Patron/Client Relationship

I am big on contextualized reading of the Bible. ie. you are just making stuff up if you read the creation story and "see" God creating a sphere orbiting the sun, when the original writer and reader meant and "saw" a dome covered flat earth fixed in place. Matthew Green takes a look at some theologians doing this with the issue of faith and salvation, and the damage it does to modern Christianity.

Thus patron-client relationships were based upon the perception of limited-good in society. Where goods are not seen as being limited in nature, there was no perceived need for any patron-client relationship. The problem with Turkel's suggestion that Christians have a "patron-client" relationship is that it suffers from decontextualization. It would be a tad bit similar to someone using slang from a British sitcom like "Are You Being Served?" (which was filmed in the 70s and early 80s) in America today. Such slang, while appropriate and funny in Britain back then, would be grossly out of place in America. Turkel's argument that "faith" is deserved trust in God as a patron is right on target as far as understanding how 1st century Christians would have seen themselves in relation to God, but such a "patron-client" relationship, indeed, any such dyadic contract, is utterly out of place, precisely because of the perceived nature of limited goods does not exist here in America. America is currently a capitalist, individualist, pride-guilt society. We display our sense of pride in terms of material acquisition and wealth accumulation. In America, there is class mobility and people are rewarded for their hard work and hard work, higher education, and good planning can become the basis of class mobility. In America there is no need for dyadic contracts, which the patron-client relationship was grounded in, and hence no need for a "patron-client' relationship with human beings nor God.

What this means, is simple: no Christian, living in America, has any dyadic contract with God. A dyadic contract presupposed that goods are limited in nature.

Read it all....