Economy's loss, our gain

The economy's current troubles seem to be so multi-layered. There's the credit crunch that makes it hard for businesses (and even individuals) to get loans. Then there's the bailout that is causing the national debt to skyrocket. The shrinking of the economy is threatening all kinds of small businesses that could never hope for a government rescue, of course. And finally, there's the rising level of unemployment that is threatening the livelihood of families all over the country.

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the recession is that nobody knows when it will end or how bad it will get. And that's a recipe for nation-wide anxiety.

With all the bad news we hear from the media everyday, it would be nice to hear a little good news for a change.

My column in the UM Reporter this week looks at the opportunity that living in the midst of this economic downturn can give to us as disciples of Jesus. Our consumer lifestyles don't have much patience for the teaching in the New Testament - from Jesus and elsewhere - that we should be very wary of over-indulgence in material luxuries. But the recession seems to be doing to us what Jesus is not, and that is causing us to re-evaluate lifestyles that focus way too much on mammon and way to little on God.

I don't think God makes a habit out of inflicting suffering on us very often. But God can certainly use the suffering we do experience for the good. And who knows? Maybe that's the good news that can come out of our current economic woes. If the recession draws us closer to Christ, then the economy's loss is our gain.

"We're in a recession"

Those words, spoken by Robert Brusca, an economist at FAO Economics, say what we all pretty much know to be true. Politicians tend to want to spin the news on the economy in the best way possible, so you'll almost never hear them use the "r" word. But the most recent news out about the economy - 240,000 more jobs lost in October and an unemployment rate up to 6.5% - shows an economy that is sputtering, at best.

The job loss in October brings the yearly total up to 1.2 million, and more than half of those have been lost in the last three months alone. The unemployment rate of 6.5% is the highest it has been since 1994. One of the most distressing aspects of the current economic downturn is the pessimistic tone of the economists that are being interviewed for stories like this one in the New York Times and this one for CNN Money.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the country's economic woes are going to cause Christians to have to really pay attention to how we are caring for one another. When we see our brothers and sisters around us suffering - whether through job loss, drop-off in business, or layoff - it should call us to reach out our hands in love and support. This is exactly what the church is called to do, and there ain't no shame in it. In my own church, we have begun to help more families with grocery needs and gas cards. We haven't seen anything really devastating yet (such as job loss by a family's primary breadwinner), but I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen soon.

Have you seen the effects of the economic downturn in your own community? What is your church doing to meet the needs that you are seeing?

Christians amidst economic chaos

With the financial sector in crisis and the stock market in a tailspin, our nation's economic outlook is as gloomy as it has ever been in my lifetime. Just today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted another 678 points to fall below 8,000 for the first time since 2003.

Words like "fear" and "panic" are regularly being used in headlines to describe the worries of investors.

Even worse, it is starting to look like the financial meltdown is having a serious impact on the economy as a whole. The New York Times reports that 159,000 jobs were cut last month, the worst job loss rate in years. While our nationwide employment figures are still relatively healthy, statistics like that are not a good sign for what is to come. And that's just in the United States. Worldwide, the drying up of capital due to the subprime mortgage fiasco is raising the spectre of global recession - meaning that our sloppy banking practices here at home could end up hurting a lot of people around the world.

So what are Christians to do in this time? I think the first thing is for us to keep everything that is happening in perspective. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post a few weeks ago about a friend who reminded me of a central tenet of John Howard Yoder's theology - that it is, in fact, Jesus Christ and his church who are driving history. No king, nation-state, or economy can usurp what he has rightfully claimed for his own. It is a basic Christian affirmation, but in such a time as this (when we are tempted to think of the economy and presidential politics as having much greater ultimate importance than they really do) it is really important.

And second, I think any situation where Christians know that their brothers and sisters within the household of faith are going to suffer is an opportunity to help them in tangible ways. In my current column in the UM Reporter - "Hope in the midst of economic chaos" - I suggest that the current economic climate can actually help to teach us what it means to love one another. Now I know that isn't easy. Middle-class people have an almost pathological fear of others finding out that they are hurting financially. But self-sufficiency is a myth, and it is one that we should get past. In the generation after Jesus, the early church shared so that no one went needy (Acts 2:44-45, 4:32-35). If our current economic situation gets as bad as many fear it might, we will find ourselves with the same opportunity.

[November 8th update: This report by David Goldman of CNNMoney points to two troubling current developments in the economy: an unemployment rate that has risen to 6.5% nationally and a loss of 240,000 more jobs in October. The unemployment rate is the highest in the country since 1994.]

How rich are you?

Not long ago I was turned onto this fascinating website, called the Global Rich List. It allows you to include your personal income and then tells you where you rank in terms of global wealth.

What was interesting to me was how different standards of wealth in the United States seem when you put them up against the wealth of the rest of the world. For instance, according to U.S. government standards, the poverty threshold for 2006 was $10,400 for a single person (or $21,200 for a family of four). But according to the Global Rich List, living right at the poverty line in the U.S. would still make you the 793,757,388th richest person on earth. Keep in mind that there are well over 6 billion people on earth, so being in the top 800 million is pretty good. Put in simpler terms, it would mean that you are still in the top 13.22% wealthiest people in the world.

It's tougher to figure these numbers in family terms; the Global Rich List is really meant to give the stats on an individual. But even if I take my family income and divide it in half to get a rough idea of my personal earning power in a given year (I live in a family of two), it still puts me in the top 10% of the world's wealthiest people.

Now I can tell you, as a part of a family where one of the bread winners is a full-time graduate student (that's me), I don't feel wealthy at all. For those of you reading this blog from North America or Western Europe, I imagine you probably don't feel wealthy either. But I bet you also rank pretty high in terms of the world's richest people.

How are we to think about these things? Well, for one, I think it says a lot about how we are conditioned to think about money. We are taught to always think in terms of scarcity instead of abundance; this is a theme that government and the consumer culture drive into our brains all the time. When we constantly receive the message that we don't have enough of this or that (money, consumer products, security, etc.), then we are always going to think we're not well off.

And second, I think it calls us to go back to the Scriptures and read again what God has to say about how we use our wealth, both in the Old and the New Testaments. Wealth is both a real and a relative concept. It's real in the sense that one can either have or have not what it takes to get by, and if one lacks for basic necessities, one is certainly not wealthy. But wealth is also relative, in exactly the sense that the Global Rich List points out. Who are we to buy second homes and boats and expensive clothes, when the vast majority of our brothers and sisters around the world lack for so much?