Before I do anything else, let me acknowledge that many here are not motivated nor guided by religious faith or belief. Still, I hope what I write here today will still be of value to you. I am to share and to respond to an op ed by Jim Wallis that appears in today's Washington Post. In A religious response to the financial crisis: We need a values recovery he offers thoughts on banks, on religious communities, and more. For example,
When the government tried to save the economy from meltdown, real grace was extended to the big banks -- but now the banks seem unwilling to extend grace to anyone else, including homeowners struggling to make mortgage payments. I am reminded of one of the parables of Jesus, wherein a master forgives the debt of one of his servants out of pity for his circumstances, but then that servant refuses to forgive the debt of another servant who owes him a little money. The master gets angry and throws the unforgiving debtor into prison. The money-changers in the temples of Wall Street would do well to take note.
I invite you to keep reading.
Wallis is well-known for his efforts as a religious progressive both as a magazine editor and a book author. He is very much a Christian, but open to the values of other faiths as well, as one reads in this paragraph:
Many of our religious teachings, from our many traditions, offer useful correctives to the practices that brought us to this sad place. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount instructs us not to be "anxious" about material things, a notion that runs directly counter to the frenzied pressure of modern consumer culture. Judaism teaches us to leave the edges of the fields for the poor to "glean" and to welcome those in need to our tables. And Islam prohibits the practice of usury. (Muslim-owned financial institutions that charge fees for service rather than interest have done amazingly well during this crisis; their practices offer some interesting models.)
Wallis describes what confronts us as not merely a financial crisis, but also a spiritual crisis, that any economic recovery must also be accompanied by a moral recovery, to wit:
We have been asking the wrong question: When will the financial crisis end? The right question is: How will it change us? This could be a moment to reexamine the ways we measure success, do business and live our lives; a time to renew spiritual values and practices such as simplicity, patience, modesty, family, friendship, rest and Sabbath.
Let me stop for a moment, and return to the idea of the need of a moral recovery. Some here, including me, have been applying that standard to far more than the banking and economic crises that have dominated much of Obama's first year in office. We go back further, and have been discussing moral implications of many policies of the Bush administration, to be sure including economic policies that gave tax breaks to those who did not need and burdened both the less well off and our progeny with the financial obligations being incurred by tax cuts and spending for an illegal and immoral war. We have objected to torture in the strongest terms. We have raised moral objections to the abuse of the environment, to the lack of forgiveness demonstrated in the criminal justice system. We have even objected to the demonization of political opponents on moral grounds.
To be certain, our objections have not been only on moral grounds. We raise issues of Constitution and law, of science and economics, of effectiveness.
And yet, when we can raise moral objections and root them firmly in the religious traditions of some upon whom the previous administration and our political opponents have depended for their narrow political control, we have had the opportunity to change the political dynamics, and thus the tone and the outcome of many policy discussions. Increasingly we have seen evangelical Christians, for example, begin to express concern for environmental issues because of a clear commitment to the idea of stewardship of God's creation. Thus the words of someone like Wallis may provide a way of expanding the portion of the electorate willing to support more progressive ideas.
It is not just governmental policies that should be involved. It is also the actions within the power of the people as individuals and in the collective organizations to which we make commitment, and in Wallis's op ed he illustrates this by describing efforts of those who are religious. For example, he cites a church in Columbus, OH, whose special Palm Sunday fundraising his $625,000, which has been used "to provide coaching, counseling and networking events to help both parishioners and members of the wider community find employment." And he tells of us Capuchin Friars in his hometown of Detroit, hard hit by unemployment and the concomitant economic distress, giving away "hundreds of thousands of plants" to develop a renaissance of "urban gardens and family farming plots."
Churches - and other religious bodies - have a responsibility to have their actions be consistent with their moral teachings. Wallis writes
Moving forward, I hope local congregations and national denominations alike will begin reflecting on where they keep their money and how their investments reflect their faith. I envision congregations creating checklists to evaluate who they do business with, and national church bodies considering where they should invest their pension funds.
We have in the past seen how such an approach can have an impact. We saw religious bodies, colleges (often pushed by their students) and labor unions demand companies stop doing business in apartheid South Africa or risk the withdrawal of investments and the refusal to purchase products. That clearly had some influence on South Africa eventually making a peaceful transition away from apartheid.
For those not motivated by religious faith, as individuals and in whatever groups we do participate collectively, we have the opportunity to act in a similar fashion. Those of us with greater economic flexibility perhaps have a greater degree of responsibility: a person barely making ends meet may find it more difficult to avoid shopping for the cheapest price for food, despite perhaps opposing the labor policies of a Walmart and its suppliers, or the treatment of animals in factory farming.
The message may be most clearly demonstrated by how we act with financial institutions. We have over time allowed too much concentration of economic power. This has been true in many industries. It is certainly true in the concentration of ownership of media outlets, which has diminished the variety of voices (although new technologies has somewhat offset the impact of this concentration). It has been especially true with the development of massive financial institutions, whose bailout has been justified because they represented such a large portion of the financial community that they had become "too big to fail" as well as too powerful to properly regulate. There clearly is a need for better government regulation, perhaps starting with reinstating the provisions of Glass-Steagal that had helped prevent such a massive financial meltdown in previous times of economic stress.
We can help with the process. Wallis talks about moving funds from a small Bank of America account to a local bank that had acted more responsibly, and finding out when he and his wife informed friends that religious leaders and pastors from around the country
were ready to take their money out of the big banks that have shown such shameful morality and instead invest according to their values, by putting money into more local and community-based institutions.
Wallis concludes by writing
The banks say they are "too big to fail." So let's make them smaller. We might finally get Wall Street's attention.
Perhaps. Supporting more responsive institutions is always good, although I would be cautious about idealizing all small local institutions.
Where I would agree with Wallis is that there is a moral dimension to all of our actions. Call it spiritual if you want. How we spend our money is certainly part of it. It is an important part, but by itself is insufficient. If we wish to claim morality for our financial choices, they must be of a piece with our political choices, our political rhetoric, our daily behavior. We should not be compartmentalizing. Moving our money from a large and irresponsible national financial institution to a small, local, responsive institution is good but insufficient.
It is insufficient, but it is also necessary. For better or worse, the financial aspects of our lives have an outsized impact upon the world in which we live. I am not sure we can claim to be moral when we remain oblivious to the moral impact of our money and how it is used.
My wife and I understand that this is not always simple. We can feel good that we have moved our banking to a local bank that is responsible to its community, which does not have overseas call centers (a final straw in my decision to move my accounts), which is financially stable, which treats its workforce well. Our prescriptions are at a long-time local pharmacy, costing us a bit more, a cost we offset by paying with pre-tax dollars through medical spending accounts. But we still have to buy gasoline for our hybrids, and at times we are too casual about how much we drive because we have hybrids. We do not know the economic, environmental, labor and other moral impacts of all the products we buy.
And we know this - even if all our spending decisions met our moral standards, that would be insufficient if we were unloving or unthinking in our other actions.
There are moral dimensions to all our actions. How we use our money - even how we obtain it - are clearly important.
This morning I read Jim Wallis. That caused me to reflect. When I reflect I often offer the results of that reflection here.
So I have today.
Peace.