G'day Wendie and the Group
(and especially those whose posts crossed this)
At 09:53 AM 15/01/04 +1100, Wendie Wilkie wrote:
I am interested in people s ideas on theologies of abundance and theologies of scarcity and how it affects our attitudes and actions. It is raised for me a bit by the reading this week on the wedding at Cana and the thought of all that wine 150 gallons!! But also linked in with other stories of abundance and extravagant actions in the gospels.
Does our church have a theology of scarcity and does it then hoard and hang on to at all levels !! Do we operate under a scarcity mentality and therefore think too much about what we can afford to give away time, money, ideas, information, love? Worry about what we might need to keep for later? What about all the money congregations and synods and others have in funds for what if / for a rainy day? Many in our congregations lived through the depression and scarcity in war etc or were affected deeply by parents who did. How does that experience affect them/us? Does the current world insecurity and dependence on international money markets lead us to a scarcity mentality or at least a very cautious attitude to what we do personally and in the church.
What if we operated out of a theology of generosity how would we balance responsible financial management and accountability with generosity? Would it help us to take more risks? Personally, in mission, with our money? Would we be more open, free, or setting ourselves up to be taken advantage of? Would it make it easier to release energy and money or would we be more reckless? Are we really generous with our loving and living or is that also affected by a scarcity mentality?.
Wendie Wilkie
I think this is exactly right, and I think this is one thing that the excellent article at
http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=533
that Kent Crawford found is saying.
Let me take a very concrete application, which perhaps straddles the two extremes, remembering that Jesus told us to be in the world but not of the world.
I'm appalled at the current economics that Australia (following the lead of the USA) is imposing on Iraq. It seems that we simply continue to recognise an enormous foreign debt supposedly owed by Iraq.
Come again? The regime in Iraq has changed. These so-called debts are the debts of the former regime, that is, promises by this regime to pay in the future. But that regime is gone. Why should their promises be honoured? All their other laws are suspended. Why do these particular ones persist? Why are the Iraqi people bound by these promises, made on their behalf but without their consent? Have they just gone from one oppressor to another? Or even to the same oppressor, by another name?
In imposing or policing these obligations, we are literally demanding that the Kurds pay for the warplanes that Sadam used to gas them. The logic seems to be, well somebody has to.
Nobody has to, and nobody should. The suppliers of these arms should have quite simply done their dough. Or if they have been clever enough to get some banker to buy this worthless debt, then that banker has done their dough. The same goes for suppliers of anything else the regime used, be it the caviar for state dinners or the architectural drawings or furniture for the presidential palaces. It goes especially for money diverted to nameless Swiss bank accounts, or for the purchase of overseas investments and properties. That money is gone. Finish. Tough.
(Well, perhaps not quite. I am cynical enough to suspect that some of these bankers will prove a lot more able to find and unlock these Swiss bank accounts under this scenario than they seem to be at present. So my guess is that the bankers are probably pretty safe in practice. The other difference is that under my scenario the bankers, not the Iraqis, will foot the cost of this recovery operation.)
Should this logic be accepted, I can just hear the wails from the international "community". Bankers, lawyers, diplomats and other negotiators will tap out clever communiques from the backs of their chauffered Mercedes showing how much they disapprove of such developments. And I can see their concern. If backing war and oppression is to be made risky and even unprofitable, where will the cash flow come from to pay for their lifestyles? It's a bit hard to justify the chauffered car when the guy you are dealing with arrives on a moped, or the lavish black-tie receptions when they expect you to bring your own sandwich on the return visit.
They can count themselves lucky. At worst I'm threatening them with unemployment, and more likely a pleasant retirement. I think some of the Kurds might rather want them on trial. If you supply a gun to a murderer, knowing what they intend to do with it, the charge is murder. If you lend them the money to buy it, again knowing what the loan is for, the charge is murder. Why doesn't international law work like that? Simple. Because nobody dares suggest that we put France and Switzerland in the dock at the Haigh.
And another problem is that Australia would now be there alongside them, as an accessory after the fact. Not only don't we charge these moneylenders, we now act as their bagmen to collect these otherwise uncollectable debts. All I'm suggesting is that we stop doing this. Surely that's a modest and achievable aim.
Food for thought?
This is not the same thing as the call for an international jubilee on foreign debt, which I also support. This is rather a specific instance where the foreign debt is clearly a fiction, and also counterproductive if the aim of our international policy is to promote peace and justice. Conversely, if our aim is to support and promote war and oppression, we should defend the principle that these debts should be honoured.
I'm sure these thoughts are not new. I just haven't seen them in quite these words previously. Feel free to use them, in whole or in part, with or without attribution if they can help.
YiCaa
email: andrewa @ alder . ws
http://www.zeta.org.au/~andrewa
Phone 9441 4476
Mobile 04 2525 4476
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