Jesus Saves, but He’s No Protectionist

National renewal, economic or otherwise, is praiseworthy. We must always tend to our community, for “in its peace you will have peace” (Jerermiah 29:7). But the international community isn’t a faceless agglomeration of governments, nonprofits and multinational institutions. It consists of real people with whom we can produce and exchange, and turning away from them isn’t the right answer for Christians. Church tradition affirms the providential nature of international commerce.

The church rightly teaches that wealth can be spiritually dangerous. But that doesn’t mean it condemns production and exchange. Trade has many beneficent features. Through commerce, we enter into fellowship, even “friendship, compassion, or love” with millions of anonymous others. That they are unknown to us—and we to them—doesn’t prevent us from cooperating for the good of all. When citizens of different nations trade with one another, they express their brotherhood as children of God and create bonds of virtue between their communities.

Cautious optimism about commerce has strong patristic foundations. St.

John Chrysostom,

the great fourth-century preacher and defender of orthodoxy, exemplifies the church’s nuanced perspective on wealth and commerce. In a homily on Lazarus and the rich man, he calls those who hoard wealth “robbers lying in wait.” While material possessions can serve good ends, temptations to “luxury and other profligacy” imperil our souls. Yet St. John also posits that it isn’t wealth alone that is evil but rather the “bad use” of it. Hence commerce, the source of wealth, can be a blessing. Through economic exchange, the world becomes “as one house,” as St. John writes in a letter to a penitent. Although each nation “inhabits a small portion of the earth,” production and exchange bring the bounty of creation to all and make them “masters of the whole.” Differences in tastes, talents and natural resources are intended by God to bring humanity together.

Christian support for trade has deep roots. One of the church’s most beloved saints, Nicholas of Myra (270-343), is the patron and protector of seafaring merchants. In the Middle Ages, amid recurring religious wars, the 12th-century scholastic theologian Hugh of St. Victor pointed to the pacifying nature of trade: “The pursuit of commerce reconciles nations, calms wars, strengthens peace, and commutes the private good of individuals into the common benefit of all.”

This doesn’t mean that Christians must support international trade on any terms. When we enter into commercial relationships with those who oppress their fellow men—such as Chinese counterparties who economically and politically exploit Uyghurs—we participate in their iniquity. As St. John and others warned, the pursuit of wealth can’t be justified at any cost. Rather, we should recenter the discussion on one of the most important questions Jesus was ever asked: “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29).

Jesus answered with his most famous parable: the Good Samaritan. A Samaritan, notably, was considered a foreigner to the Jewish community in Judaea at the time—racially and religiously distinct and excluded. He was the descendant of another nation, the long-since-conquered northern kingdom of Israel. Yet Jesus points to a foreigner’s compassion for a man in distress as the ideal of neighborly love, made concrete through acts of not only charity but commerce: “He took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you’ ” (Luke 10:35).

Rather than condemn international commerce, Christians should understand it as a medium through which we honor others as our neighbors. Once that is established, the Bible is clear on what we should do: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Economic historians call this the doctrine of “universal economy.” We call it providence.

Mr. Pahman is a research fellow at the Acton Institute and executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality. Mr. Salter is an economics professor at Texas Tech University, a research fellow at TTU’s Free Market Institute and a senior fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research.