I attach below, for your thoughts and comments, a recent article I wrote for our Parish Magazine on the Financial Crisis.

“As I write the French presidential election is in the news.  But nothing happens without the markets reacting – every political move has a nervous response from those who shuffle money around the world.  We live in challenging times economically, and the consequences are, of course, greatest for those on the margins of survival. (Something to think about as Christian Aid Week approaches in May).

Our heads are spinning with these figures, and we think ‘How dare they! Down with the bankers! No use putting my own finances in order if those in charge seem to squander it.’  We are probably right to be angry at the injustice of it all, but the difficulty is finding someone to blame.  The bankers are a fine target, and many of them will be culpable of cooking up strange and complex financial arrangements.  Their bluff has been called, and our whole financial system has been on the verge of collapse. Yet it would be wrong to tar everyone with the same brush.  Many bankers are responsible and clever people whose actions will save those very financial institutions on which we all rely for secure investments and carefree banking.

As Christians there are a number of responses we can make, as we think about what the Bible says about wealth – and it has a lot to say, believe me.  I want now just to pick out two. They could be summed up in two phrases; ‘Beware you rich.’  ‘Blessed are you who are poor’.

There are several passages in the prophets in which the decadence and indulgence of the rich at the expense of the poor is described and used as a warning of judgment to come.  I think particularly of the prophet Amos – ‘Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory…’ (Amos 6.4 etc) But I am also thinking of Jesus’s warnings at the end of the Beatitudes in Luke 6; ‘Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation…’   The sense I get from such passages is that, while a comfortable life may be a blessing, when the disparity between rich and poor gets too great the whole foundations of a just society are threatened. I think we are in one of those times now.  When the richest find their wages increasing year on year by a percentage far in excess of that of the rate of inflation, we get to the absurd situation where certain individuals are paid thousands of times more than the average worker.  It goes beyond reason.  But it is a consequence of a system in which the market is global for such key individuals. We are, to some extent, trapped by the system.  Key individuals, who run complex and demanding organisations (including football managers) are at a premium and, in a market where people are willing to pay, are able to command ever higher rewards.

What to do?  I don’t know. But I think it helps to recognise the sickness, even if we can’t yet see the cure.  The sickness is clearly putting financial reward as the priority above justice. And we can show that, while you are happier not being poor, you won’t be proportionately happier being richer and richer. I sense that we are just waking up to the scandal of it – public outrage at huge unwarranted bonuses is audible.  And the fact that some have turned them down shows that they, at least, are conscious of the shame of it. (There are, of course, hundreds of millionaires who couldn’t care a toss what others think!)  But if I were to prophesy, I would go along with the Biblical message which seems to suggest that this time of excess precedes a great fall, a cataclysmic change of direction.  Watch out for a great global shift of power in which Europe and America lose much of their influence, and we can no longer assume continuing improvement in general living standards and probably a material reduction.  Maybe this will come with a spiritual awakening?!

That’s ‘Beware the rich’.  Now, ‘Blessed are you who are poor’.  That’s Luke’s version, of course, and Luke tends to have an eye for the underdog.  Matthew instead has ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’, sometimes given as ‘Blessed are those who know their need of God.’  So not necessarily easy to apply to ourselves!  I mean; in many ways none of us is poor, in the sense in which a person who has a dollar a day to live on (or less) is poor.  And sometimes we don’t particularly want to be thought of as ‘poor in spirit’.  But I think the sort of perspective that this gives us is good.  When we have enough we can be grateful and content with what is ours to use. In this way we take as gift what we have and give thanks for it, and then place our whole trust in God.  But the ‘edge’ that Luke gives in his version is important too. For we will know by this that God’s priorities in any age are the poor – the ones whom the world would often rather forget.”

Martin Stephenson