I woke up this morning with this post already bouncing around in my head. I'm not sure why. I had not been thinking about it yesterday nor had I read or watched anything on the topic. Nonetheless, I awoke to thoughts about income inequality, "the market," and idolatry.
For those not overly familiar with Presbyterian/Reformed theology, idolatry is a big one for us. When the Presbyterian Book of Order outlines the basic tenets of our faith documents, the last bullet point reads, "The recognition of the human tendency to idolatry and tyranny, which calls the people of God to work for the transformation of society by seeking justice and living in obedience to the Word of God."
Idolatry is not understood as worshiping statues or other cultic objects. Rather is describes anything other than God in which we place ultimate trust or give ultimate authority over out lives. In this sense, all manner of things can become idols, even things that are not necessarily bad. Some Christians make an idol out of the Bible or the church itself. Country or family can also become idols. That is not a statement about some latent problem lurking in such institutions. Rather it is a statement of the human tendency to put inordinate trust and authority in things that do not deserve our absolute loyalty and obedience.
This morning I awoke thinking about the loyalty and authority some people accord "the market." I'm thinking of phrases such as "the invisible hand of the market." Some people use the phrase in an almost religious manner, and some seem unable to imagine any higher authority.
The phrase itself came from Adam Smith more than 200 years ago. I'm no economist, and I don't know much about the level of authority and trust he had in markets. But I do know that in our country's history, we have often felt the need to intervene in the market in order to restrain it and make it accountable to our values of fairness and moral obligations to care for those the market seemed willing to trample over.
The "trust busting" that happened 100 years ago in this country (hard to imagine a Republican president leading such things as Teddy Roosevelt once did) put significant restraints on the market, on our capitalist system. I see a fundamental theological truth here. No human institution can operate without restraints and checks on its power and authority. But in our day, many seem able to see this only with government institutions. For some reason, they place remarkable faith in business, capitalism, and the market to solve our problems, and that sounds like the start of a great idol to me.
The yawning and growing income gap between hourly workers and their bosses, between CEOs and regular employees, has entered uncharted territory in this country and shows no sign of abating. And I am convinced that those who think this is simply the market determining what people are actually worth, who imagine that the market can be trusted to do what is best for our society, have placed their trust in a pernicious idol. Pernicious, not because the market is inherently evil, but because, as the saying goes, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
I regularly hear conservative Christians lament the loss of our Christian values, but often these seem restricted to a few social issues. In Luke's gospel, Jesus begins his ministry by saying he fulfills these words from the prophet Isaiah. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
This year of jubilee (see Leviticus 25) was a time when all debts were to be forgiven. I'm guessing the the market and those beholding to it are not much interested in such a practice. There was actually an attempt to encourage such a practice with the debts of some third world countries back when we crossed into the current millennium, but business interests would have nothing of the sort. In fact, the market has little inherent interest in Christian values or principles at all.
Thus it would seem that Christians should be heavily invested in reigning in any idolatrous bowing to the forces of the market, yet I see little evidence that Christians as a group are much worried about such idolatry.
I read something the other day in Brian McLaren's book, Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? where he spoke of a conversation with a friend who is an imam. Discussing the different ways they understood Jesus, McLaren was struck with how his Muslim friend thought of Jesus as a great prophet, meaning that God would judge us by how well we followed Jesus' teachings. Meanwhile Christians, who claim Jesus is much more than prophet, often feel little need to follow Jesus' teachings. As long as we "believe in him" and think rightly about a few doctrinal points, doing as Jesus says is not really a core Christian expectation.
In most Christian denominations, proclaiming Jesus as Lord is a basic faith affirmation. The religious symbolism of the word "Lord" sometimes blots out its actual meaning, but it is fundamentally a statement about loyalty and authority, one insisting that Jesus alone is owed ultimate allegiance, loyalty, and obedience. Such allegiance loyalty, and obedience demands that Christians struggle against idolatries and work for a just and better society, not leaving people's fates in the hands of the market.
I'm not suggesting any particular plan of action. I appreciate that people of faith can legitimately disagree about the best ways to bring good news to the poor and restrain idolatries that lead to tyranny, poverty, and a situation where working hard for 60 hours a week may well not provide an income adequate to live on. But I do not see how Christians can ignore growing income disparity and suffering by "the least of these." Even more, I do not understand how we can fail to see the blatant idolatry that is a significant part of this problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment