Feeling a Little Too Good in a Shaky Time

My friend and I were discussing the current financial chaos when he paused to measure his words, reluctant to say out loud what he’d been thinking. “I know you and I think alike most the time,” he said. “We usually have pretty much the same visceral reaction to things.” I agreed and he continued, almost apologetically. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been feeling something like exhilaration at what’s been going on. It doesn’t make sense since I have a bit of money in a 401k myself, but that’s how I’m feeling.”

I did understand. Just that morning I’d told a different friend I had mixed feelings about what was happening. I’d been suspicious of our economic system for some time, and not just that it was a house of cards built on a foundation of smoke and mirrors. I had watched the broad economic opportunity of post-World War II America, built on FDR’s concept of social compact and shared prosperity, become dog-eat-dog America posing nobly as a land of individual responsibility. But speak of it and someone would scream “socialist” or “class warfare.” The facts, however, were undeniable: the income gap was widening and health benefits were becoming an endangered species as CEOs and hedge fund managers laughed all the way to the bank. Most Americans seemed ready to accept this as the new reality, even ready to blame the victims as not smart enough, or industrious enough, or for having chosen the wrong profession.

No one seemed able to articulate a temperate path back to the “covenant” America I grew up in, so when radical change through economic collapse appeared on the horizon, it was natural to feel something good might follow. After all, that’s how the Great Depression worked to give us the social safety net Americans once took for granted.

And where has the church been on this great moral issue of economic disparity? Either totally silent, or speaking with its wee little voice for fear of offending the beneficiaries.

The Bible presents a clear view of a culture’s responsibility to the least of its people. It’s easy enough to see when the blinders of self interest are removed. When God gave the land of Canaan to Israel, the gift was contingent on building a covenant culture where no one would be allowed to fail. If you don’t believe it, read the books of the law. Open your eyes and you can’t help but see it. Later, when the people of Israel and Judah turned greedy and failed to follow God’s vision, God didn’t hesitate to bring radical failure as a precursor to change. The Book of Ezekiel is a good example. Written from within the Exile, the prophet’s tale of “fat sheep” who took the rich pasture for themselves and pushed aside the weak helped explain why God allowed the people to fall before the Babylonian onslaught. .

So, my friend and I are discussing the financial meltdown and are perhaps a little too happy that crisis is at hand. Trust the markets, we had been told; deregulate the financial institutions and let them do what they do best. It turns out “what they do best” is promote their own interests without concern for the nation as a whole. Maybe what we need is a total shaking. It worked for God’s people in the Old Testament. They would fall away, God would shake (usually with the help of a foreign power), the people would repent and God would restore. Since there’s no foreign power capable of shaking our great nation, perhaps the shaking must come from within. It will require more than changing the political party in charge. It will take systemic changes, equal to or greater than those FDR instituted. Maybe that’s why my friend and are feeling exhilaration at such bad times. Could such a moment be coming?

Unfortunately, as my second friend reminded me, it’s not the fat sheep but the lean sheep -- the poor and middle class who’ll suffer most in a collapse. True enough, but that also was true in the 1930s and few would argue the changes that emerged -- such as Social Security -- were not worth the agony people suffered

The time for laying blame on individuals is over. The kind of tweaking we’ve seen lately won’t get it done. That is designed to protect the status quo and its beneficiaries. As was true for the people of Old Testament times, our leadership class has failed because they themselves are so vested in the great disparity.

It appears the people will vote for change in November. We’ll see whether it is the kind of radical change that can right our foundering ship and restore our moral compass.