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© Brian Ferguson
November 30, 2008
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.
Reading:
excerpt from Sin, Evil, and Economics
by contemporary Christian Theologian Sallie McFague.
Thanks to technologies of communication, transportation, and commerce, the world of the twenty-first century is more deeply interconnected than ever before, and it is increasingly clear that the unifying logic or discourse is the language of capitalism. Not everyone chooses to recognize the primacy of that language, and some speak defiantly in other tongues, but there can be little argument that it has become the global discourse with which all others must contend. It is the defining myth of our time.
While we each have choices to make about the degree to which we will “buy into” the myth, practically no one on earth has the freedom to opt out altogether. It is that pervasive and that powerful. And at the heart of capitalism, I have argued, is the exact dynamic of freedom and bondage as described by the famous Christian theologian Augustine’s theory of evil. Capitalism assumes that we are creatures of desire, and it stokes our desire for lesser goods to the point of addiction, finally rendering us powerless to opt out of its dynamic.
What would it mean, after all, to get “outside” of capitalism in today’s world? Even those who want nothing to do with it, who view it as the pinnacle of Western corruption or imperialism, or whose minds and bodies bear the scars of its excesses and exclusions, are nevertheless pulled into its captivating influence.
Strangely, while market capitalism began with a classic Christian view of humanity based on selfish greed—the basis for the allocation of scarce resources and the eventual “trickle down” of prosperity for all in the twenty-first century—it has eventuated in a näive, optimistic, narrow, and undifferentiated view of sin and evil. Classical economic theory claims that the very core of who we are—individuals motivated by insatiable desire for more and more goods—is the basis from which to build the good life for all. From the selfish desires of billions of human beings turning the earth’s resources into goods for sale, prosperity for all will presumably come eventually.
This vision of the good life, however, neglects two huge facts: the just distribution of the earth’s resources as well as the limits of these resources. We now know that these matters are not mysteriously taken care of by the “invisible hand” of economics; on the contrary, the insatiable greed of billions of human beings causes horrendous injustice to other creatures, human and nonhuman, as well as undermining the sustainability of the planet itself.
But market capitalism does not deal with the tragic dimensions of sin and evil; its view of sin is narrow and viewed only as a sin against God, even though the implication of unregulated greed results in sin against neighbor and nature. By bracketing sin within the limits of the violation of God’s will, it eliminates from view the massive evil that our individual choices have created for others on planet Earth.
Prayer
The following are the words of the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.
Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds.
Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.
Let us be aware of the source of being, common to us all and to all living things.
Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion – towards ourselves and towards all living beings.
Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.
With humility, with awareness of the existence of life, nd of the sufferings that are going on around us, let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.
Amen
Sermon – Religion and Economics
With the Thanksgiving holiday just past, there is now the seasonal tumble into the Christmas holidays. This past Friday apparently marks the beginning of the Christmas season, a beginning marked by shopping rather than any religious significance or perhaps shopping is religion for some people.
The media attempts to whip up excitement about the beginning of the Christmas shopping season as if it is some sort of race or competition. The mantra seems to be “they who buy the most present wins.” We are told about the must-have goods this season and the so-called bargains to be had. Those of us with children have already been barraged for a few weeks about the gifts our children want. A list that seems ever-changing – or perhaps I missed the point and my daughter’s new requests were additions to her list of desires and not replacements. I might have a very disappointed daughter this Christmas as she receives only one of her many requests.
Looking for someone to blame for these endless requests for presents, I blame at the media. Then I realize that my five year old daughter is too young to read and she doesn’t watch television but she has this remarkably impressive communication network which keeps her supplied with all the information about the latest hip toys. This week I read an article where a group called the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood had asked the Toy industry to cut back on its marketing to children due to the severe economics hardships which are particularly affecting families.
The Toy industry Association’s response was a firm defense of current marketing practices by asserting that children “are a vital part of the gift selection process.” It appears to me the toy industry association sees children as their most effective and certainly most persistent sales people. So begins the child on their life-long role as consumers. With little regulation of advertising to children then we leave the individual parents battling the massive forces of advertising in a David and Goliath battle where we have taken the sling slot away from David and given it to Goliath.
While the creation of desire for some product by advertising and the resulting peer pressure is most noticeable in children, I think most of us are affected by it. The philosopher and environmentalist, Max Oelschlaeger, says “In so-far as Americans have a collective identity it is as the consumer who lives amid unprecedented material choice and the worker who bends the earth to our virtually unrestrained human purpose.”
Even in difficult economic times as we are experiencing now then consumerism permeates our society in so many ways it creates values and purpose for many people. James Luther Adams, the 20th century Unitarian theologian, maintained that all people have a religion whether they realize it or not. He says “The question concerning faith is not, shall I be a person of faith? The proper question is, rather, which faith is mine? For whether a person craves prestige, wealth, security, or amusement; whether he lives for country, for science, for God or for plunder, he shows that he has faith, he shows that he puts confidence in something. Find out what he gives his deepest loyalty to and you’ve found his religion.” In listening to these words today, it appears to me that money, material possession, and our roles as consumers are defining meaning and value for many in our society therefore fulfills many of the roles of religion.
Our economic system through consumerism and advertising is a powerful perhaps dominant cultural force in our lives today. Yet as we reminded in the reading from Melita earlier, it is based on individual self-interest which unless we control it is just the contemporary reincarnation of the sin of greed. While Economics is often thought of as the study of money and financial systems, it is really a study of human decision-making for the allocation of limited resources. Economics is about how we deal with scarcity and limits with money being an important mechanism to determine the allocation of resources “efficiently”. Sometimes I find it hard to think of money as merely a tool in our lives since so often it seems like a goal in itself. We choose our jobs based on it, plan our retirements around it, and it places very real limitations on the lives of most of us.
Some people say that money makes the world go around. Another view is that money doesn’t make the world go around, but having it makes the journey much more pleasant. Regardless money is important in our society and necessary to meet many of our basic needs. But money can become an obsession for us as we desire more than necessary for their basic needs and distorting what is most important in our lives. All of the major religions caution us to beware of money becoming an idol or a false God, yet religious institutions walk that difficult line of needing money for their own survival but not wanting to be obsessed about it.
In the reading earlier, the author Sallie McFague states that in the 21st Century “the unifying logic or discourse is the language of capitalism” and asks the question of what it would mean to get outside of capitalism in today’s world? We are all so submerged in the world of commerce both as workers and consumers that it is difficult to remember that there are some institutions that do not operate on the typical model of market capitalism. Our non-profit philanthropic institutions are an example which collect donations then distribute goods and services to those in need. There is no attempt to make a profit therefore they can provide goods and services to everyone free or reduced cost.
Another institution that operates on the edge of the market capitalism system is this church. Some might say that our church operates in the hardest aspects of both the non-profit and for-profit world. Our income to support this church is through the donations of members like you – sounds like a National Public radio pledge drive – while much of our spending is in the world of market capitalism. We cannot turn around to the electrical utility company and say donations are down this month so we can’t pay you but we will as soon as donations pick up. I would love to see their faces at the suggestion.
The existence of all elements of this religious community is dependent on the donations of money and time from you the members of the congregation. You are asked to donate what you can financially to sustain and grow our community. There is no market mechanism that determines the price in competition with other churches. Could you imagine charging for people to come for our worship services – $20 to hear the senior minister, $5 for the intern minister and a refund if you don’t like the message?
Perhaps I’ll talk to stewardship about this idea. Not only is the idea crass it misses an important point about why we are here. We have our message, our culture, and our values which we wish to promote to all who are interested. We believe our religious vision has value but we also believe that it is too important, too valuable for people to be prevented hearing our vision due to lack of money. Most religious groups want to transcend the artificial limits placed on access to places and experiences based on limited money.
Those limits are placed by our economic system in an attempt to handle the scarcity of a resource and in a desire to make a profit. Religion is attempting to remove these limits by seeing our message and values as a source of abundance not a cause for scarcity. Most of us are attracted to our religious community because our lives are improved in some way by being here.
Many of us feel affirmed by being part of this community, some of us have had life changing experiences here, and I know people who feel our Liberal religious message has been life-saving to them. How do you put a dollar price on such a place? You can’t. The work is too important but such activities have a cost. Therefore as a religious community we let each of us decide for ourselves about the value of the community we have here and the contribution we wish to make to ease that cost. We are outside much of the market system since we give our service away without charge and those of us who choose, contribute our money and time as we determine is appropriate.
Our economic system is very efficient at delivering a variety of products and services to people for a low price. That is its purpose and we all live with the benefits of that. Our economics system was never developed to be the promoter of values for our society that was what religion is for. Values such as ecological sustainability and greater justice for more people are not promoted in our current economic system unless the consumers force it to. Our consuming habits are perhaps the clearest way that we express our moral choices on a daily basis yet there seems to be a strong separation between our economics and our religion.
The famous industrialist, Andrew Carnegie said that Christianity should not interfere with how money is made and only get involved in how its surplus should be dispersed in the form of charity. It seems that many religious organizations have not moved beyond such thinking therefore often fail to critique our economics system where it may be exploitive of people or abusive to our environment. If injustice in our society is caused by unethical production of goods, unsustainable consumption of resources, or deceitful advertising it not only appropriate to address the issues but I would say our religion calls us to do so.
In the reading we heard earlier, the author Sallie McFague discusses the use of the Christian doctrines of sin and evil in addressing the harm excessive and unregulated greed is harmful to our world. Her critique of market capitalism is that sustainability and justice for all inhabitants are not its central goals of the system. Now we do not talk about sin or evil much in the pulpits of our Unitarian Universalist churches perhaps that is why many of you are here and not at other churches – but I think the ideas behind the doctrines if not the terms themselves can be useful in addressing the excesses and exploitative elements of our economic system.
Now, the Liberal Religious tradition has moved away a long time ago from the doctrine of Original Sin where humanity is inherently depraved but the concept of sin itself is more ambiguous for us. I feel comfortable with McFague’s idea of sin being an excessive concern for ourselves at the expense of the needs of others or sustainability of the planet. Sin is something we are responsible for and can control through the choices we make.
McFague defines evil as the institutions, practices, and attitudes resulting from an exploitive economic system based on excessive individual self-interest, which creates suffering and deprivation in our world. For example, it may seem in my self-interest to buy a product at a low price but if the product was made by forced child labor then I think it is appropriate to call this a sinful act supporting an evil system. Strong but I feel appropriate words. We can replace sin with wrong and evil with bad, it is the meaning not the words that are important.
With these concepts of sin and evil then this sets up a great tension between our economic system and religion. Market capitalism believes that the good life is built by each of us pursuing our own enlightened self-interest. Religion cautions against excessive self-interest and reminds us that through our interdependence we are called to care for one another and our planet.
I think this is a question we deal with daily during satisfying our own needs is when does our enlightened self-interest become excessive self-interest? How do we, as religious people and consumers who desire to lead a good life, deal with this tension in our self-interest as we go about our busy lives and with the child who has just made yet another request for a Christmas present? You really want an easy answer for this one aren’t you – alas there isn’t one. We have to accept that tension between enlightened and excessive self-interest as real and difficult. Our choices as consumers can have a negative impact therefore we should be intentional and thoughtful about our purchasing choices.
The stewardship of our planet and welfare of all people is particularly important in the age of the Global Economy since the environmental impact and exploitation of people may occur far from our purchasing of a product therefore could remain invisible to us unless we are vigilant. The notion of interdependence between ourselves as consumers and the workers who produce the goods, wherever in the world they are, leads us to take responsibility for buying products that were produced without exploitation. Examples of exploitation would be child labor, coerced labor, or paying non-livable wages.
If our individual consumer decisions create an economic system that prevents those in need receiving basic necessities and those producing the goods a reasonable quality of life, then our individual decisions should be able to change this system. I, like many of you, have tried with my consumption habits to move beyond the obvious criteria of price, function, and style to consider the following factors:
Try to distinguish between my true long-term needs and my short-term often misplaced desires.
Can I borrow, barter or get used whatever I am wanting?
Consider factors other than price such as how goods were produced including working conditions, reputation of company involved, and environmental impact.
These criteria do not make shopping easier since they take effort and any desire for perfection will be very frustrating. The goal for me is greater intention and awareness in my consumer habits, which allows me to bring my religious values into my everyday life in a meaningful way. We are both beneficiaries of our market capitalism system and often sufferers in the hardships created by it.
Our economic system is good at delivering products for a low price and handling scarcity. It was not designed to and therefore does not do a good job of determining values or what is valuable.
In our consumer culture today it is too easy to confuse price and value – they are not the same thing. Just consider what is most valuable in your own life – I suspect it has nothing to do with the price you paid for them assuming they even had a price. The love of friends and family, the old photographs we have, a book of special importance to us, that great piece of music that brings us to tears, or that life-changing experience that might even have happened in this church. Those items are dealing in a currency that is far more important than money. They are dealing in the eternal values of finding what makes our life worth living and meaningful. Let the economic system determine price, we are the only ones that define for ourselves what has value and worth in our lives.
——————
Jones, Serene and Lakeland, Paul. Editors. Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005) p.141, 148
Crary, David. Meltdown fallout: some parents rethink toy-buying http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081129/ap-on-bi-ge/toy-worries (accessed 29th November, 2008)
Oelschlaeger, Max Caring for Creation: An Ecumenical Approach to the Environmental crisis. (New Haven, Connecticut. Yale University Press, 1994) p.96
Parke, David The Epic of Unitarianism (Skinner House, Boston, 1985) p.149
Jones, Serene & Paul Lakeland Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) p.148
Jones, Serene & Paul Lakeland Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) p.141
Meeks, M. Douglas God the Economist: The Doctrine of God and Political Economy (Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1989) p.20
Jones, Serene & Paul Lakeland Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) p.148
