Free Market - Morality or Immorality?

In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post on February 20, Michael Gerson concluded his remarks with these words:
Suspicions about consumerism are being powerfully reinforced by economic realities along with environmental concerns. But the rejection of materialism is finally rooted in a spiritual view of human nature. Pope John Paul II warned of making "people slaves of 'possession' and of immediate gratification, with no other horizon than the multiplication or continual replacement of the things already owned with others still better." A less material orientation in life (assuming basic material needs are met) actually expands our horizons -- like an escape from the dungeon of our own desires.

It has always been a quiet fear of capitalists that the success of free markets would eventually undermine the moral basis for free markets -- that decadent prosperity would dissolve values such as prudence and delayed gratification. "Capitalism," argued economist Joseph Schumpeter, "creates a critical frame of mind which, after having destroyed the moral authority of so many other institutions, in the end turns against its own."

But capitalism may be self-correcting in this area, as it is in many others. A recession causes suffering that can overwhelm hope. It can also lead to the rediscovery of virtues that make sustained prosperity possible -- and that add nonmaterial richness to our lives. Sometimes grace can arrive through an unexpected door.

A blogger, The Cunning Realist, commented on Gerson's piece in this way:
By citing Schumpeter, Gerson lets capitalists off a bit easy. While Schumpeter's "quiet fears" are more relevant than ever, there are important differences between the school he represents and today's breed of capitalists. Robert McTeer, then head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, shared his quiet fear in 2001: "If we all join hands and go buy a new SUV, everything will be all right...Just go out and buy something -- maybe a Navigator." Richard Fisher, his successor, said in a television interview in 2005:

Where would the world be if Americans did not live out their proclivity to consume everything that looks good, feels good, sounds good, tastes good? We provide a service for the rest of the world. If we were running a current account surplus or trade surplus, what would happen to economic growth worldwide and what would be the economic consequences? So I think we are doing our duty there.

Does it sound like McTeer and Fisher worried that "decadent prosperity would dissolve values such as prudence and delayed gratification"? That top officials at the Fed represent today's breed of capitalists is an important issue in itself.

During the Bush years, I often wondered how many on the Religious Right understood the irony in supporting an administration that unabashedly promoted an almost demonic obsession with the material world (Bush: "Go shopping"). Gerson embraces the effects of natural downturns in the economic cycle: cultural renewal, thrift, family commitment, savings, morality, frugality, and prudence. It appears some -- and I don't mean Gerson necessarily -- are rediscovering the importance of those things, and justifiably objecting to Washington's extraordinary economic measures as symbols of opposite values. Strangely, that rediscovery seems to have started in early November.

There has been a debate among some, though muted at times, on whether capitalism was moral or immoral. Certainly, we have seen evidence of abuses by individuals within the economic system, but abuses do not really define the inherent morality of the system. What think you, good reader? Can a system based on the proposition of an individual getting as much wealth as she or he can and the elevation of unfettered consumption be moral? Can a system that is based on limiting how much wealth a person can accumulate be moral? What questions should you ask to determine the morality? What criteria do you use?

Gender and Religion

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life features this graphic that illustrates the gender gap in religion. As you can see, women measure significantly higher in each of these categories.

I would suspect that any of you who attend a mainline Christian church have noticed that the Sunday morning worship crowd at your church consistently has more women than men. I would even speculate that the same is true in Evangelical churches.

With all of this, I am still astounded at how often church groups refuse to allow women to be in positions of leadership in the church. And, yes, I know the Biblical verses used to support such a prohibition, but I have serious questions about that entire process of interpretation.

What about your church? Could a woman serve as your minister? Could a woman be in a position of church leadership? If your church called a woman to serve in such capacities, would you stay?

Cult or Not

One of the most emotionally laden terms in the study of religion is "Cult." To speak of some group as a cult is to evoke images of brain-washing, manipulation, destructive and harmful behavior, and unquestioning obedience of the follower for the leader, among others. To speak of a group as a cult brings to mind Jim Jones and Guyana and David Koresh and Waco. To accuse a group of being a cult suggests that it is guilty of the worst that religious groups can do and that its teachings are no better than the ravings of a charlatan. That is why the designation "cult" is typically not used in the academic study of religion.

That brings us to the issue of what is a cult and what is not. On the website Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance are these quotes about defining a cult:
** "...one person's cult is another's religion; all religions begin life as cults. An alternative definition is that a cult is a religion which you happen to dislike." Anthony Campbell
** "Cult is a word without much use outside the realm of religious mudslinging." Philip Kennicott
** "When someone uses the word 'cult,' it usually says more about them than the group," J. Gordon Melton, founder and director of The Institute for the Study of American Religion.
** "It's easy to tell the difference - a cult is someone else's religion. Corollary: "A fanatic is someone who believes something more strongly than you do." Jim Heldberg
** "I have often thought that the difference between a cult and a religion is an IRS ruling." Ron Barrier

One of my areas of study for my Ph.D. was sociology of religion. Thus, I have long had an interest in studying religous groups, especially what are termed minority religious groups or new religious movements.

All of this is prelude to a news story out of the Akron Ohio Beacon Journal, which can be found at: http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/39276907.html. A woman, who happens to be Roman Catholic, is concerned that her 18 year old son has fallen into the clutches of a cult. The son is a member of the Xenos Christian Fellowship, evidently an evangelical Christian group whose focus is youth ministry.

The opening of the news story is telling:
On a Saturday night in November, as a small group gathered for a Bible study at a Fairchild Avenue church in Kent, a woman stood along the street waving a sign: ''I Want My Son Back.''
She brought her husband and daughter, too.
''Xenos is a Cult'' and ''Tom, Don't Drink the Kool-Aid,'' said some of their signs.
Annemarie Smith, 48, a Roman Catholic from Stow, believes her 18-year-old son, Thomas, has been taken by a cult.
She has launched a religious war that has engaged the Stow police, mayor, high school and a municipal judge. She started an Internet blog and is trying to rally others to the cause.
Online, she makes allegations of alcohol abuse, vandalism and brainwashing of young children. She calls the church leader and his family ''Devil man,'' ''Devil wife'' and ''Devil son.''
Her son, meanwhile, left home to live with church friends and has received an ultimatum from his parents: ''Us or the church.''
Xenos Christian Fellowship is her target.

So, do you think the Mother is right or her son? What would you do in the same circumstances?

Continuing Debate on the Beginning of Human Life

The North Dakota House has passed a bill that states: any organism with the genome of homo sapiens should be considered a person deserving of Constitutional protection. That is, a fertilized egg must be considered as much a human being as a one year old or eighty year old person with all of the same rights and privileges and protections.

This is obviously an attempt to provide a legislative definition that would make abortion illegal, and it is not a new idea. "Human Life Amendments" have been proposed periodically in the US Congress since 1973. These HLA's would officially define the beginning of human life as the moment of conception, which has always seemed to me to be a religious definition and not necessarily a scientific one.

While this may seem to be the quick and easy way to negate the Roe v. Wade ruling of the US Supreme Court, this legal definition raises a host of other sticky questions. I would refer you to the website: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/01/03/even-more-questions-for-pro-lifers/ for a discussion of some of them.

In my own speculations, I have always wondered, if such a definition is adopted, what would that mean for a woman who does not follow adequate prenatal care? Could she be charged and jailed if she smokes during pregnancy or has a beer or doesn't eat properly or doesn't get enough rest? What happens if she does some of these non-healthful things before she knows she is pregnant? Could she be charged retroactively? What would be the implications for our health care system if such a law is passed? What happens for women who do not have health insurance? Would the government be required to provide health care for them in order to provide adequate care for the unborn person? Finally, I wonder if any of these legislators who want to provide a legal definition for the beginning of life have supported bills that would provide adequate comprehensive sex education and birth control options for all, especially for our teenagers, so that unwanted pregnancies could be better avoided?

What do you think? Would you vote to support such a bill?

Quote

I regularly go to the site, http://www.islamicate.com. Last week, this quotation was referenced:

What would happen if religious ideas were subjected to such a debate? I want to conclude with some speculations. A robust, critical discussion of religious ideas might encourage popular faiths more consistent with modern standards of plausibility, more conscious of the historicity of all faiths, and more resistant to the manipulation of politicians belonging to any party. The long moratorium on sustained, public scrutiny of religious ideas has created a vacuum in which easy god-talk flourishes. Religion has no monopoly on foolishness and ignorance, but our convention of giving religious ideas a “pass” has made religion a privileged domain for wackiness in the United States.

This quotation was taken from: Hollinger, David A. “Civic Patriotism and the Critical Discussion of Religious Ideas.” In Debating the Divine: Religion in 21st Century American Democracy, edited by Sally Steenland, 9-15. Century for American Progress, 2008, p. 14.

Obviously, the reference to "such a debate" looks at the way every other proposition in our culture is debated.

So, what would happen if our religious ideas were subject to such a debate? First, it would mean that we who hold religious ideas must think about what we believe and why we believe it. Then, we must be willing and able to engage in dialogue with those who disagree with us. Finally, we have to be willing to consider that some of what we espouse may not really be part of the divine revelation we claim.

I wonder whether any of us is willing to look that closely.

Thinking About Lincoln

With the celebration of President's Day and the cheesy ads for Honest Abe's Mattress Sale and with the election of Barack Obama, the nation seemingly is thinking more and more about our 16th president. BeliefNet has run an "inspiring quotations" from Lincoln piece.

Here are a couple:

"When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion."

"The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me."

There has been much debate about Lincoln's religious bona fides. I am no Lincoln scholar, but, from what little I have read about Lincoln and religion, I think many of today's evangelicals would consider him among the lost and not the saved. Yet, the first quote listed above would suggest a strong kinship with the practical religion espoused in the Christian Book of James. Having a theoretical grasp of religion is well and good, but James and Lincoln echo the words of the Hebrew prophets that true religion is in doing good, especially for those who are marginalized in society.

I do not know the source or timing of the second quote. Looking at it out of context, though, it could easily refer to the struggles during the Civil War or, more specifically, to the resolve to end slavery. In either case, the commitment to try to do what is right, whether one is certain of success or not, seems to be missing in many.

It is well for us to remember this man, any time of the year.

In the News . . .

There have been several remarkable items in the news over the last several days involving religion, religious people, and religious ideas.

**** You may have heard about the controversial Roman Catholic Bishop, Richard Williamson, being re-instated, that is un-excommunicated, by the Pope. He was excommunicated in 1988 for denying the reality of the Holocaust.

Obviously, many Jewish groups and human rights groups protested the re-instatement as sending a bad signal to the world that legitmized Holocaust denying.

In a Financial Times story, it seems that Bishop Williamson holds other views not quite in step with the modern world. Quoting from the FT piece,
"Now, denying the reality of the Nazi gas chambers is clearly Williamson’s worst offence. But it’s worth taking a look at some of his other public statements down the years. For example, in a 1999 newsletter that comments on Nato’s war against Serbia, he asserts that Western leaders have “long been controlled by Judeo-masonry”. Two years later, he complains that “women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God’s Nature which characterises our times”. His opinions on women display iron consistency. In 1991, there’s a letter entitled “Women’s trousers are an assault upon woman’s womanhood”. This sets out the case that “women’s trousers, as worn today, short or long, modest or immodest, tight or loose … represent a deep-lying revolt against the order willed by God”. Apart from Jews, freemasons, Western systems of government and modern women’s apparel, Williamson also rages at Hollywood and the global entertainment industry by bashing the rock group Pink Floyd (a “revolt against everybody and everything”) and ‘The Sound of Music’. “By putting friendliness and fun in the place of authority and rules, it invites disorder between parents and children,” says Williamson of the 1965musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer."

Anti-trousers, against education for women, anti-Sound of Music, and railing against the world Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, I wonder how much credibility the Bishop is given in theological and ecclesiastical matters.

**** The Roman Catholic Church is re-instating the use of indulgences. You remember the big flap in the 16th century between Martin Luther and the Roman Catholic Church over this very issue. Luther contended that the church did not have the last say in how sin was to be judged. That privilege was God and God's alone. Thus, selling such indulgences was a sham and took advantage of people.

From a NY Times story, comes this news,
"According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.

There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day."

**** Finally, in a piece from the Washington Post, comes the news of an attempt in Arkansas to override the state constitutional ban on atheists holding public office or testifying in trials.

From the story, "Arkansas is one of half a dozen states that still exclude non-believers from public office. Article 19 Section 1 of the 1874 Arkansas Constitution states that "No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court.""

I thought the US Constitution took precedence when it asserted that there should be no religious test for public office, but I guess not. I wonder whether there will be enough members of the legislature with the courage to vote for the resolution that calls for the amendment of the state constitution overturning this prohibition.