Massachusetts Conference Edition
Return
to main page
Read
National Edition
Read the UC News Spotlight E-Newsletter
Return
to main page
Read
National Edition
Read the UC News Spotlight E-Newsletter
by The Rev. Dr. Jim Antal
February/March 2009
Friends in Christ: I believe the present crisis offers the church an opportunity unlike any other we have ever known.
In response to raging anxiety about a bleak and uncertain economic future, the church can offer hope that is both tangible and inspirational.
To all whose hearts are broken over the inestimable pain of endless war, the church can proclaim the possibility of reconciliation and offer astonishing testimony to love’s unlimited power.
As the ice caps melt, oceans rise and species disappear, the church can provide a community of interdependence (both material and spiritual) as well as a context of accountability that allows people to change their choices, their habits, their values and their lives so that unborn children might someday love creation as much as we do.
For those overwhelmed by fear and unable to imagine how they might flourish in a world drawing less than half the per-capita energy the world now “needs,” the church can be a proving ground – a nexus of initiatives, testimonies, bold failures and humble discoveries – allowing people to rediscover God’s abundance in a world myopically fixated on scarcity.
Who would not want to be part of a community with these values, commitments and direction? Who would not want to tap into the promise, the blessing, the hope of the God who makes all this possible while making all things new?
For too long, our nation has passively tolerated/allowed/celebrated the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. In the December 30, 2008 issue of Christian Century, Gary Dorrien points out that in the United States, the wage differential between corporate executives and laborers is now
145-1. He further notes that in the past eight years virtually all of America’s economic growth has gone to the top five percent. Ellen Goodman points out (in her Boston Globe column on 12/12/2008) that marketers coined the odious term “aspirational consumer” to describe middle class people who want to live like the rich. Their desires were debt-fueled in what economist Juliet Schor refers to as competitive consumption.
“Change we can believe in” must be more than the coins in our pockets. The opportunity before the church is to help shape the arc of the moral universe that is emerging from the current rubble. Will that arc bend toward justice, as Martin Luther King, Jr. famously and courageously asserted fifty years ago?
I believe that it is in our power to answer “yes” to that question. I believe that the only way the United States can provide leadership sufficient to meet the triple crisis – economic, environmental and energy – is for the religious communities of the United States to weigh-in on these seismic issues.
Along with other changes, we must transgress the great prohibition against talking about money – particularly personal finances.
What if every pastor stood before his or her congregation, shoulder to shoulder with the members of the Church Council or diaconate or trustees (or maybe with just one of them)? And one by one, what if they each testified to the congregation, each in his or her own words, something like this: “The events of the past many months have brought me to my senses. Standing here in worship, I want to testify to what really matters. YOU matter to me. This community matters to me. The difference we are making and the greater difference God calls us to make in the world matter to me. So in keeping with Biblical teachings and the experience of millions of disciples, and in the grip of these uncertain times, my family and I have decided to tithe for 2009. We will give 5% of our AGI to this church, and the other 5% we will give to other organizations promoting a just world at peace.”
You don’t have to study John Maynard Keynes to recognize the importance of spending. But it doesn’t have to take the form of consumption. Why can’t every clergy in the country urge our members to ramp up to a full tithe, and use this as an opportunity to eliminate poverty? Why can’t every clergy in the country advocate for a fuel tax increase of $1/gallon (especially while fuel prices are as low as they are) and drive this revenue into environmentally friendly mass transit and infrastructure repair?
Jesus says more about money and material possessions than he says about any other topic except the kingdom of heaven. The opportunity for faith communities to engage in this economic discussion in a life-changing way is upon us. As evidenced elsewhere in this publication, many of our communities have already taken on these issues. I hope our life together will give us all the courage to do likewise.