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. Download File: bibl_theol_soc_econ.rar [Download]
. International Consultation on "ILLEGITIMAL EXTERNAL DEBT".
September 20 - 23, 2005. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
"A BIBLICAL-THEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE SOCIO-ECONOMICAL PROBLEM"
By Dr. René Krüger.
1. Humanity left out in the open------------------------------------------------------------------- 1
2. The essence of a destructive system------------------------------------------------------- 1
3. Ideological and economical ties of the imperial religion------------------------------ 3
4. Our starting point: Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Resurrected Lord----------- 4
5. Two hermeneutics in conflict------------------------------------------------------------------- 5
6. A diachronic journey through the biblical proposals------------------------------------ 6
7. Economic-theological synthesis--------------------------------------------------------------- 8
1. Humanity left out in the open
Social inequalities, exclusion, poverty, foreign debt, speculation, financial instability- these are terms that have been widely used, not only in the repertoire of certain economists, sociologists and politicians who are committed to the reality of the members of the poorest of our countries, but also in the vocabulary of many Churches.
This is due to the fact that beyond the historical poverty of the former colonies of many European countries, the globalized neo-liberal economic system has produced in the so-called Third World a growing number of hungry, sick, marginalized, impoverished and persecuted individuals, as well as other victims. Therefore, not only are the possibilities and the resources of the traditional diakonia being exhausted, but also the question regarding the very meaning of this service is arising ever more urgently. At the same time, we see the need to actively intervene as Christians and Churches in processes of denunciation and of seeking for and building alternatives.
The inflated bubble of considering the year 2000 as a new era and a new millennium burst and hurled shrapnel into all humanity. More or less a decade ago, it was thought that there would be more peace, wellbeing and happiness after this twentieth century so filled with revolutions, world wars and savagery; but now, a half decade after the symbolic number 2000, it seems that the situation is practically worse that before. Poverty, misery, exploitation and death advance more strongly than ever. This is an anticulture of exclusion and death. The scene in Rio de la Plata is a concentration of what is going on throughout the continent, aggravated by corruption in all sectors, violence, insecurity and the fall of the middle class. More humans than ever are living out in the open, in a figurative sense, but in a literal sense as well. Our Churches also form part of this difficult picture.
2. The essence of a destructive system
The fundamental structure of neo-liberalism consists in making the market absolute, through deregulation, liberalization and privatization in all its spheres, and the ensuing withdrawal of the regulating control of the State over the economy. For greater terminological accuracy, the formula neo-liberal globalization or globalized neo-liberalism should be used consequently, and the simple term globalization should be avoided, since this latter covers various economic, social, cultural and even psychological issues, and its vague usage has produced more terminological and semantical confusion rather than conceptual clarification.
We are dealing with a matter of a new phase of world capitalism, which combines all forms of power and affects all dimensions of life. The system of production was changed into an imperial financial system, sustained by ideological, political and military powers. The economy stopped existing as an organization for the general wellbeing of the people, since less and less capital was applied to the sustainable production of goods and services. Instead, the capital was concentrated in financial businesses, generating unemployment and the degradation of working conditions and an increase in the structural indebtedness. Nature is considered as mere raw material for the accumulation of wealth. Technology is used for the same purpose, at the risk of causing irreversible danger, as in the case of biotechnology. The main interest of the market owners is to maximize the accumulation of wealth of a few who already have so much. This process is accompanied by a dominant military strategy, globalized as well, which protects its economic interests throughout the world. In theological terms, we are facing a structural sin of universal proportions.
The driving forces of society are not education, progress, wellbeing and the improvement of the situation for all, but rather, greed, depredation and violence, all so that a certain few can accumulate more and more. Giant multinational capitals are electronically moved from one place to another, destroying national economies, producing bankruptcies, emptying banks and affecting millions of people. They are managed by savage, unjust and inhuman interests as never before in history; and the majority of the wealth, money, goods and services are concentrated in the hands of a few who are swimming in opulence and wastefulness. The richest countries pitilessly exploit the mid-sized and poorer countries. Their favorite tool is foreign debt, which is largely illegitimate and, additionally, paid for several times over, due to the unilateral increase in interest rates.
The most significant characteristic is the dramatic convergence of the crisis for the Southern countries. The new signs of the times are the unparalleled integration of economic globalization and global geopolitics, combined with the negative effects of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, all of which recommend deregulation, speculative investments in the national economies of the South and processes linked to foreign debt.
In this manner, the economy and finances, instead of sustaining and fostering life, have degenerated into a totalitarian system that benefits fewer and fewer persons, while the large majority of humanity and nature are exposed to destruction without any protection.
Globalized neo-liberalism is evidently the most well organized lie in history: it demands the total freedom of the market, promising that, in this manner, wellbeing and abundance will be achieved for all humanity; and those who comply the least with this plan are precisely those who impose it.
This system is new as regards its far-reaching and all-including strategy of domination, in which the global financial market is transformed into an empire and, at the same time, a god. This global financial empire is sustained by the military, political and ideological powers, and its forces determine the survival of the outlying countries and peoples.
This process of introducing and imposing globalized neo-liberalism has produced economic growth for certain sectors, and impoverishment for the majority of the Latin American population. Therefore, an urgent reflection on the implications of the introduction of this system is required. For those of us who wish to make this reflection from the viewpoint of our Christian faith and as a basis to sustain our action as individuals and as Christian communities, we must begin with the voices of the losers, the victims and those sacrificed in this process.
In Argentina, the injustice and the desperation of the people reached their catastrophic and fatal limit, which coincided with the long-feared collapse of the economy, in December of 2001, and was immediately accompanied by a social explosion. However, the Argentinean crisis, characterized by its generalized madness, is not the exception, but only the burst boil of an extremely serious global disease, consisting of the dominion held by the wealthy nations, the accumulation, the international financial capital and the wealthy of the South itself, over the poor countries and particularly over the poor people of these countries. The case of Argentina, where over half the population lives below the poverty level (when only 25 years ago at least 60% of the population belonged to the middle class and only 10% were poor), clearly demonstrates the failure of this type of uncontrolled economic model. The forceful clash between the social market economy and the raging neo-liberalism in the heart of the wealthy nations indicates that these countries will also experience the separation between rich and poor.
3. Ideological and economical ties of the imperial religion
The topic of neo-liberal globalization and foreign debt has been established in several circles as a type of spine, hooked into the meat of theological reflection. It is such a substantial issue that it should be considered as one of the focal points of the theological duties. This spine is related to various items that appeared from time to time in the body of critical theological reflection, but that now seem to be linked amongst themselves: poverty, wealth, exclusion, gender, victims, responsible citizenship, ecology, earth, the situation of native peoples, justice, exploitation, human rights, imperialism, genocide and violence. Today, each of these items is turned into a priority ethical topic, framed in the vast panorama of the challenge that the socioeconomic world system represents.
The socioeconomic crisis experienced by over half the world population is revealed as a spiritual crisis and as a crisis of values, not in the moralist sense, but rather as a radical questioning of the basic values that sustain humanity. An ethical and theological analysis of the situation reveals that we are not dealing with the secondary effects of processes which are benign in themselves, nor with the tragic results caused by the “invisible hand of the market”, but rather with decisions coldly calculated by those who manage, at a worldwide level, the economic, politic and military power. This brings us to wonder if those who have faith systems -religions- can possibly intervene in denouncing the current processes and in seeking for and building alternatives.
From the time of Constantine on, the controlling Western religion has been an imperial religion. Without regard to the evolution in Byzantium and in Moscow, which have also had their imperial religions, it is important to point out that several of the evangelical churches, which originated with the Reform were also derived from imperial religions. In this regard, from the ideological critique point of view, we may be dealing with a State church in a princedom, in a kingdom, in an empire with a czar or an emperor; or merely with churches that are submissive to the State and to the authority of the modern democracies; it is all the same. The official churches, even if there are many of them in one country, are all “stuck” into the same lump category of imperial religion, which provides ideological cover to those who hold the dominating and exploiting power.
Latin American history, as well as the evolution in other places, demonstrates that the figure of official, State or imperial religion of a specific historical configuration of Christian faith, frequently has been turned into an impediment to free and faithful proclamation of the Gospel, since it annuls the leavening of the Gospel and its principal of protest and counterculture criticism. In all imperial religions, the church stops merely existing in the world and becomes the world.
During the last decade of the twentieth century, globalized neo-liberalism has become the imperial religion. Due to the negative impact this system has had on the majority of the world population, all those churches that grant ideological legitimacy to the powers that impel the imposition of this system should also be considered disreputable.
Unfortunately, this must also be applied to those churches that, although they are not State or official churches, by means of their theological tradition and the enjoyment of certain privileges, show a tendency towards a marked servile attitude to the State, thereby dressing up in robes of order and decency the conservative forces that are extracting juicy benefits from neo-liberal globalization.
Facing the frank onslaught of poverty at a worldwide level, and the destruction of the ecology, all the churches - rich and poor - should ask themselves if they wish to remain “stuck” to the official imperial religion - globalized neo-liberalism -, or if they are willing to transform themselves into churches that unequivocally dismiss this imperial religion, so as to live and proclaim openly the Kingdom of God.
It is shameful to see the sluggish reaction of certain Christian circles and how they continue to form part of the imperial system, while in Latin America even many naive defenders of neo-liberalism are beginning to slowly recognize that this economic model that was so praised just a decade ago has not produced the promised wellbeing for all, but rather, has only enriched a small level of the population, while the majority has become tragically impoverished.
In our case, because of the calling that we feel comes from God himself, the double task of criticizing on one side and seeking on the other is closely linked to the observant reading of the Word of God. We maintain that this message is critical, contra cultural, renovating, challenging and constructive for all the ages and situations of humanity.
4. Our starting point: Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Resurrected Lord
The mission of the church is the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ for the salvation of all people, the calling to put faith in him and follow him in a living community. An essential part of that mission is the effort made to bring about the salvation in Christ - received through grace by means of faith- in a new life, a part of which is the building of a unified community, without exclusion, marginalization or nullification of our fellow man. Poverty, marginalization, exclusion and hunger all touch the heart of the Church, because the basis of our faith, the Bible, shows us other values by which to guide our lives: love, mercy, the protection of life, and justice.
Just as cold and heat cannot be recognized by theory, but only by perception and participation, the current socioeconomic situation can only be recognized by considering the situation of the persons most affected and harmed. This need must be perceived and understood “from below”. In other words, our basis for reflecting on the socioeconomic issue should be the situation of those who make up the losing majority in the process of neo-liberal globalization, the unjust distribution of goods and services, the secular exploitation of a large part of humanity by a relatively small group of dominators, the exclusion, and the need.
This is combined with the fact that, for us as Christians and Churches, the only theologically valid starting point can only be Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Resurrected Lord, in this order and in this manner. The cross represents only depression; we have only to take a brief look at the bloody and weeping Christ in the temples of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of our continent to get enough of a grasp of how religion was used to accompany the exploitation of the natives and black slaves. On the other hand, the resurrection alone derives in glory, the majestic church, success, the theology of prosperity and other misinterpretations of the Gospel. But both together, the cross and the resurrection, shape the path of the Messiah.
We understand that only with this message do we live and faithfully proclaim the Gospel, just as it is transmitted to us by mean of the Holy Scripture and as it has been understood by the hermeneutics of the Reform.
Next to the cross of Christ and in the midst of the community formed by the Resurrected One, there is a place for the weak, marginalized, rejected, poor, dejected, desperate members and for the sinners of society.
Therefore, we postulate that the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the crosses of the weak, the losers, the victims and those sacrificed to this system make up the base on which we must build our reflection and our action.
5. Two hermeneutics in conflict
By definition, globalization refers to the entire globe. However, in many analysis and declarations from the North, we, those of the South, unfortunately miss the universal point of view and the awareness that the contrasts and the misery of the southern hemisphere are the exact opposite of and the historical byproduct of the accumulation of prosperity in the North and of the small wealthy class in the South. And above all, we miss the point of view that the Bible teaches us to have in order to deal with the situation, namely, the victim’s point of view.
For the South it seems offensive that the North frequently applies a simplistic system of values which seeks to counterbalance the negative aspects and elements of neo-liberal globalization with the supposedly positive ones, and then tries to give advice on how to repair the damages and slow down the negative impact of the system, a little like the naïve logic of “keeping the good and fixing the bad”. By means of this plan, they try to “embed” globalization into the model of the social market economy.
This procedure avoids all conflict with the economic, political and military powers and, additionally, works as an “alibi”, because a system of which the bad effects can be criticized in view of its improvements, and of which the supposed good sides can be recognized, “can’t be that bad”.
On the other hand, in the Southern hemisphere, the massive negative effects of a globalized economic system have been pointed out time and again. Subjecting humanity and all of nature to the logic of mere accumulation of capital can certainly be denounced as inhuman, denying to life and dangerous. Likewise, it can be highlighted that while the majority of the winners in this system live comfortably in the North and in a few select areas in the South, the exploited and excluded individuals vegetate and die in the South. The starting point for the Southern hermeneutics is not the abstract search for truth by means of balanced and academic discourses on economic philosophy, but rather, the need for survival and the search for justice. For that reason we must begin with the living conditions of the people harmed by neo-liberal globalization. It is not an issue of subjective cultural differences between the cold ratio of the North and the passionate temperament of the South. It is a matter of life and death.
Given the fact that this process encompasses the entire earth, the supposed need for a differentiation between the situations of the North and South, although frequently affirmed, in nothing more that a fabrication. This can be proven by the fact that the conquests of the Northern social market economy are being systematically eliminated and the number of losers is growing. The European “reforms”, “savings programs” and “stability agreements” are merely the vanguard of the structural adaptation programs that the South has been enduring for some time now. During the introduction of these programs, our politicians had the gall to present them as necessary sacrifices, something that only purported to sublimate, by means of a religious formula, the aggravated plunder of the poor and the dispossession of the middle class, and even divert the attention from one of the fundamental mechanisms of this plunder: foreign debt.
6. A diachronic journey through the biblical proposals
On the basis of our double starting point anchored in the Crucified and Resurrected Lord and the situation of the victims, we draw near to the Bible in search of guidance, in order to carry out a correct evaluation of the social and economic issues.
The Bible contains various texts regarding economy and socioeconomic relationships. The general framework in which the Bible considers these spheres is the perspective of poor and rich, poverty and riches. At the same time, it places this fundamental problem of poor and rich in the framework of the decisive question of God or Mammon. In this manner, two economies are indicated: the economy of enough for all, and the economy of the accumulation of riches for just a few owners.
From biblical times on, the question regarding the origin of poverty and of riches has been answered by the dominant class with a justifying ideology of the socioeconomic rifts, which sees in wealth a proof of God’s blessing. Throughout history, additional metaphysical definitions have been developed: “It is God’s will”, “There always have been and always will be poor people”, “It is destiny”, “It is force majeure”. This leads to the self-justification of the wealthy and to contempt for the poor. As a result, this ideological package disqualifies the poor as lazy, lacking in intelligence and incapable, and to crown it all, as punished by God, whereas the rich are considered as diligent, hardworking, successful and blessed. As long as these moral qualifiers are applied, this same ideology (religious or secular) of blessing is not capable of ethically questioning the procedures of appropriation, selfish defense and the accumulation of riches for just a few.
In the last decade of the twentieth century, these symbolic mental representations of a religious and metaphysical nature found, in the political field, a metamorphosed analogy in such categorical statements as: “After the fall of the communist system, the superiority of the capitalist system was proven”; “There is no alternative, nothing can be done” (TINA: There is no alternative), “No one can escape from the globalized system”. However, as they are nothing more than justifications of a given situation, all these statements do is merely cover up reality.
A critical approach which is economical, political, social and at the same time, theological, leads us to uphold the belief that inequality, exclusion and its mechanisms, such as debt, have nothing at all to do with ageless orders, metaphysical destiny or inevitable socioeconomic mechanisms, but rather, with the unjust distribution of the means of production, goods and services and with concrete and identifiable attitudes and powerful economic legal decisions.
One cheap excuse states that the economic proposals of the Bible could not be applied in actuality, because the situation in Bible times was totally different. This may have been true regarding shifting the elements of the monarchic system to our system, but investigation has shown that from the VIIIth century B.C. on, a market-type economic configuration was developed throughout the region, based on the private property in the process of absolutization, on an economy of finance and interests, and on the production of large rural estates with pro slavery systems . In Bible lands, the introduction of this model lead to a breakdown in the unity of the farmers and divided the society into enslaved people without land on one side, and large land owners and big businessmen on the other. On top of this we can add the split between the country and the city, which brought along with it wealth for the court, officials, priests and later, the publicans. The Hellenistic empires, heirs to Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire were all based on this background.
The European capitalism of the modern era matches this scheme and adds new means of production. With the recent systemic dismantling of the social market economy - where this was able to develop - by the global imposition of the neo-liberal system, the mechanism of accumulation continues to grow more and more.
The various biblical rejections of oppression, exploitation, injustice, marginalization, etc. are directed towards the still primitive forms of systemic mechanisms of enrichment on the one side and impoverishment on the other. It is not an issue of mere ethical or moral judgments passed on some immoral individuals, but rather an issue of definitive judgments passed on the socioeconomical systems as such, since individuals and interest groups always direct them. Here, it is important to bear in mind the following chronological evolution of the history of Israel :
1. Following the liberation from the political-economical system of forced labor of slavery under the deified Pharaoh in Egypt and the era prior to the constitution of Israel as a nation (1250 to 1000 B.C.), the creation of a “national” alternative under God’s Will was sought, in the sense of preserving freedom and characterized by family and tribal unity through independence and even regional and structural opposition to the great empires of the ancient Near East, which were built on slavery and high tributes.
2. During the times of the kings of the unified and then divided kingdom (1000 to 586 B.C.), attempts were made to “discipline” or “tame”, by means of laws, the property economy and the royal system, questioned by many in Israel. This process included the prophetic criticism directed against the abuse of power, the economic exploitation of the weak, and the system itself. It is during these times that the legal reforms of the Torah provided clear structural countermeasures facing the socioeconomical mechanisms that were being developed. These countermeasures were fundamentally related to the regime of loan-on-interest and slavery by indebtedness. The legislation and the prophecy attempted to revert the destruction of the circuit of blessing, by means of economic and social preventive and corrective laws to protect those who became impoverished.
3. During the Exile and Persian times (586 to 333 B.C), Israel reflected deeply on how to live according to its God’s commandments within the space that the empire allowed it to occupy, and struggled to create alternatives to the normality of the Ancient East, thus fashioning a type of “Republic of the Torah” in the framework of the Persian Empire.
4. During the times of the totalitarian empires, first the Hellenistic and then the Roman, 168 B.C. saw the beginning of the development of forms of resistance and of hope that the kingdom of God would have a human face and overcome the empires. Various groups attempted to expose the anti-divine character of the great kingdoms or the Hellenistic-Roman Empires, and moved on to resisting the totalitarian imposition of their financial and property economy. The proposals of these groups can be found in the apocalyptical writs. Here we also find the clear appearance of faith in the final judgment, with its twofold result of resurrection to eternal life and resurrection to eternal punishment. Jesus and the first Church participated in this extensive contra cultural movement against dominance. In Jesus’ case there is the added element of the conviction that, even under the most historically adverse conditions, the Kingdom of God is building, at a micro-social level, small alternatives through messianic communities, which are holding spaces for all types of marginalized, impoverished and rejected persons.
7. Economic-theological synthesis
1. It is impossible to deny the fact that the poverty, exclusion, misery and socioeconomical differences in the so-called Third World have increased; but poverty has increased in the wealthy world as well.
2. This increase in misery is rooted in the imposition of the globalized neoliberal system, the fundamental structure of which consists of the absolutization of the market, imposed by means of deregulation, financial speculation, liberalization and privatization and the subsequent withdrawal of the regulating control of the State in the Third World.
3. Facing this growing poverty, all the churches must ask themselves if they are willing to be transformed into churches that dismiss the imperial religion of neoliberalism, in order to live and openly proclaim the Kingdom of God.
4. The basis on which we build our reflection and our action as Christians and Churches is: the incarnation, cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the crosses of the weak, the losers, the victims and those sacrificed to this system.
5. We confirm the clash between two hermeneutics: that of the North, which frequently considers pertinent to apply a system of comparison between the advantages and disadvantages of globalization and proposes improvements within the system; and that of the South, which is based on the victims, and postulates the need to reject the system and seek alternatives.
6. The Bible offers rich material regarding the socioeconomical problem, positioning it within the generic framework of poor and rich, and raises the decisive question of God or Mammon. In this manner, two economies are indicated: the economy of enough for all, in which the economic policy makes possible the fair distribution of wealth; and the economy of the accumulation of riches for just a few owners, which is a savage economy of self-benefit, based on the exploitation of other persons, countries and entire continents. This issue cuts across the whole of Biblical history, from the Exodus up to the times of the Apocalypse.
Dr. René Krüger, Argentinean, is a Pastor of the Evangelical Church of the River Plate, Professor of New Testament in the University Institute ISEDET and President of this state-recognised, independent University, in Buenos Aires, the Argentinean Capital.
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