Economics as Evidence of Redemption

For over a year now I've had this hunch about hope. I keep hearing these two ideas from two different schools of thought, and I wonder if we can draw a line between them.

The first idea is that despite the constant warnings of the doomsday prophets, the world is continually improving. This message is generally delivered by a small but optomistic group of classical economists, who point out that despite the war, famine, and slavery still present in our world, things are measurably better for almost every human being on earth than they were just a hundred years ago. I've shared articles and videos to this effect on this blog before, but here are a few new ones:

• The world's poor are getting richer faster than its rich are getting richer. Per capita wealth in the richest countries is still 45 times that of the poorest countries, but a decade ago, wealthy countries had 135 times as much wealth. The population distribution of wealth in the world is changing so that most people live somewhere in the middle between the very rich and the very poor. This is further explained in this brilliant lecture, as well as this one, by everyone's favorite statistician, Hans Rosling (who fervently believes it is possible for us to conquer poverty).
• Africa's economy is improving so rapidly that many are arguing we must view Africa as an investment and not a charity case. Again according to Hans Rosling, the improvement occurring in the developing world is vastly misunderstood and underestimated. Even the U.N. has not understood how quickly child mortality is dropping.
• Writer Matt Ridley notes that in the past 50 years, the average per capita income of every person on earth has tripled, lifespan is up by 30%, child mortality is down by 2/3, and per capita food production is up by 1/3—all while the population has doubled. 
• U.S. energy use (the biggest consumer of energy in the world) is dropping and shifting to renewables.
• Each generation is better off than the one before it. In fact, an economics podcast I listen to recently conducted a poll and found that of the 3,500 people who participated, 2/3 would rather be middle-class in 2010 than rich in 1900.

The second idea comes from New Testament scholar N. T. Wright. I haven't yet read any of Wright's work (Surprised by Hope has been on my to-read list for some time), but I've been taught about his ideas a good bit, and one of them goes something like this: the resurrection was not merely the salvation of God's people from their sins, allowing them to one day fly away to glory once the troubles of this world have passed, but rather the earth-splitting beginning of God's redemption of the world. A new heaven and new earth are not far-off fantasies, they are a movement which God has begun, which we may (indeed, we must) take part in as his followers.

This theological position runs contrary to many of the protestant traditions I am familiar with, which see the world in a steady state of moral decay, evidenced by everything from war and famine to abortion and sex on T.V. But if we look at the grand, global, social and economic history of the world, we find ourselves in the middle of a long and steady improvement which has experienced a revolution of unbelievable acceleration in the last century or so. There is a great deal of evidence that there is much good at work in the world, and my faith compels me to acknowledge good work as the presence of God.

I have this hunch we have reason to hope.

Thanks to Dr. Buckley and J.H. Brookie for some of the links in this post.
Image: used with permission from J500 Media and the Environment