Jubilee - The work of releasing others from sin and debt

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning at St Catherine’s Wickford:

When we have a General or Local Election, I wonder whether you read the manifestos of the candidates that you are able to vote for. I guess that most of us don’t. Often, they are quite wordy and many people don’t believe a word that is written in them.

The political parties know this, as is demonstrated by this quote from a post entitled Why manifestos still matter (even if nobody reads them) from Labour List:

“Given the amount of time and effort that goes into producing election manifestos, the number of people who actually read them is frighteningly small. Every campaign, parties make determined efforts to get them onto shelves but their sales hardly threaten JK Rowling or even the authors of well-known political diaries (still available in all good book shops) ….

But for the millions of voters who decide the election outcome … well for the overwhelming majority, life’s too short.” (http://labourlist.org/2013/02/why-manifestos-still-matter-even-if-nobody-reads-them/)

The passage that Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth the morning we have just heard about (Luke 4: 16 - 24) was the manifesto for his ministry and for the kingdom of God. We would do well not to ignore this manifesto because what Jesus spoke about here, he actually did in the course of his ministry. He did exactly what it says on the tin, as the advert goes.

Jesus’ manifesto is taken from Isaiah 61 and is all about release. Release from poverty, imprisonment, blindness and oppression. What Jesus is proclaiming would have been recognised by his hearers as the announcement of the Year of Jubilee – “the time when the Lord shall come to save his people.”

The word ‘jubilee’ stems from the Hebrew word ‘Yobel’, which refers to the ram or ram’s horn with which jubilee years were proclaimed. In Leviticus it states that such a horn or trumpet is to be blown on the tenth day of the seventh month after the lapse of ‘seven Sabbaths of years’ (49 years) as a proclamation of liberty throughout the land of the tribes of Israel. The year of jubilee was a consecrated year of ‘Sabbath-rest’ and liberty. During this year all debts were cancelled, lands were restored to their original owners and family members were restored to one another.

The people listening to Jesus knew about Jubilee but had never heard anything like his statement before. What Jesus was saying and how he was saying it was astonishing. They had heard teachers talk of the law before but this was something so amazing that they were in awe. Jesus was in another league because he claimed to be the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 61:1–2.

Jesus stated that he had come to ‘proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18–19). That is the year of jubilee and so Jesus proclaimed his coming and the coming of God’s kingdom as the time of Jubilee – a time of release for all people from those things that enslave us and trap us.

Each one of us is a slave to sin and blind to the truth about God because we have chosen to live selfish lives turning our backs on God and the way of life that he had created for human beings to live. In turning away from God’s ways, we do not do away with gods altogether instead our desires run riot and we become slaves to them worshipping other gods; whether they come in the form of money, sex, celebrity or whatever.

Jesus comes to free us from all of these enslavements and to open our eyes to the way in which God created human beings to live; loving God with all our being and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

This isn’t something that is just for us as individuals however. It is also something which can impact all of society. After all, the Old Testament Jubilee was intended for the nation of Israel, not simply individuals within it. A contemporary example of this happening in practice is Debt Justice, formerly the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which is part of a global movement demanding freedom from the slavery of unjust debts and a new financial system that puts people first. Originally inspired by the ancient concept of ‘jubilee’, Debt Justice works for a world where debt is no longer used as a form of power by which the rich exploit the poor. Freedom from debt slavery is a necessary step towards a world in which our common resources are used to realise equality, justice and human dignity.

We can see from all this that, in order to understand what our release means, we need to be people who know and understand the Bible. Chapter 4 of Luke’s gospel shows us clearly that Jesus was immersed in the Hebrew scriptures and saw them as speaking about himself. When he was tempted by the Devil at the beginning of Chapter 4, he defended himself by quoting from the Bible. In that passage he used the Bible to tell the Devil what he will not be like and here, in the synagogue, he used the Bible to tell everyone what he will be like. We can do the same if we read and understand what God is saying to us in the Bible both about those things from which our lives need to be freed and those things to which we need to dedicate our lives, talents and time.

The people who heard Jesus were, initially, impressed by what he said but as they realised that Jesus intended this Jubilee to be for all people they rejected him and tried to kill him. What will our response to Jesus’ manifesto be? Will it be the rejection that he experienced from the people of Nazareth? Will it be the apathy and disbelief that we accord to most political manifestos? Will it be the cynicism or distrust that some feel towards campaigns like Debt Justice? Or will it be acceptance of the release from slavery to sin that Jesus offers to us and involvement in his work of releasing others from sin and from debt? Amen.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bruce Cockburn - Call It Democracy.

Manifestos do matter

Here's the sermon I preached yesterday at St Catherine’s Wickford:

When we have a General or Local Election I wonder whether you read the manifestos of the candidates that you are able to vote for. I guess that most of us don’t. Often they are quite wordy and many people don’t believe a word that is written in them. 

The political parties know this, as is demonstrated by this quote from a post entitled Why manifestos still matter (even if nobody reads them) from Labour List: 

“Given the amount of time and effort that goes into producing election manifestos, the number of people who actually read them is frighteningly small. Every campaign, parties make determined efforts to get them onto shelves but their sales hardly threaten JK Rowling or even the authors of well-known political diaries (still available in all good book shops) ….

But for the millions of voters who decide the election outcome … well for the overwhelming majority, life’s too short.” 

However, manifestos do matter, as has been proved this week when Suella Braverman’s resignation letter stating: “I have concerns about the direction of this government. Not only have we broken key pledges that were promised to our voters, but I have had serious concerns about this Government's commitment to honouring manifesto commitments” was one of several factors leading to the resignation of Liz Truss as Prime Minister.

The passage from Isaiah that Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth, as we heard in our Gospel reading (Luke 4: 16 - 24), was the manifesto for his ministry and for the kingdom of God. We would do well not to ignore this manifesto because what Jesus spoke about here, he actually did in the course of his ministry. In contrast to many, or perhaps most, politicians, he did exactly what it says on the tin, as the advert goes.

Jesus’ manifesto was taken from Isaiah 61 and is all about release. Release from poverty, imprisonment, the inability to see clearly, and oppression. What Jesus was proclaiming would have been recognised by his hearers as the announcement of the Year of Jubilee – “the time when the Lord shall come to save his people.”

The word ‘jubilee’ stems from the Hebrew word ‘Yobel’, which refers to the ram or ram’s horn with which jubilee years were proclaimed. In Leviticus it states that such a horn or trumpet is to be blown on the tenth day of the seventh month after the lapse of ‘seven Sabbaths of years’ (49 years) as a proclamation of liberty throughout the land of the tribes of Israel. The year of jubilee was a consecrated year of ‘Sabbath-rest’ and liberty. During this year all debts were cancelled, lands were restored to their original owners and family members were restored to one another. In other words, the whole of society had a restart and those who had lost out in the previous 49 were enable to begin again with a clean slate and their lost resources.

The people listening to Jesus knew about Jubilee but had never heard anything like his statement before. What Jesus was saying and how he was saying it was astonishing. They had heard teachers talk of the law before but this was something so amazing that they were in awe. Jesus was in another league because he claimed to be the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

Jesus stated that he had come to ‘proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18–19). That is the year of jubilee in practice and so Jesus proclaimed his coming and the coming of God’s kingdom as the time of Jubilee – a time of release for all people from those things that enslave us and trap us.

Each one of us is a slave to sin and blind to the truth about God because we have chosen to live selfish lives turning our backs on God and the way of life that he created for human beings to live. In turning away from God’s ways, we do not do away with God or gods altogether, instead our desires run riot and we become slaves to them worshipping other gods; whether they come in the form of money, sex, celebrity or whatever.

Jesus comes to free us from all of these enslavements and to open our eyes to the way in which God created human beings to live; loving God with all our being and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

This isn’t something that is just for us as individuals however. It is also something which can impact all of society. After all, the Old Testament Jubilee was intended for the nation of Israel, not simply individuals within it. One example of this happening in practice was the Jubilee 2000 campaign which was a movement that took the issue of debt to the forefront of mainstream politics in the years leading up to the millennium and after. Inspired by the ancient concept of ‘jubilee’, Jubilee 2000 worked for a world where debt is no longer used as a form of power by which the rich exploit the poor. Freedom from debt slavery is a necessary step towards a world in which our common resources are used to realise equality, justice and human dignity. The global Jubilee 2000 campaign won $130 billion of debt cancellation for lower income countries which led to significant improvements to public services such as healthcare and education. Though this was an important victory, the structural causes that keep debt crises happening again and again, remained in place and so Debt Justice continue to campaign for systemic change today.

We can see from all this that, in order to understand what our release means, we need to be people who know and understand the Bible. Chapter 4 of Luke’s gospel shows us clearly that Jesus was immersed in the Hebrew scriptures and saw them as speaking about himself. When he was tempted by the Devil at the beginning of Chapter 4, he defended himself by quoting from the Bible. In that passage he used the Bible to tell the Devil what he would not be like and here, in the synagogue, he used the Bible to tell everyone what he would be like. This Bible Sunday we can do the same if we read and understand what God is saying to us in the Bible, both about those things from which our lives need to be freed and those things to which we need to dedicate our lives, talents and time.

The people who heard Jesus were, initially, impressed by what he said but as they realised that Jesus intended this Jubilee to be for all people, they rejected him and tried to kill him. What will our response to Jesus’ manifesto be? Will it be the rejection that he experienced from the people of Nazareth? Will it be the apathy and disbelief that we accord to most political manifestos? Will it be the cynicism or distrust that some feel towards campaigns like that for Debt Justice? Or will it be acceptance of the release from slavery to sin that Jesus offers to us and involvement in his work of releasing others from sin and from debt?

Last Wednesday the Church remembered Henry Martyn, Translator of the Scriptures. Born in Truro in 1781, Henry Martyn went up to Cambridge at the age of sixteen. He became an avowed evangelical and his friendship with Charles Simeon led to his interest in missionary work. In 1805, he left for Calcutta as a chaplain to the East India Company. The expectation was that he would minister to the British expatriate community, not to the indigenous peoples; in fact, there was a constant fear of insurrection and even the recitation of Magnificat at Evensong was forbidden, lest 'putting down the mighty from their seats' should incite the indigenous peoples. Henry set about learning the local languages and then supervised the translation of the New Testament first into Hindi and then into Persian and Arabic, as well as preaching and teaching in mission schools. He understood that Jesus’ manifesto, like the Magnificat, meant freedom and release for all people everywhere. May we realise and live out that same truth too. Amen.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Iain Archer - Everything I've Got.

Addicted to sin & selfishness

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

If there was a common theme to the past weekend for me, it involved addiction. There were encounters at both churches with those who were influenced by their addictions, including an attempted theft and incidents of dealing. The lives and behaviour of those involved were clearly governed by their substance abuse making interaction with them difficult and meaning that they tended to reject the sources of support offered to them.

Then on Sunday, in the annual service celebrating the Arts organised by commission4mission, the art group of which I am part which will exhibit here in September, we heard poems, songs and stories for one of our artists, Anthony Hodgson, who has found release from his addictions through faith in Christ. As a result, his art explores the themes of addiction and release.

The effects of severe substance addictions are very clear and can be seen around us daily. It can be easy for those of us who are not in that situation to condemn those who are and to believe that we are not affected by addictions ourselves.

However, that is not what scripture says about our situation. Scripture regularly, as in our Epistle today (Romans 6. 19 - 23), uses the imagery of addiction about our sinfulness as human beings. We see it here in the references to our having been slaves to sin. Essentially, what is being claimed is that we are addicted to selfishness and independence. Until we turn to Christ, we are separated from God because our lives are turned in on ourselves; oriented around our needs, wants and wishes. In our day and time this is a reality which has been used as the basis for our consumerist culture, where we are continually persuaded to buy stuff we don't actually need in order to assuage our sense of inadequacy and boost our sense of ego. Those who manage large or unsustainable levels of personal debt will readily acknowledge the overwhelming nature of the pressures which cause us to spend, spend, spend.

As with any addiction, it is vital that we reach a point in our lives where we acknowledge that we are actually powerless in the grip of powerful forces which control us - slaves to sin, as we have acknowledged that St Paul expresses it - and need to recognise that we need outside help. That, of course, is where God comes into the picture, as it is only when we can look outside ourselves that our addiction to selfishness can begin to be broken.

Looking to God firstly addresses the insecurities and fears which underpin our focus on protecting and benefiting ourselves. God's unconditional love means that we can be sure that we are loved absolutely and can therefore look outside ourselves, our fears and anxieties. Looking to God also involves acknowledging the claim that others have on our lives and gives us a frame of reference beyond ourselves. Jesus speaks of this in terms of love for God, for neighbours and for ourselves.

Our reality, whether this is visibly apparent or hidden, is that each of us is gripped by forces beyond our control and that it is only as we become open to God and others that the addiction to selfishness can be managed and mitigated.

Alcoholics Anonymous teaches its users that they are always recovering alcoholics. Christianity teaches that we are all recovering sinners. Just as those who go to AA have a 12 step programme which enables them to be a recovering alcoholic rather than an alcoholic, I wonder whether we have the equivalent in place to deal with our own personal addictions. The 12 steps of AA are actually as relevant to all other addictions as they are to alcoholism. The starting point is to admit that we have been powerless in relation to our actions and that our lives had become unmanageable. Then to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity and to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work.

Choices for change

Have you ever felt stuck? A classic image for being stuck is of sinking into quicksand. There are at least 35 different movies in which a scene of that type features and we can all, no doubt, easily conjure up in our minds an image of someone stuck in that way. The Hammer Horror film of The Hound of the Baskervilles with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing is one such, with Watson escaping the quicksand in Grimpen Moor before Cecile Stapleton succumbs to the quicksand after Sherlock Holmes has uncovered her murderous plans.

Quicksand isn't actually as dangerous as it is made to look in the movies. Because your body is less dense than quicksand, you can't fully sink unless you panic and struggle too much. So, although you are to some extent physically stuck, your attitude of mind is also vital to your survival and ability to get free. If you panic you can sink further, but if you relax, your body's buoyancy will cause you to float.

Something similar may have been going on with the sick man in today’s Gospel reading (John 5. 1 - 9). This man was stuck. He had been lying beside the Pool of Bethzatha for the best part of 38 years. Along with all the others by the Pool, he was waiting for an angel to stir up the water as, when the water did move, the first sick person to go into the pool was healed from whatever disease s/he had. This man was never the first to make into the Pool and, therefore, had never been healed.

So he was stuck. He stayed by the Pool because he thought it was his only chance of being healed but he knew, in his mind, that he was never going to be the first one in and so would actually never be healed. Although he was unwell and, therefore, was to some extent physically stuck, his attitude of mind was also vital to his problem and was contributing to his feeling of being stuck.

When our health is being affected by both our mind and our body we call that psychosomatic. “Psychosomatic means mind (psyche) and body (soma). A psychosomatic disorder is a disease which involves both mind and body. Some physical diseases are thought to be particularly prone to be made worse by mental factors such as stress and anxiety. Your current mental state can affect how bad a physical disease is at any given time … treatments to ease stress, anxiety, depression, etc, may help if they are thought to be contributing to your physical disease.”

It is this issue – his attitude of mind - that Jesus seems to address when he speaks with this man. I say that because the first thing that Jesus asks him is whether or not he wants to get well. That seems a strange question for Jesus to ask, although it is one that he also asks others who come to him looking for healing.

Jesus is, perhaps, recognising that we all have the ability to adapt to our circumstances; that, maybe, after years of being stuck and years of disappointment, the man is subconsciously thinking that he is better being where he is than trying to change anything about his situation. After all, he is surrounded by other people – so there was a sense of community and support by the Pool – and, presumably, other people charitably brought food regularly to those who could not move from the Pool – so, they were not starving. We can end up accepting a situation which we don’t like because the prospect of change seems to involve a greater sense of risk. 

“Do you want to get well?” Jesus asks. The man’s answer is that he is stuck – he can’t get in the water first, therefore he can’t be healed. He is saying that he can’t see any alternative. He has no options, he is stuck.

So Jesus gives him an option - an alternative, a choice – by saying, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “I have healed you so get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” There is no mention of healing before the man gets up and moves. Instead, what Jesus did was to make it clear to the man that he had a choice and he had options; he could stay by the Pool and be stuck or he could get up and move away, in which case he would no longer be stuck.

 

When we are stuck, we often feel as though we have no choices and no options; there is nothing that we can do. This is, for example, commonly how people who get into significant levels of debt feel. We have all heard the stories of how levels of interest rapidly rise so people find themselves owing far more than they earn or will ever earn. In that situation, people feel swamped, overwhelmed by the extent of their debt and think that there is no way in which it can be repaid. But, if the person were to sit down with an adviser whether from the Citizens Advice Bureau or Christians Against Poverty or some other reputable organisation, a plan can be devised that will enable the debt to be paid bit by bit and the person enabled to move beyond it rather than be stuck in it.

 

While we feel like there are no options when we get stuck, the reality is that there are usually choices which we can make some of which may well help to rectify and change the situation. Jesus gave the man a choice, an option, an alternative - “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” It is only when he chooses change, gets up and walks away from the Pool that the man is said to have been healed.

 

So, this is not simply a story about a physical healing. Instead, it is about a change of mind which comes about as we see that we have options and actively choose to do something different. In the story, it is Jesus who helps the man see that he has choices. Jesus doesn’t provide a readymade solution for the man’s problem instead he comes alongside and helps him to choose change. It maybe that when you are feeling stuck that is what Jesus will offer to you too.

 

We often want and pray for the instant solution instead of looking at the choices we have and allowing Jesus to be alongside and supporting us as we choose. If we accept instant solutions we remain dependent on those who gave them to us. If we are helped to make choices, then we can continue to change and mature ourselves. As the proverb says, ‘Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.’

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Switchfoot - Dare You To Move.

What is the role of the commons in the economy?

Rev. Canon Peter Challen of the Christian Council for Monetary Justice is one of the organisers for an intensive social innovation project of 12 interrelated seminars in 12 days involving leading NGOs and thinks tanks. What is the role of the commons in the economy? will foster an educational and research collaboration for facilitating transition to a more equitable world. It will demonstrate how differing starting points can lead to a commons ground. You can participate in one or more of the seminars.

James Quilligan is a globally renowned commons theorist/activist, policy analyst, and founder of the Global Commons Trust. He writes: "Modern economics has turned labour into a utility of the market and government. But the principles of the commons (people's negotiation of their own norms and rules for the management of social and natural resources) show us how to transcend utilitarian economics by transforming the traditional division of labour. New forms of value are already being created by these commons, whether they are traditional (irrigation ditches, pastures, indigenous cultures) or emerging (intellectual property, social networks, collaborative innovation)." To learn more about Mr. Quilligan’s work, click here.

James Quilligan's work on managing local and global commons is developing understanding of how in a commons-based economy:

• consumers become the producers of their own resources
• trusts set a cap on the extraction and use of a resource to preserve it for future generations
• businesses flourish by renting a proportion of the resources outside the cap for extraction and production
• governments tax a percentage of these rents, funding a basic income for citizens and the restoration of depleted resources
• the power of decision-making returns to the people, enabling them to participate in the decisions that affect them directly
• the traditional property ownership model is eclipsed by a trusteeship model of sustainability, quality of life and well-being
• the lessons of community based resource management have major implications for post-liberal forms of multilateralism and global governance.

He will present a series of 12 seminars, workshops and other educational events during his 12 day visit to London in the Spring. (Look up details here.) Those events will be convened by a variety of organisations. Confirmed conveners include:Finance Innovation Lab, School of Economic Science, St. James Piccadilly, IPPR, NEF, Civil Society Forum, and School of Commoning.  The kick-off seminar will be hosted in the House of Commons.

Starting from many different points of engaged intellectual and scholarly concern, research and practice, the various seminars will explore the understanding of the Commons as perceived from each seminar’s perspective, guided by James Quilligan. Together, they represent an emergent curriculum of theoretically grounded and action-oriented studies in the key economic, political, and social issues of the Commons.

During his visit, these seminars will examine together such questions as:

• Economically, what steps are needed to adjust the rules of the present interest-driven, debt-based economy to the sustainable targets of our natural, social and cultural commons?
• Politically, how can the philosophy of individual wealth (ownership, division of labor, reciprocity) be reconciled with the interests of collective wealth (trusteeship, the unity of producers and consumers, complementarity)?
• Socially, would it be possible for people's trusts to create sustainable limits to protect our commons for future generations, then rent the remaining resources to business for production and distribution, and provide these revenues to government for the funding of social dividends and the restoration of the depleted commons?

The vital and complex questions introduced in these seminars do not have easy answers. The investigation into how the “commons” may connect and synergise the economic, social, philosophical, spiritual, and political spheres, and facilitate the great transition to an equitable and sustainable world, is an ongoing challenge.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pink Floyd - Money.

Meltdown .... A PowerPoint presentation

Peter Challen has sent me an interesting PowerPoint presentation entitled 'Meltdown' about the next phase of the Global Financial crash, originally prepared and circulated by Dr Mike Haywood. Let me know if you'd like a copy and I'll forward it to you.

In summary, the presentation argues that ...
The debt mountain, peak oil, population growth, resource depletion, population growth, the pension time bomb and climate change are all interconnected. Remember, only 3 dozen economists correctly predicted the 2008 global financial crisis, out of a profession of 20,000 members. Not one of the World politicians and Central Bankers saw the crisis coming, but all of them claim to know the remedy.
Meltdown did not occur in October 2008, but we were within 4 hours of it happening. It has only been deferred. The reasons for the 2008 crash have not gone away. The US housing market is still in freefall and US and European Banks are becoming increasingly insolvent, although they won't admit it. Economic growth will be stifled by rising oil prices. The bailouts are not working. World Politicians, Bankers and Economists are trying to maintain the status quo but they are losing control. Fundamentally, the real systemic causes of the crisis are rarely discussed with transparency and have not been addressed. Fractional Reserve Banking and universal public ignorance of banking practices are the cause of all our global problems.

The collapse will happen within the next couple of years. The Eurozone or USA will most probably be the epicentre. The interconnectivity of the financial system means we will all be affected. What happens next after the collapse is impossible to predict. History is replete with examples but not on a Global scale. Massive political unrest will prevail. There will be a rise in popularity of extreme left and right political parties.
Peter recommends them as a valuable set of slides, graphs and summaries that might usefully be viewed before the Moving Planet day seminar at St James Piccadilly on September 24 see http://www.st-james-piccadilly.org/.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regina Spektor - Fidelity.

Haiti: Cancel the debt

This comes from Oxfam:

"At the moment the world's attention is focused on Haiti. Leaders are pledging to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Haiti and help them build a brighter future out of the rubble.
There is one thing they can do right now to potentially transform the future prospects of Haiti. By cancelling the country's crippling debt, Haitian people can have a chance to build a brighter future.

Even before the earthquake, Haiti was weighed down by debt. They owed over $891 million to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others. This is a legacy of loans to unelected governments of years past.

Leaders are meeting in Montreal on Monday to decide on the amount of aid that they will give. The IMF has said that it will work to cancel the debt, and this now needs to happen.

They have also offered a $100 million loan to Haiti but this should be converted into a grant. The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has subsequently said that they will turn this loan into a grant but we need to make sure that he does everything that he can to make this happen.
If these debts aren't cancelled, Haiti will be sending tens of millions to the IMF and other international bodies even as it struggles to rebuild. If these debts are cancelled, the Haitian government will have a better chance to build their country, so that it is stronger than before.

Email the head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn to demand that when leaders meet on Monday they cancel Haiti's debts immediately. Make sure that earthquake relief doesn't create a new debt burden."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moby - Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad.

A modest finance proposal

The latest Rethink email bulletin from the Relationships Foundation contains the following modest proposal about relational lessons from the 'credit crunch':

"It is disastrous, from a relational perspective, for a bank which makes a loan to be able to sell on the whole of that loan to other banks. The economic consequences of this taking place on a massive scale are ones which we are all living with at the moment. At the very least, originating banks ought to be required to retain 20% of the risk in relation to the original loan, so that they have sufficient incentive to take proper precautions to see if the borrower can afford to make the repayments. In relation to more complex forms of on-selling, where the repackaged loans have been divided up into different tranches, the originating bank ought to be required to hold on to a greater percentage of the so-called equity tranche, i.e. the riskiest portion of the loans, which bears the highest risk of non-repayment."

Read the whole piece here and blog comments here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Flying Lizards - Money (that's What I Want).

Monetary Justice

Recently I met Revd. Peter Challen, the son of former St John’s Vicar, Revd. Charles Challen (who interestingly, like me, was both a Vicar at St John’s and a curate at St Margaret’s Barking). Some people at St John's remember Peter as he grew up here, arriving aged nine and leaving aged nineteen.

Peter is now the Chair of the Christian Council for Monetary Justice (CCMJ) and a founding member of the Global Justice Movement (GJM). I met him at a conference on Mission in London’s Economy where he spoke about the way in which the global economy is based on monetary principles that are contrary to scripture and which create injustice for the majority of the world’s population. This affects us all because the work that we do and the things we buy support a system that leaves many around the world in poverty.

Peter says that, "we read the Gospel as if we had no money, and we spend our money as if we know nothing of the Gospel." Yet no aspect of our individual and corporate lives is more crucial in determining human welfare and few subjects are more frequently addressed in our scriptures. “Burdens of debt at personal, corporate, national and international levels and the disregard of biblical teaching on usury,” Peter argues, “are conspiring to create immense social disease.”

What can we do about this? Understanding the issues is a good start. Peter has written a book called Seven Steps to Justice (New European Publications, 2002) or there are articles on the CCMJ and GJM websites. Supporting organisations that address issues of fair trade, both through financial giving and by buying fair trade, helps to make a difference. Campaigning on issues of fair trade, people trafficking etc. by writing to MPs, signing petitions or attending marches are small things in themselves but when large numbers of around the world speak together on these issues then change begins to come. Finally, the Bible calls all to lifestyle changes as a result of our faith and this is where significant change can begin, if we live more simply in order that others can simply live.

Peter’s analysis of global economics has major challenges for all who respond to it but I find it inspiring to know of a previous member of St John’s who is engaging deeply with the issues of our day and want to find out more about his work and the challenges it poses for us.