No Answers?

A few days ago, me and some friends at work had an interesting discussion about the state of the world economy, global injustice and all that kind of stuff. We were all kind of agreed that capitalism has gone a a bit wrong but none of us really seemed to have any good solutions. One person astutely pointed out that it isn't capitalism per se that's the problem, it's human nature, and capitalism in its present form is just one manifestation of that. People are selfish, people are greedy and whatever systems or regulations you set up, people will always try to find a way round them. Of course, that isn't to say that you shouldn't have systems, or that you shouldn't try to regulate!

A few minutes later, as I was mulling over the conversation, I mentioned that I'd read a book when I was a teenager called, "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger", and that it had messed me up for about 10 years afterwards! The book actually affected me for a lot longer than that and it probably still does, in spite of the fact that I can no longer remember any of the contents! What I do remember though, is that it made me feel incredibly guilty about the enormous disparity between rich and poor in the world and about how much wealth I horde, when so many others are doing well even to survive. One of my friends commented - respectfully I thought! - that I obviously think a lot about these sort of things. My response was that, yes, I do think about them, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have very much in the way of answers!

I often feel that as a Christian I ought to have answers. After all, I'm promoting a message which I believe is the ultimate answer - and yet I often feel that there are so many situations that I don't really know how to apply it to, and that this answer is such a long way from being fully worked out or reflected in my own life.

Much later on the same day, I was trying to think about why I didn't know the answers, or at least still don't seem to be able to apply them to my own satisfaction, and it occurred to me again - as it often has before - that in the end I only really have one answer. It isn't another system though, or another set of rules to be followed, it's a person and his name is Jesus. The heart of my faith isn't about rules or systems, it's about an encounter and a relationship with God-who-became-flesh: God who came and lived among us and gave up his life in sacrificial death because that was the extent of his love; who has ridiculously high standards of love and justice and yet lives up to all of them; who understands and has compassion on us in all our weaknesses and failings; who loves us and wants us to change and has the grace and the patience and the ability to make that possible.

This is my answer: That when I look at my life and see the difference between the man I am and the man I'd like to be, I have only to look at the smiling face of my father in heaven to know that I will get there one day and that in the meantime I can be patient as He is with me, knowing that I am loved and accepted and that I will be forever. And the more I appreciate the depth of His love and compassion for me, the more I am able to show the same compassion towards others and to strive for love, mercy, faithfulness and justice, knowing that I am doing the work of the one who loves me and who laid down His life for me and for all those I want to reach out to.

Gamblers & Settlers

Last weekend I played the board game, "Settlers of Catan", with some friends for the first time.

The game board consists of a representation of an island divided into hexagons, each of which represent different types of landscape - forest, mountain, hills, fields and pasture. The first thing that struck me about the game was that each type of landscape also represents a "resource" - lumber, ore, brick, grain and wool respectively. There is also a 6th type of landscape - desert - which contains no resources and is hence treated as useless. The object of the game is to position your pieces in such a way as to maximally exploit these resources for the purpose of developing roads, settlements and cities. This development earns you "victory points" and the first person to acquire 10 points wins the game.

I'm a competitive person with a good mind for problem solving and strategy and I loved this game! These traits combined with a good dose of beginner's luck, meant that I also won on this occasion which of course enhanced my enjoyment considerably! I couldn't help noticing some uncomfortable comparisons with real life though:

As I've already described, the board reduces a large island - which in the real world is a thing of awesome natural beauty and splendour - to nothing more than a set of resources, which are to be exploited as aggressively as possible if you intend to win the game. Of course, within the context of the game no real islands are involved and so no damage is done, but ... what if people were to treat the real world in the same way ... ? You can probably guess where I might be going with this!

The game is necessarily one dimensional as games usually are - they are not intended to reflect or replace the fully-orbed and multi-dimensional nature of life in the real world. They can sometimes reflect the values that are prevalent in that world though, and some people do actually seem to treat life in a similar way.

This article on the BBC News website describes a workshop called, "Investment Heatmap", which took place this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  In this workshop - which was run for the benefit of some of the world's top financial "big-hitters" - each team of participants were given the task of setting up an imaginary investment fund in a particular part of the world. They had to think about what kinds of people to employ to manage the fund, local regulatory frameworks, the state of the market, etc. They also had to consider things like corruption, politics and environmental activism - but only in so far as they might help or hinder their monetary objectives.

This exercise was only a game, but it was a game with a purpose - to help people think about how to approach such situations in real life. It seems to me that the "real life" in which many of these people live though, is actually just the same as the exercise - where the ultimate consideration is the bottom line and all other interests become subservient. To underline this point though, just in case it wasn't clear enough, the room in which the workshop was held was carefully and deliberately laid out like a casino! If this is the view which the world's top financial big hitters have of our world and all of our economies, then it seems small wonder that both have ended up in such a state!

Worshipping What Our Hands Have Made

I will pronounce my judgments on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me, in burning incense to other gods and in worshipping what their hands have made.

- Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 16

Idol worship is a common theme in the Old Testament part of the Bible. It was a common practice among the nations who surrounded Israel, and it seems the Jews just couldn't resist joining in! The inevitable consequence of worshipping something though, is that you begin to become like the thing you worship, and so the Jews quickly took on other, associated practices, and forgot God's good laws of justice and compassion. In the words of the writer of the book of Kings:

They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, “Do not do as they do,” ... They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They ... sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD ... 

- 2 Kings 17, verses 15-17

Most people in the Western world no longer worship idols in the literal sense of that word, but we can still be just as guilty of "worshipping what [our] hands have made". Money is a primary example:

Money is a man-made invention, and it is a strange and curious thing. In and of itself, it has no value - it is valuable only because of what it represents.

If you consider that there are a finite amount of goods and services currently available in the world, then money is like a permission slip that gives you access to a certain quantity of those resources. These "permission slips" can be physical, e.g. bank notes or coins, or electronic, e.g. the money in your bank account. Most of the money in the world today is electronic.

Much of the world is currently in the grip of an economic crisis, but this crisis isn't a crisis of resources. There are a similar amount of resources available now as there were before the crisis began^*. This is a crisis of "permission slips"!  It's about how many permission slips there are in the world and who should be allowed to have them.

We often talk about the "financial crisis" as if it's something unavoidable that we are now caught in the grip of and can do little to change, but it's a crisis in the system that we created! If the system isn't working then it seems to me that we ought to be doing something to change the system. This is what people like Occupy London have been campaigning for.

There currently seem to be two main competing and also partially complementing approaches which are being followed in an attempt to "solve" the financial crisis:

1. Borrow more money:
   This is what the UK and other governments have done to bail out the banks. This is what the UK central bank has effectively done through the process of "quantitive easing". This is what the  European central bank has done in order to increase the size of it's "bailout fund".
   
   This approach involves playing the system by its own rules, and stores up more problems for the future. It doesn't make us masters of the system, rather it deepens our indebtedness to it.


2. Austerity measures:
   This is about saving money by reducing government spending, so that the government can afford to pay off its debts. While it sounds like a prudent approach it is damaging in 2 ways:


1. In the process of cutting spending, it is often the poor and the disadvantaged who suffer the most. But why is this necessary when the amount of resources in the world hasn't changed? It is only the distribution of permission slips that has become a problem!


2. If the government doesn't spend money to stimulate its economy, economic output will fall, tax revenues will go down and the government will have even less money to pay off its debts!

Either way we are caught in a trap of slavery to this system that we have created and which now constitutes our view of reality.

This system has worked well for us in many respects but it is not a system rooted in justice or fairness. It is a system exploited by the rich and powerful and designed - in many respects - for their benefit. It is a system that tends to funnel "permission slips" upwards to those who already have them and increases the gap between the haves and the have nots. It is a system which has enabled those with the right kind of knowledge and opportunity to exploit those who do the hard work of creating useful things, and to get rich at their expense.

It is a system that we created, and that we worship, because of the riches it has bestowed on us in the past. And it is a system we are now enslaved to because it has reformed us in its image, and we can no longer imagine a different world.

Finally, this system that we have created and exploited, and which now exploits us, has massive consequences for our children. Here in the UK their economic prospects are already far bleaker than ours ever were:

• Those who want a higher education will start their working lives with enormous debts, having had little or no financial support for their studies.
• Due to rising property prices, the average age for first time house buyers could hit 40 by the end of the decade!
• Then of course there is the enormous national debt, which all of our children will inherit.

We may not be literally "sacrific[ing our] sons and daughters in the fire", like the Israelites used to do, but are the consequences really all that different...?

* New goods have been manufactured and/or dug out of the ground, some consumables have been used up - e.g. food, oil, coal etc. - but the differences are not that significant for this discussion.

Buy Nothing Sunday

I'm currently nearly half way through reading "Colossians Remixed" by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmat.

The book centres around the first century letter from the Apostle Paul to the church in Colossae, which now appears as the book, "Colossians", in the New Testament part of the Christian Bible. Walsh and Keesmat's central premise is that Paul's letter - and the Christian ideology - was deeply subversive to the Roman Empire at the time when it was written, and in the same way it also subverts the Empires of our own time - in particular the "Empire" of consumerist economics.

I often find when I read books like this that it's little throwaway comments that catch me unawares and really make me stop and think. Like this one from Colossians Remixed, which contrasts the life of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament part of the Bible, with that of the empires around it (and of Empire in general):

While the empire is frantically caught up in the management of production and consumption, Israel is called to a sabbath keeping that acknowledges the gift character of its life in the land.

Production and consumption are the mantras of the Free Market - the "Empire" which currently dominates the western world and is fast expanding to take over the rest of it. Walsh and Keesmat have carefully chosen these words in order to emphasise this comparison, but I have to say that I think they have a very important point!

When I was a teenager, most shops didn't open on Sundays and I have vague memories of the "Keep Sunday Special" campaign, which fought tooth and nail to keep it that way. Personally, at the time, I couldn't really see the point and when Sunday trading finally did become "fully" legal (there are still some restrictions) I was as happy to take advantage of it as most other people. Now though, looking back, I wonder if some of those campaigners did actually have a very good point...

I've recently come across "Buy Nothing Day", which is a campaign to persuade everyone, on one day of each year, to buy absolutely nothing. The promoters define this as a "global stand off from consumerism" which is intended to "make people stop and think about what and how much they buy effects the environment and developing countries" (that sentence doesn't quite make sense, but I think you get the idea!). Participants are promised that they will, "feel detoxed from shopping and realise how much it uses up [their] free time" and that "For 24 hours [they] will get [their] life back".

This is a great idea if it really does make people stop and think about what they are buying, why they are buying it and what effect that has on the rest of the world, and in the interests of subverting our global consumerist ideology I have to say that I approve, but it also made me think:  this is only one day a year, but we used to have one of these days every week and it was called "Sunday"!

Nowadays, to not shop or be able to shop for 1 day in every 7 seems unthinkable! What about the inconvenience and - even more importantly perhaps - what would this do to our economic output!? But Sunday was there precisely to remind us that there are more important things in life than this. We don't exist simply as cogs in an economic machine. Life is there for living and not just for producing stuff! The original Sabbath - as celebrated by the Jews - reminded them of this, and of their ultimate dependence on God, rather than their own enterprise and ingenuity, to provide them with what they needed. The Christian celebration of Sunday as "Lord's Day" should remind us of the same things. As a nation which no longer has a "Lord" to celebrate though, we have instead caved in to the "lordship" of the Free Market, which would rather not allow us any rest in our endeavours in its service...

Reconnecting the financial with the ethical?

This is going to be a little angrier than my usual posts, but it's a subject I feel very strongly about.


The following is my slightly doctored version of a famous story from the Bible (see Mark's gospel, chapter 10).

See if you can tell which bit I've changed (clue - in case you're not familiar with the story, I've typed the edited bit in italics!):

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. "No one is good - except God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.'"

"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."

Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, start an initiative to reconnect the financial with the ethical, then you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

It doesn't work, does it? - for all sorts of reasons. For those who don't know the story, what Jesus actually said was:

"Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven". (my emphasis)

I think you'll agree, the original has a lot more punch!

For those who don't recognise it, my edit is a reference to an initiative recently announced by the Bishop of London in response to the protests at St. Paul's. The initiative is being headed up by Ken Costa, who is ex-vice-chairman of UBS, current chairman of Lazard International, church warden of Holy Trinity Brompton, and chairman of Alpha International (a course which provides a beginner's introduction to the Christian faith).

I do not mean to suggest that Ken Costa should give away all his money, or that it if he did it would help very much to solve the current financial crisis (although who knows, such a radical example might have a positive effect on some!). What I am suggesting though, is that he is not doing what Jesus did in the real version of the above story, which is to cut to the heart of the issue - whatever the cost!

The rich man above clearly had a problem with money. He was a slave to it - money has a tendency to do that to people - which is why Jesus goes on to say to his disciples:

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

Our society is in a very similar situation. It is a slave to money - to capitalism and to the economy. We are addicted to the acquisition of wealth. Simply trying to "reconnect the financial with the ethical" is not going to solve this problem. This is why Jesus once also said:

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

Costa seems to me to be trying to "reconnect" two incompatible masters and I believe he will fail in the attempt - unless the fundamental starting point for this "connection" is that money should be subservient to people (and to God) and not the other way around. So far, it doesn't really sound to me as though this is what Costa is proposing. He seems to be saying instead that we should all just carry on as normal - but we simply need to be a bit more "moral" in our approach. Here are some quotes:

"I certainly don’t believe the economic system we have is broken, let alone irredeemably broken. But I do believe that our markets have drifted too far from their ethical moorings."

"The market brings together individual liberty, the human capacity to create, and resources such as capital, land and knowledge to form the most effective known system there is for wealth generation and improved living standards. It gives us the freedom and the opportunity to be responsible for our own future because its mainspring is private enterprise rather than the state or collective. It generates the opportunity to develop latent potential and exercise responsibility. It creates a space in which individuals can be creative and constructive. And over the years it has resulted in a higher standard of living than our ancestors could have dreamed of."

Yes, the market has achieved many of these things, but at what cost, and for whom has its wealth been generated? The "market" has destroyed a massive proportion of our ecosystem, corrupted and destabilised governments, caused massive unrest and global suffering and siphoned most of the wealth of the planet off to a tiny proportion of its inhabitants. This is not a system that has "drifted too far from [its] ethical moorings", it is a system that is deeply corrupt - root and branch - and is in urgent need of reform.

Regulations won't make the problems go away, but they could have a significant impact if there is anyone left out there who has both the power and the courage to see them through - we should be forcing through such measures as a matter of extreme urgency. Of course such measures have to be thought through, but we are not ignorant of these problems and have had many decades in which to solve them. Some of the good solutions we used to have were actually dismantled because we were afraid they might prevent us from generating more wealth...! Private enterprise (to quote Costa above) does not give us more opportunity to be responsible for our own future than the state or the collective does - instead it gives the most opportunity to those who happen to be good at private enterprise, rather than to all of us, as democracy seeks to do!

Costa is right that business needs to be more ethically motivated, but the highest ethic should not be to preserve the free market - but to preserve, protect and promote human dignity, equality and well-being, which depend on much deeper things than financial prosperity. Money can help with this endeavour, but only if it is kept subservient to these ideals.

I am not completely anti-capitalist, but I am anti-the-current-global-capitalist-system, which needs a lot more than the quiet talking to that Costa seems to be proposing and that the Church of England seems to support. It needs prophets shouting from the side-lines, confronting it with its evils and abuses and it needs deep and penetrating transformation and reform.

I have little faith in Costa or his initiative, to deliver - or to really attempt to deliver - this kind of transformation. It seems to me that he and the church he represents are still too deeply compromised by the system they are attempting to reform. This was epitomised for me by the following response from Costa to an interview question from the BBC, regarding the ridiculously large salaries so often paid to those in positions of financial responsibility:

Well, that is one of the issues that we're going to have to look at. This initiative is to talk it through. Every time a figure is mentioned of a large pay - we don't know the responsibilities that someone has incurred in order to get there.

Seriously Ken? How much responsibility can you incur that justifies a salary which would satisfy several hundred (or perhaps even several thousand) "less responsible" people? To give him some credit though, he does then go on to say that:

Clearly there needs to be a fairness, and I think we've got to a tipping point...

But then he gets a little hazy again regarding what exactly that tipping point consists of, and large salaries - the point just raised by the interviewer - seem to disappear off the immediate agenda:

...where people now feel we need to articulate an argument for companies to act on in order to do good things and to encourage their employees to actually do the right things.

So to paraphrase then, what we need is a better argument for people to do good things and then everything will be fine - just as long as we can all still hang onto our money...