(FORTUNE Magazine) – Given the number of pastors and bishops who have taken up the cudgels against capitalism, it would be interesting to discover where they acquired their economic wisdom. No better place, one supposes, than the Bible. The Bible is certainly a remarkable piece of work with a lengthy cast of characters: generals, sheepherders, tax gatherers, and fisherfolk. But I know of only one economist -- Joseph, who predicts seven years of plenty followed by seven years of scarcity. For his expertise he is appointed Chairman of the Egyptian Council of Economic Advisers and enjoys a distinguished career in public service. (It is worth noting that Joseph makes his economic forecasts on the basis of dream analysis -- a technique at least as accurate as the ones used by Chase Econometrics or Data Resources Inc.) The strongest clerical criticism of capitalism has come from the U.S. Catholic Bishops in their Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, a final draft of which was adopted by the prelates in November. The letter, titled ''Economic Justice for All,'' chastises capitalism for failing to meet the needs of the poor. It calls, on religious grounds, for substantially greater government intervention to alleviate poverty. The bishops, in turn, have been roundly criticized by a group calling itself the Lay Commission on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. The Lay Commission, led by Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute and former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, says the bishops put too little value on liberty, which it calls ''the distinctive American gift to the social teaching of the church.'' Novak and Simon also complain that the bishops do not understand how the free market helps the poor by fostering growth. Both sides in this fracas have a big problem. The lack of economics in the Bible is something that should be taken seriously. I suspect that there are no proper (or possible) biblical critiques or defenses of modern economies. All such criticisms and defenses are arguments of anachronism. Biblical writings are rooted in a set of social and moral assumptions that, in the context of today's society, are pre-economic. Dialogue between theologians and economists may be as nonsensical as a musical critique of the Dow Jones industrials (the average, not the rock group of the same name). The biblical world is nomadic and pastoral; the dominant value structure is familial. The value system of family pastoralism simply does not recognize any of the topics covered by Paul Samuelson, Robert Barro, or even Karl Marx. Looked at from the biblical standpoint, modern economic structures appear radically flawed -- not because the Bible has a better sense of economics, but because it has virtually no sense of economics whatsoever. I realize that the word economics can cover almost any set of living arrangements. Nowadays one can even write learnedly about the economics of chimpanzees. At some point, however, the sheer complexity of modern industrial, financial, and political arrangements creates a world qualitatively different from the territorial sense of apes or the barter arrangements of nomadic tribes. What would we expect Jeremiah to say about capital formation?

The concern of the churches about the economy is rooted in the cause of economic justice. But consider the central New Testament parables of the Kingdom of God in the light of such concern. The Kingdom of God is like unto a vineyard; some of the laborers are hired at the third hour, some at the sixth, and some at the ninth -- yet all are paid the same wage. The first hired complain to the master: ''These last have wrought but one hour, and thou has made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.'' The master replies, ''Friend, I do thee no wrong: Didst not thou agree with me for a penny? . . . Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?'' One doubts that even a 19th-century robber baron could have got away with that line. Or take the famous parable of the Prodigal Son. When the wastrel younger son returns, the father kills the fatted calf. The older brother complains that he has been faithful and did not squander his inheritance, yet no such festivities were held for him. The father replies, ''It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: For this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.'' Surely there is some point to rejoicing over the one lost sheep and not the 99 who remained. But the faithful sheep -- the faithful son, the laborers who worked the full day -- hardly seem to have received ''economic justice.'' THE LOGIC of ''economic'' distribution in the parables is the logic of the family. I have children: One labors all day, another is always a bit late; they have different talents and contribute greater or lesser amounts to the family well-being. But as family they are loved equally. It is fair to pay workers according to their contributions; it is not right to love my children ^ according to theirs. If the family is our basic social model, then it is right to rejoice when it is restored and the prodigal returns. At one level, then, the Christian social ideal of family love does not reinforce a sense of economic justice, but ignores it. Why not adopt a wholesale family ethic for humankind? Well, where shall we find a parent for this loving community? I don't think that popes, presbyters, or any potential presidential candidates are up to the job description. Karl Barth, the great neo-orthodox theologian, liked to say in critique of the liberal gospel: ''One cannot speak about God simply by speaking about man in a loud voice.'' No political or economic system is sacred. The liberation theologian's attempt to canonize Marx is as inappropriate as Michael Novak's attempt to canonize Adam Smith. Human works are human works, with all the frailty and darkness that this implies. SOME ECONOMIC SYSTEMS should rightly fall under Christian censure, but they are the overplanned, command economies rather than the relatively free-market economies of capitalist countries. The critique of command economies is fundamentally theological. I recall a story about Arthur Koestler describing a party congress in Moscow. A functionary was extolling the virtues of Communism and declared that after the revolution there would be no suffering. Andre Malraux raised his hand and asked, ''What about the child who runs into the street and is struck by a tram car?'' The functionary replied without hesitation, ''After the revolution that will never happen.'' The apparatchik had obviously confused the USSR with the Kingdom of God. (A waggish friend of mine suggested that the functionary may have been correct -- after the revolution there would be no tram cars.) In Graham Greene's novel The Power and the Glory, a whiskey priest is hunted down by a determined lieutenant from the socialist revolutionary government. When the soldier finally confronts the priest, he announces that in the new society all priests must be eradicated and that the state will eliminate all suffering. The priest replies, ''It's no good your working for your end unless you're a good man yourself.'' That is the principal theological fault of Communist regimes -- they require benevolence and omniscience in the leadership. One must know enough to control all markets and tram cars, and one must be perfectly benevolent to eradicate all suffering. Capitalism for all its faults has no such theological pretensions. The market is ''free'' because we lack the wit to know all its labyrinthine ways. Individual consumers are not universally righteous, but one doubts that the economic czar is more than ten points better on the Benevolence Scale. I am all for the Kingdom of God, but I want to be sure that it is really He or She who is in charge. Not even Lee Iacocca is a reasonable facsimile thereof. Christianity preaches the Kingdom of God. History suggests that one should remain determinedly skeptical that this realm is about to be established in Rome, Geneva, Moscow, Tehran, or Nashville. Is Christianity then just what the Marxists always say: pie in the sky by and by? No, but the Christian quarrel need not be with the marketplace. While it would be an economic disaster to base collective bargaining on the parable of the vineyard, it would be moral disaster to establish homo economicus as the last word and latest fashion for the home community. Just as I would not confuse the market with the family, I would not think that the whole reason for human society is economic. In the metaphysics of the market, only those who buy and sell truly exist. The penniless bring nothing to the market, but for all that they do not (morally) disappear. Christian social ethics view the poor as brother, not just a bad bargain. IF I AM NOT PREPARED to consign the poor to nonexistence, does this suggest moral meddling with the market? Biblical ''economy'' is based on fixed assets: land, sheep, and figs. In that pastoral world, distribution is a zero-sum game where the wealthy automatically produce the poor. In that world it makes moral sense to take from the rich and redistribute their assets to the poor. But the pastoral assumption is manifestly doubtful in a complex service and technological economy where investment begets growth that benefits all. If the poor no longer are wealth's necessary byproduct, how much ethical correction should the market admit? Clearly we should reject the omniscient, benevolent commissar (or Congress). And since the one thing we know the poor man requires is what he hasn't got, wealth, one could leave it to economic savants to discover what economic mechanisms produce wealth. The record of GNP growth certainly suggests that free markets do that with remarkable efficiency. But the wealth of nations need not be the reason for nations. Nations, having figured out how to be wealthy, may certainly decide to expend their wealth alleviating poverty or subsidizing such ''nonproducers'' as poets and professors of philosophy.