Viewpoint: Resurrectionomics

Our economy is driven by three fundamental factors, the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. The word economics comes from two phrases, that in short, mean “the management or administration of household resources or things essential to daily life.” Where there’s a surplus, life is good. Where there’s a deficit, life can be tough.

On a secular level the economy is about things essential to survival. At the spiritual level the essential truth of Christian faith life is a belief and trust in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I call it “Resurrectionomics” because where there is a surplus of faith in the resurrection, life is full and wonderful. But where there’s a deficit, there’s a crisis of confidence in all things important to us.

The resurrection made right a relationship that went wrong at our own hands. Without that relationship, our faith economy falters. The collapse shows up in how we react to the actions of the powers that be.

These White House centered reality TV Show antics shake the nation’s confidence in itself and the stability of the world around us. The domino effect is undeniable. The dangerous banter between the United States and the world’s other Megalomaniac in North Korea are cause for real concern. The saber rattling threatens our world and personal stability. It heightens insecurities and gives us another reason to worry beyond trying to make it in the world. Now Americans most comfortable with being productive in life must think about the survival of the world as they know it.

Are we there because we don’t understand the power of the resurrection? Are we there because we’ve never considered how it is written into the DNA of nature, how it makes hope possible and overcoming inevitable.

Sometimes I wonder, have we forgotten that the Christ of the Resurrection has been making a habit of flipping trump cards throughout history? Maybe the time has come to see how he flips this one. After all slavery was flipped; Jim Crow was flipped; segregation was flipped; and those who opposed women’s rights have been flipped. It was all done in the construct of a Divine Economy. By sheer nature and power the resurrected one always turns the total of the sum of death and dying into the substance of eternal life.

When was the last time China had to say let cooler heads prevail; let’s not let things go too far. Isn’t it amazing where the resurrection spirit shows up?

Resurrectionomics even plays a roll in the political sphere. Those who lost in previous elections because they did not vote, voted in protest or unintentionally bought into the Russia’s manipulation scheme don’t have to accept a political death of sorts. Their coming back to life may already be in the works. It may have a scheduled day and time about a year from now. Who knows, maybe that Resurrection will take place on Election Day November 6, 2018. On that day 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 34 seats in the U.S. Senate are up for grabs. 39 state and territorial governorships are contested. What a great getting up morning November 7 next year could become should a right thinking majority rise from the death of a political mistake to halt a deadly anti-democracy agenda.

Resurrectionomics is the personal production, distribution and consumption of a faith that applies the gift of salvation and the power of God to everything in our lives. It is the engine that drives our conviction that nothing can separate us from His love, neither life, nor death, nor kings or principalities, nor rulers of the darkness can prevent us from living life and life more abundantly. It’s all because of that third day morning, isn’t it?

Dennis Edwards is the Interim-Pastor of Richmond’s Historic 4th Baptist Church. He is an Emmy Award Winning Investigative Television Journalist, a graduate of Virginia Union University and its Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology.