuitive, we do things because of our driving forces but we understand that there are sometimes restraining forces that keep us from taking action. For instance, we know we should work out more often (the driving force is that it is good for our health). However, for many the strong restraining force of children waking up at 5am demanding attention keeps many from working out. We know it is important to save money for the future, but we also have bills today to pay.

The Church, like standard economics, pay a lot of attention to the driving forces in our lives. For much of the Church the underlying question is, “How can we get people to do (insert action here)?” The Church uses tools such as preaching, teaching, begging, inspiring, as well as fear, guilt and social norms to drive people to action.

Additionally, the Church, like standard economics, has been less attentive to the restraining forces in our world.

The great irony is that the Church is in a good position to address the restraining forces because the Church has an entire language dedicated to these forces. The restraining force of sin is a powerful force that restrains us from acting from the better angels of our nature. While the Church needs to take seriously the question of driving forces, the Church also needs to take just as seriously the question. Rather than focusing on how can we get people to act, we ought to consider “why are people not already doing the desired action?”

If the Church focuses only the driving forces in our lives, then the Church will miss the mark on helping Christ in the world. The Church needs to address the restraining forces in the world and in the lives of people.

We need to address the reality that many people want to come to church, but are just too busy and tired. Many people love Jesus and want to follow him, but find biblical literalism laughable. Many people desire to have a place to belong but are turned off by checking their mind at the door. Many people want to attend a collective gathering where they are moved by music and the transcendent but cannot get on board with the concert of worship leaders.

Working with the driving forces is rational and easy, but humans are often irrational and difficult.

Difficult and irrational is the wheelhouse of the Kingdom of God

Jubilee Bank - Could it work?

A few years ago I had this dream called "Jubilee Bank". It was a hybrid of micro-credit and "pay day lending". The idea was to use the network of churches in the UMC to advance money to a person in need (like a pay day lender would). However, the overhead of the Jubilee Bank would be much less than that of a single pay day lender thus, Jubilee Bank could afford to lower the interest rate (perhaps at the proposed cap of 35%). Additionally, rather than use the title of a car for collateral (like that of a Title Loan company) the Jubilee Bank might be more modeled after payday loans. This may insure the borrower could get quick cash to cover an emergency while ensuring the lender is not taking on too much risk. Jubilee bank would not have to receive interest, but make it clear that any over-drafting on the account of the borrower was risk they had to accept.

It never came to fruition but the dream still is there. 

The payday lending area has been demonized by many with a lot of different data. Recently Freakanomics radio took on the merits of some of these claims in their episode, "Are Payday Loans Really as Evil as People Say?" This episode stoked the dream of Jubilee Bank. 

I encourage you to take some time to listen to the episode and then close your eyes and see if you can see a world with a Jubilee Bank?