Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators: A Biblical Response to Ronald J. Sider [Paperback]

David Chilton (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 439 pages
• Publisher: Inst for Christian Economics; 3 edition (June 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0930464044
• ISBN-13: 978-0930464042
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #356,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Chilton is the president of Financial Awareness Corporation, a financial consulting firm. The Wealthy Barber and The Wealthy Barber Returns TV shows have enjoyed tremendous popularity since first airing on Public Television in the spring of 1993. Previous editions of this book have sold 2 million copies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but writer's anger distracts from his points..., April 3, 2004

By 

Leslie F. Knox "Leslie Fuller Knox" (Chicagoland, Illinois) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators: A Biblical Response to Ronald J. Sider (Paperback)

Interesting points, but book flawed by author's obsessional contempt for Ron Sider. Reading the book... (good grief, reading the dustjacket copy!)makes you fear for Chilton's health, pursuing as he does a scorched-earth policy toward the other writer. These passions are most commonly associated with a divorce court, not one confessing Christian responding to another.
If you really, really hate Ron Sider or love, love David Chilton, this is the book for you! Otherwise, non-combatants should clear the dance floor! Sadly, this reads like an attack book, not a treatise. (Where was the editor?) By focusing more on the author's persona, the work misses the mark of debating the merits of this complex issue of economics and Christianity, the pursuit or avoidance of wealth; charity; guilt, etc. A missed opportunity.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A SOMEWHAT STRIDENT, YET CHALLENGING RESPONSE TO RON SIDER, July 26, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators: A Biblical Response to Ronald J. Sider (Paperback)

David Chilton (1951-1997) was a Calvinist pastor, Christian Reconstructionist, and author. (He died of a heart attack.) He is perhaps most read these days for his books on eschatology from a "Preterist" viewpoint (see The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation,Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion, and The Great Tribulation.)

Ronald Sider's 1977 book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity (revised in 1990 as Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Revised & Expanded) generated both praise, controversy, and criticism. Chilton's 1981 book (published by Gary North's Institute for Christian Economics) is probably the lengthiest critical view in print. (Chilton dedicated his book to Pat Robertson, "a 'productive Christian' who is leading God's people to victory.")

Chilton states in his Introduction, "The purpose of the present book is to examine and refute Sider's thesis from the viewpoint of biblical law. My position is that the Bible calls for a free market in which the state does not intervene. This is not a 'pure' laissez-faire economic system in an anarchic or antinomian sense: the laws of the Bible do prohibit certain activities from taking place. Consenting adults are not the highest authority... Charity is personal, though not purely 'voluntary,' since biblical law commands it---but on the other hand, those laws are not enforced by the state: the Bible mandates no civil penalties for failing to obey the charity laws. The Bible stands against all forms of socialism and statism."

Here are some representative (and characteristic) quotations from the book:

"(Sider) confesses that he paid $50 for an extra suit, and 'that money would have fed a starving child in India for about a year.' Well, if you live on this continent, it's tough being righteous all the time. Come to think of it, the money I spent on Sider's book would have fed that kid for over a month." (Chap. 10)
"Now, if only the Lord had thought of that (i.e., "institutional change" rather than "personal charity"). But it's too late. That morally inferior personal charity is encoded into biblical law, and we're stuck with it until heaven and earth pass away. Darn!" (Chap. 12)
"Ronald Sider's concern is not with the poor ... Ronald Sider wants power." (Chap. 12)
"Why, if I were to play dirty like that, I would mention that Sider's beloved Lord Keynes was an atheistic homosexual with a marked taste for young Tunisian boys, which proves that HIS economics is fallacious." (Chap. 13)
"Sider's specific message is one of guilt." (Chap. 15)
"(T)his book ... is written to encourage a return to Scripture ... The statists cannot ultimately prevail." (Chap. 17)

28 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An eye-opening exposition of Biblical economics, July 28, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Fullerton, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulation: A Biblical Response to Ronald J. Sider (Hardcover)

Although this work was written specifically to rebut Ron Sider's book "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger," it also gives a thorough introduction to explicitly Biblical economics. One needn't have read Sider's book to benefit from Chilton's critique of Sider's socialist economics. Chilton gives specific examples of how to apply the economic laws of the Old Testament, and more importantly, why we ought to do so. It is no doubt due to Chilton's persuasive arguments that Sider has, in subsequent editions of his own book, rescinded many of his previously extremist theories.