Ever since the Great Recession began in September 2008, Christians and other faith leaders have criticised the speculative excess and greed that led to the crisis. A consensus on what to do about it, however, has yet to emerge.
The parameters of the critique were recently staked out at the Trinity Institute’s “Building an Ethical Economy” conference at Trinity Episcopal Church in the heart of Wall Street.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams bemoaned the damage that results from “an economic climate in which everything reduces to the search for maximized profit and unlimited material growth.”
Williams focused less on short-term action and more on how communities of faith need to examine language and self-image in order to contribute to building an ethical economy over the long term.
There have been no shortage of suggested solutions. Last July, Pope Benedict XVI proposed a macro solution to the financial crisis, calling for a new world financial order that would reform the United Nations and other international institutions in order to give poorer countries more of a role in international policy.
Others say change has to come about at the level of individuals. Jim Wallis, president and CEO of Sojourners, a Washington-based Christian social justice group, says the necessary questions in the wake of failed banks and 10-percent unemployment are not “When will this economic crisis end?” but rather “How will it change us?”
In a new book, Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street, Wallis calls for a “new normal” of biblical values that include broad themes like “Enough is enough” and “We’re in it together.”
“We know that something has gone wrong when Donald Trump, the TV reality show `The Apprentice,’ is offered as a cultural role model for a new generation of business leaders,” Wallis writes.
FULL STORY The economy's immoral and people are angry (Religion News Service)