Yes…Yes (7)
An appeal to all Christians.
Can Christians really make a difference in this world? They should, of course. A little leaven does the trick in bread. Will a small band of Christians do the same in society? It should be able, but only when their message finds resonance in others. It is no secret that this is not the case today. This was the case when Paul went around the then known world and set it ablaze for Christ. Why was his mission successful where now the Message only serves to turn people off, at least in the Western world? The reason is that times have changed, but not the sermons, the official mouth of the church. What we need today is a Paul who understands today’s world and speaks the message of real hope, something everybody yearns for.
That we are in trouble on all fronts is no secret. That the world is grasping for solutions is also no secret. It is also plain to all that our troubles are our own doing. We are there for the simple reason that we like the status quo: people just don’t change, because change is simply too difficult. Most of us like to float with the flow and hate to go against the stream of public opinion, believing that the crowd knows best.
There are various examples in history where ample warnings were given, but people ignored them. The prophets in the Old Testament kept on telling the people to turn back to God or they would be exiled or even be wiped out altogether. The Ten tribes of Israel disappeared for ever, while Judah and Benjamin suffered 70 years of banishment. More recently the same sort of calamity happened again to the Jewish people, this time in Germany, in 1933, when Hitler came to power. He too had completely outlined his future plans for them in his book “Mein Kampf.” So the Jews in Germany, all 523,000 of them, could have known what was in store. But they stayed put and that included Jewish bankers, all of whom could have left. They thought they could deal with Hitler; they thought that their money would do the trick, that their allegiance to the German Reich would help them, so they ignored the threats Hitler had outlined in his auto biography. Only about 7% did leave early: 38,000 out of 523,000, while more left after 1938.
At some inconvenience almost all could have left, but for most the immediate cost was too great, involving leaving business, homes, friends, making it necessary to learn a new language, and resettle in a strange land, where they would have arrived in poverty, would have to start from scratch again, but then Jews had faced those options ever since the Assyrian captivity in the eighth century B.C, that 70 year exile, so well described in the Hebrew bible, and also in Spain in the 16th Century when many were forced to move to Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and other countries.
Of course not all of them would have escaped the Nazis. Those who lived in, or had fled to the Netherlands almost all died, and the same was true for those who migrated to other European countries that were overrun by Germany after 1939. But the majority could have tried to get away, but they stayed: they refused to read the signals or heeded such events as the Crystal Night happening. They reasoned that “It can’t be that bad.” It was worse.
Jews are like us. Just as they, we too hate to take signs seriously. We too say or think: “No problem. We can handle it.” Just like the Armenians who went through the same thing. The Turkish massacres of 1895 were a foretaste, but most of them remained behind. Then came the genocide of 1915 when millions were killed.
So what has this to do with today? People don’t change, but circumstances do. Look back at the economy in October 2007, not even 2 years ago. The Dow was at 14,000, the banks were booming, real estate was down a little, but the experts said not to worry and so gave no warning. They were wrong, all of them. Today the Dow and real estate is down by 40 percent. The experts were wrong, all of them.
Today the U.S. government is running a $1.8 trillion deficit, while Federal tax receipts are down 34%, which means that the deficit will go above $2 trillion, but nobody cares. No one says, “This is the end. The American economy will never again be what it was.”
Go back less than 20 months. Would you have believed that Chrysler and GM were both headed for bankruptcy? In October 2007 GM shares were at $43. Now they are at $1. Then there was an industry called investment banking, such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, who were not part of the commercial banking system. They are gone. So is Merrill Lynch. Bank of America and Citigroup were bailed out by the government. They would have gone under. They sell for a fraction of what they did in 2007. And what do most people say? “No problem.”
Where are we today? Today in the USA the ‘per family’ debt stands at $546.668 (US), an increase of $55,000 in just one year, but the general feeling is that “there is no problem.” With so much debt Medicare will go bust and so will Social Security there. Again, “No problem, why worry.”
The unemployment rate keeps rising, is approaching 10 percent. Again “No problem, why worry.”
When people refuse to face reality, because reality is going to be more painful than anything they have experienced, they look for signs that the problems they cannot avoid without changing are really not that bad. They look for offsetting good news, so they assume that the status quo will return. They cling to the hope that the U.S. government will spend another $30 billion to buy the ‘dead on arrival’ General Motors on which the US treasury already had spent $20 billion. “No problem,” Obama knows best. The government in Washington penalized GM’s bondholders for $27 billion in exchange for 10% of the company, 72% owned by the government and 17% by the United Auto Workers medical insurance fund. “No problem.”
Remember Wilson’s famous quote in the 1950’s, “What is good for General Motors is good for the USA?” He then was the head of General Motors when it had 50 percent of North American auto sales. Now the reverse is equally true: what is bad for GM is worse for the US. The company will never return to what it was, and neither will the USA, with no savings and trillions in debt, and disappearing jobs, people will not buy as many cars as before from a company run by the government and the United Auto Workers, but again the same refrain, “No problem.”
But there are big problems: Oldsmobile is gone; Pontiac is going; Hummer is now a Chinese company; Saturn is sold; Opel bought by Magna; Saab is on the block. Yet the mass believes that there are “No problems.” Readers look at the reports, and the reports look awful: falling home prices, rising unemployment, an astronomical Federal deficit. But the media say we are close to a bottom – the bottom of a crash that none of them forecasted. Optimists speak of a slow, weak recovery. Pessimists speak of hyperinflation and depression simultaneously. But as the chorus proclaims “No problem,” the public mindlessly picks up this refrain.
Here is the harsh truth: what we now are experiencing is composed of two interlocking phenomena: (1) a quickly progressing financial catastrophe caused by ever expanding globalization, which has fermented growing instability and increasing disparity and (2) a continously progressing environmental disintegration which, unless there is a radical change in living habits, will lead to an inevitable creational crash, effected primarily by our lifestyle that knows no limits, based as it is on our blind exploitation of finite natural resources.
Our governments – by offering stimulus packages – encourage such unreal behavior, yet their actions are nothing less than the preservation of employment opportunities on the Titanic’.
People usually calculate the costs of making a change. This is wise. Jesus taught: “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, every one who sees it will ridicule him saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish it.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one who comes with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.” (Luke 14:28-32).
In short, count the costs, especially the environmental one. This is what we have refused to do. Now the cost of doing something radical has become too high, so we prefer doing nothing, doing nothing about Climate Change; doing nothing about the inevitable day when Oil is gone; doing nothing about growing disparity; doing nothing about jobs disappearing; doing nothing about mass transit or urbanization, let alone the growing debt load.
Now is the time for Christians to show the world that we must live so that God’s creation is enhanced, is made better. Talking will not help. Sermons are passé. Only example will serve as a model. Christians need not fear ridicule. Paul already wrote to the Corinthians that “The Message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.” (1 Corinthians 1:18). That’s exactly the message we have to bring: foolishness.
Now is the time to plan ahead. Now is the time to prepare for an unfolding disaster: Global warming, resource depletion, rising government ownership, massive deficits, rising unemployment, falling house prices, busted retirement pensions, rising interest rates (falling corporate bonds), and Federal Reserve inflation on a scale never seen in North American history.
The beauty of living within the means of ecological and financial limits is that not only will we be prepared for bad times, but by doing so we conform more to the will of God and prepare ourselves for the Kingdom to Come. As always, doing the will of God is the answer: always.
So what does the Bible say about the current economic conditions?