TruthBook Religious News Blog

Jim Wallis
Founder of Sojourners; speaker, author, activist
February 24, 2010

The Great Recession is not just an economic crisis, it is the result of a loss of values, a moral crisis. And to say that it is a moral crisis is also to say that it is a spiritual crisis. At the center of most religions is the question of who and what we worship? Where is our deepest allegiance?

So the Great Recession bears some "religious" reflection, as the market has gradually become all pervasive--a replacement for religion and even for God. It is the Market now that now seems to have all the godlike qualities--all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, even eternal--unable to be resisted or even questioned. Performing necessary roles and providing important goods and services are not the same things as commanding ultimate allegiance. Idolatry means that something has taken the place of God. The market can be good thing and even necessary; but it now commands too much, claims ultimate significance, controls too much space in our lives, and has gone far beyond its proper limits.

Idolatry comes in a lot of different forms. Today, it is much more subtle than bowing down to a golden calf. It often takes the form of choosing the wrong priorities, trusting in the wrong things, and putting our confidence where it does not belong.

Today, instead of statues, we now have hedge funds, mortgage-backed securities, 401(k)s, and mutual funds and, for some, bonuses. We place blind faith in the hope that the stock indexes will just keep rising and real estate prices keep climbing. Market mechanisms were supposed to distribute risk so well that even those who were reckless would never see the consequences of their actions. Trust, security, and hope in the future were all as close to us as the nearest financial planner's office. Life and the world around us could all be explained with just the right market lens. These idols were supposed to make us happy and secure, and provide for all our needs. Those who manage them became the leaders, to whom we looked, not just for financial leadership, but direction for our entire lives. That is indeed idolatry.

Rich and poor alike were sucked into making heroes out of those who seemed to be able to turn everything they touched into gold. Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel lost virtually all of his personal wealth and his foundation's, up to $37 million, to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. "We gave him everything, we thought he was God, we trusted everything in his hands," Weisel said.

The market even has its priests, pastors, rabbis, imams, and shamans. These money and market commentators translate the often confusing signals of the Dow, international currency exchange rates, or futures indexes and tell us all what they mean and how they should act as a result...

This is one man's take on our present economic crisis. He lends a spiritual angle to it, and it is a thought-provoking opinion...Please click on "external source" below for the complete article.

Labels: God, idolatry, Jim Wallis, religion, the economy

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Sunday, April 05, 2009

Consumerism as a Spiritual Disease

Consumerism as a Spiritual Disease

...Consumerism enables the unsettling lack of equilibrium of the contemporary workplace. People will find it easier to stay in dysfunctional jobs so that they will be able to buy what Madison Avenue says that they need to be happy. Banks, credit cards, lines of credit, and a host of other facilitators step in to make all of these things attainable more easily -- with devastating results as we have seen of late. There is another sad repercussion in this consumerist cycle. The corporation or employer becomes enabled -- to do what it wants, to demand what it wants, to behave in whatever manner it wants. This occurs at the expense (literally) of the worker. After all, where will the debt-ridden employee go? In this era, options are very limited.

There is an alternative, however, a spiritual and healthier one. Christians do not pray for abundance; we pray for "our daily bread." In the Torah it was commanded that all of produce of a field or orchard not be harvested so that some would be left for those in need. The less we think we need, the happier we can become, not only with what we do have, but also with who we are as human beings.

As possessions matter less and less, something else happens. People begin to matter more and more. Talking replaces buying. Dinners with friends become places to discuss ideas and each other's lives rather than battlegrounds to prove who has the most toys or the most "A-list" friends. Families replace corporate personnel flow charts. Business contacts are replaced with real relationships. Competition is replaced with companionship. Joy arrives not in power or things or money or portfolio increases (remember those?) but in community.

A truly spiritual person understands that justice and not possessions is what really matters (please note that many people who do not consider themselves to be spiritual also promote justice over consumerism). Justice is the antithesis of "the golden handcuffs" of consumerism. Where the latter is an end-sum game of winning with the most toys, the former is about sharing them. The consumerist fails to graduate from the kindergarten mentality that "I" matter most. What matters most is that every "I" be afforded the same chance, consideration, opportunity, and respect as any other "I." Spiritual justice is meant to reach out to everyone with everything every day. While consumerism can result in hording, justice is always concerned with sharing. And sharing is healthy.

Labels: Albert Scariato, consumerism, employment, justice, sharing, spirituality, the economy

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Shaky economy forces Americans to rediscover community

Fri March 27, 2009
By John Blake

(CNN) -- Leslie Gage knew it was coming, but that didn't take away the pain.
Atlanta Community ToolBank volunteers build playground, and relationships, in their community.

Atlanta Community ToolBank volunteers build playground, and relationships, in their community.

She was working as an architect for a small company in Atlanta, Georgia, when the company's founder asked her into his office. He took off his glasses and rubbed his hand against his forehead.

"We just can't afford to keep you..."

She eventually joined a nonprofit group that renovated homes in her neighborhood, but she also built something else: a place in her community.

Now she wonders whether more Americans will arrive at the same conclusion that she has: We have to rebuild our sense of community, not just our banking system, if we're going to survive.

According to one perspective, more Americans turn to their remote, not their neighbor, in bad times. Netflix officials reported a 45 percent jump in profits during the end of 2008. Gross movie ticket sales are up 18.8 percent this year, according to BOXOfficeMojo.com. And home entertainment business sales are surging, according to sales figures.

Yet there are other signs that the economy is also inspiring Americans to turn to one another for everything from solace to stew.

Making stew for the neighbors

Nonprofit groups report a surge in volunteers. Peace Corps applications are up 16 percent from last year. Online applications for AmeriCorps, a federal program where volunteers tutor needy children and build housing for the poor, have increased three times faster than a year ago.

Thousands of Americans have organized Economic Recovery House Meetings in all 50 states at the urging of President Obama to talk about the stimulus plan and help one another get through the economic crisis.

Turning to Google instead of God

The duty to one's neighbor is a fundamental belief in most religions. It would seem natural that more people would turn to their church, mosque or synagogue for community in tough times.

But don't expect a shaky economy to lead to a national religious awakening, said Nancy Dallavalle, chairwoman of the Department of Religious Studies at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

While individual communities of worship may see some uptick in their numbers, Dallavalle said, fewer Americans depend on traditional religion for support.

Some studies reinforce her point. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, almost all religious denominations have lost members since 1990. Membership in mainline Protestant denominations has fallen for the past 30 years and has been widely documented.

The Internet also siphons people away from traditional religious communities during tough times, she said. Americans who have grown up outside organized religion prefer to get their inspiration through the Internet: online motivational tracts, inspirational speakers and self-help gurus.

Whether people turn to God or Google, this economic crisis will shift people's values, said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a commentator and political science professor at Princeton University.

An economic crisis may even cause Americans to rethink what's worth admiring, she said. Instead of watching the "Real Housewives of Orange County," more might become drawn to the real families of ordinary America, where couples lose jobs and get sick, but they still stick together, she said.

Gage, the Atlanta architect, had to do the same for herself. After she was laid off, she experienced an emotional tailspin. For several weeks, she refused to apply for unemployment benefits because she didn't want to get more depressed shuffling along an unemployment line.

Then she volunteered at the Atlanta Community ToolBank. The nonprofit group lends tools and renovates home for the elderly and disabled. She quickly realized that people weren't just inviting her into their homes. They were inviting her into their lives.

She still remembers the first neighbor she visited on behalf of ToolBank. The woman offered her breakfast in her living room and directed Gage's attention to her "Wall of Fame," which held portraits of her children.

"She had 13 children, all of them grown and several with college degrees," Gage said. "She was so proud of each and every one of them because, as she said, education of any kind was hard to come by when she was a girl. ... I won't ever forget that."

Why economic uncertainty is 'awful' for bringing people together

David Putnam is the author of "Bowling Alone," a 2000 book that argued that many Americans are living more isolated lives. The book concluded, after wide-ranging interviews and numerous studies, that Americans belong to fewer civic groups, know their neighbors less and meet less often with family and friends.

That solitary impulse in Americans actually gets worse during hard economic times, Putnam said.

He said economic uncertainty has an "awful" effect on social connections because people become depressed and lose their sense of self-esteem when they lose a job, he said.

One study looking at the Great Depression demonstrated this, Putnam said. He said that civic engagement, measured by involvement in groups such as local PTA groups and Elks lodges, steadily rose in the U.S. from the turn of the 20th century.

But between 1930 and 1935, during the height of the Great Depression, many civic organizations lost half of their membership, he said.

Americans eventually recovered their engagement in community. He said the country's greatest civic book occurred between 1940 and 1965. That boom was driven by "the Greatest Generation," the men and women who came of age during World War II.

"They had just been exposed to five years of war bond drives, scrap metal drives and Boy Scouts asking people to give up rubber mats in their car for the war," Putnam said. "They lived with a sustained notion of we're all in this together."

Perhaps that will happen now. Gage said she's seen it happen in the United States before.

Gage lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina demolished much of the city. What she remembers most is not what was destroyed by Katrina but what was borne out of it: a luminous sense of community.

As she walked through the neighborhoods, she said, she kept encountering people who were cleaning up and looking to help others.

Gage has found a job at an ecofriendly architectural firm in Atlanta. But her memories of her neighbors in New Orleans, and the people she met through the ToolBank, convince her that Americans won't live by Netflix alone in the days ahead.

"It was a tough time, but I saw the entire city come together," Gage said. "I don't see why we can't do that."

Labels: Atlanta, community, faith, God, Internet, John Blake, recession, the economy

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4 Spiritual Steps To Coping With The Recession

Jonathan Ellerby
Posted March 24, 2009

Most of our spiritual traditions would agree that the path to true happiness and peace is an inner one, and one that we actually have a great deal of influence over. Here are 4 of the most helpful pointers I have found useful for people in chaotic times; these are the same qualities that emerge naturally as a person commits to a sincere spiritual practice, like those I outline in my new book "Return to the Sacred: Ancient Pathways to Spiritual Awakening."

1. Look for the lesson. It is hard to admit, but yes, even the most awful things can teach us. The best qualities, such as patience, forgiveness, love, trust, and altruism, are more powerfully learnt in the times that test us. Ask yourself, what you can learn about yourself or life from the situation? What can you do differently in the future? What great quality is being tested in you?

2. Find the opportunity. Simple things can block our view of what might be right before us. A fence, a hedge, a billboard sign - take it away and suddenly you see more. When the familiar is taken from us it is natural to grieve. It is also important to look to see what is revealed. With each change in life the landscape is renewed and you may discover aspects of yourself you have forgotten or long wanted to explore. Look for new opportunities every chance you get.

3. Be compassionate. This means to yourself and others. Remember compassion is more like loving-empowerment than just making people happy. It means to respect your limits, share your talents, help others, but not at your own expense. It doesn't mean rescuing people all the time or taking away their own process of growth and learning. Compassion means to be supportive while the hard lessons are learned. Practice being kind - nurture yourself, be nice to others. It's a kindergarten rule, but will change your life if you stick to it.

4. Commit to Inner Intentions. Outer intentions are about the things we want to have and do. Inner intentions are about our character, and how we do things. Things like perfect health, wealth, sex, or jobs are illusive and impossible to control over time. Inner intentions like the desire to be forgiving, patient, good-humored, adaptable or true to your word, are all intentions that only you can shape and choose. No matter how hard times get, you r inner intentions can always be pursued and met. In fact hard times are the best times to practice the finest qualities of being human.

Labels: compassion, Jonathan Ellerby, learning, lessons, opportunity, recession, the economy

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Religion and economics during hard times

Mar 17, 2009

-- Martin E. Marty

Virtually every church newsletter, denominational website, religious periodical, or other medium, disseminated in print or electronically, makes some reference to the economic situation in which all classes of Americans find themselves today. Local congregations' offers of spiritual sustenance, community-sharing burdens, and hopes are still among the main and best things they do, as well as providing counseling, tips, and sometimes guidance to non-church organizations and experts who may be of help. These concern issues of joblessness, home foreclosures, and other devastating realities of 2009.

It is too soon to know how this recession-depression will work out for religious institutions and ideas. While watching and waiting, I decided to do what so many do: compare today to the Great Depression of the 1930s. I had explored religious roles and responses in my The Noise of Conflict: 1919-1941, the second volume in my Modern American Religion (University of Chicago, 1991). If we repeat in any way -- but who says we will, or must? -- what happened then, there is not a lot of cheer to be spread. I particularly relied on Samuel C. Kincheloe's 1937 Research Memorandum on Religion in the Depression, an extensive, judicious, realistic survey done for the Social Science Research Council by a Chicago Theological Seminary (then Congregational) professor. Like so many other secular and mainstream Protestant analysts, he did not pay much attention to what was prospering when nothing else was: fundamentalism.

Some leaders hoped and prayed for religious revivals, none of which erupted. "There has been much emphasis on the belief that what society needs is religion," Kincheloe reported, and I observed, "but society evidently did not think so." Money problems limited church efforts to serve the poor, whose numbers grew exponentially. At the same time, deep believers within all congregations and denominatins "did not fall away from faith merely because of economic trauma." The Christian Century editorialized, with a view on the past: "Did people not address this Depression religiously because for once they did not think it occurred under the providence of God?" The editorial conclusion: this may have been "the first time men have not blamed God for hard times." If that was true in 1935, it seems to be true today, too. There are accusers, accused, and commentators on all hands today, but one seldom hears that all the dealings, many of them now seen as greedy at best and criminal at worst, were anything but the results of individual and corporate folly and corruption. This time again, citizens can't blame God for getting them into this, and are trying to find God-ly ways to get out of it...together.

Labels: Great Depression, Martin Marty, recession, religion, the economy

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Optimism, In The Middle Of A Depression

CBS Evening News: Will Thinking Positively Help The Economy Rebound?

This interesting article contains a video regarding optimism in the downturn. Click on "external source" for complete article.

March 13, 2009 |
by Steve Hartman

Despite constant news reports of a declining economy and dwindling financial markets, Steve Hartman meets several optimists who say that remaining hopeful will

(CBS) By now we've all heard that the sky has fallen, which is why CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman couldn't believe the results of a CBS News/ New York Times poll taken before this week's Wall Street rally. It asked, “Do you think the economy is getting better or worse?” You could also pick “staying the same.”

Most Americans - 51 percent - thought the economy was getting worse. Only 8 percent thought it was getting better, while 40 percent thought it was staying the same. Hartman wondered: What the heck were these Pollyannas thinking?

To find out, he called one back to arrange an interview.

"Enjoy this beautiful winter day," the answering machine instructed.

It was actually cold and rainy. But inside - this proud member of the 8 percent was waiting for Hartman's visit with juice and homemade lemon meringue pie - and pure, unbridled optimism.

His name is Mark Jastrzembski. He’s unmarried and a retired corrections officer.

"The president talked about hope. I've taken that to the next step. Hope means that you want stuff to happen. Faith means you know it's going to happen. I'm a 100 percent certain that things are going to get better in this country," Jastrzembski said.

He lives in Muskegon, Mich. - which makes his survey answer all the more confounding.

"I look around, you know, I'm not blind,” he said. “I have 10 to 15 close friends who got laid off."

Fortunately, Jastrzembski said he doesn't need to see hope to believe things are getting better. In fact, quite the opposite - he thinks we need to believe it to see it.

“The problem with the country is that we're not feeling good about ourselves," he said.

There are others like him.

Hartman met Michael Seltzer at a local meeting of the Muskegon Optimists Club. He’s in charge of all the Optimist clubs in Michigan. He's also recently unemployed.

"There's something known as a self-fulfilling prophesy, and attitude is a big part of that self-fulfilling prophesy,” Seltzer said. “And if everybody you talk to says the economy is getting worse, they can make that happen.”

It's true. Economists call it a feedback loop. When people are pessimistic they do less spending and investing. Less spending and investing makes the economy gets worse. A worse economy makes people even more pessimistic, and so on. Does that mean if we could all somehow just believe the economy is getting better that all of a sudden it would? The answer seems to be yes. And no.

Actor and economic commentator Ben Stein says the problem is -- for people who don't think America has the right economic plan -- it's very hard for them to just pretend. To which Jastrzembski says, please, at least try.

"What can we as individual people do to get this economy going? We've got to change this philosophy, change this attitude, start thinking positively," Jastrzembski said.

That may or may not help - but there is new evidence this week that optimistic people are, indeed, more likely to see their 401(k)s make a comeback. Because, as this new study shows -- they live longer.

Labels: CBS news, longevity, optimism, Steve Hartman, the economy

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Friday, March 06, 2009

No Holds Barred: The spiritual roots of the economic crisis

Mar 3, 2009 20:00 | Updated Mar 4, 2009 9:59
By SHMULEY BOTEACH

You don't have to be an expert to see that no one in America really knows how to fix our economy. It's come down to trial and error; throw trillions of dollars against a wall and see what sticks. Still the Dow Jones tumbles, still the recession deepens. One day we hear that only by rescuing Detroit's jet-setting auto executives and Wall Street billionaires will we stabilize our economy. The next day we're told the exact opposite, that bailing out these spendthrifts encourages the greedy and slipshod business practices that got us into this mess. The other day a 22-year-old man who has never held a job told me he bought his girlfriend a four-carat diamond ring and took her around the world. When I asked him how he could afford such extravagance, he told me he simply put it all on credit cards. The bank who issued them has now been bailed out, and so you have Americans who can scarcely afford clothes for their families picking up the tab for this man's golfball diamond. And this is the way we rescue our economy?

AN OLD JEWISH aphorism says that the difference between a smart man and a wise man is that a smart man knows how to extricate himself from a situation in which a wise man would never have found himself. As the sky falls around us, we've learned is that America, for all its smarts, lacks wisdom. And this time even our smarts may not extricate us.

Our current economic crisis is born of a spiritual crisis. Greed is a sickness of the soul. For all our wealth and high standard of living, we Americans are the most unhappy nation on earth, consuming three quarters of the world's anti-depressants. The modern history of our country is built on a lie that says affluence, fame, and a shopping addiction are the secrets to happiness.

None of these reflect authentic American values. George Washington refused to accept pay as commander of the Continental Army. Abraham Lincoln practiced justice even though he was killed for it. Martin Luther King lived in a modest home even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. These men understood that what made America great was its commitment to human liberty and dignity, and not only to a high standard of living.

In our time there is little to counter the consummate consumer hucksters. Religion has been neutralized by becoming politicized. New-age spirituality focuses on finding inner bliss rather than fixing external problems. And the American obsession with therapy is only leading more men and women to depend on professionals to navigate their lives rather than cultivating the inner voice of conscience which is the true hallmark of a wise adult.

America will only be healed if we replace the consumer itch with a whole new set of values: values which hold that money is a means to an end, and not an end in itself; values which teach that greatness comes, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, from the content of one's character rather than the content of one's bank account.

Americans have to stop focusing on a career and start focusing on a calling. Find something in life that requires fixing and devote yourself to healing it.

All of this must begin in childhood. We must teach our children that school grades are less important than intellectual curiosity, the kind of mental engagement that has them playing fewer video games and reading more books.

We can renew America, but it won't come solely through shoring up our banks, but through shoring up our families.

Labels: America, family, Shmuley Boteach, spiritual crisis, the economy, values

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Friday, February 27, 2009

A Spiritual Guide for Economic Bailout

by Rabbi Michael Lerner

This is a very interesting and timely op-ed article concerning out present-day economic crisis - how it is different from any in the past, and how a different mind-set may be needed to solve it adequately.
Page 1 of 2 - Please click on "external source" for complete article.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously warned in November that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste." But that is exactly what the White House and Congress have allowed to happen. Secular progressives are disappointed, but spiritual progressives are doubly so. This is a crisis that demands the deepest of revisions of our worldview and economics.

Certainly the Democrats have managed to do enough-in the way of restoring some of the programs cut by the Bush administration, helping the states deal with their own increasing budget deficits, and even initiating several new programs-for Congressional Democrats to feel they have prevailed. Next comes an even more massive bailout for the banks.

The underlying message of these measures is clear: to get out of a recession bordering on a multi-year depression, ordinary citizens must spend more money on consumer goods. This would generate jobs and help staunch a wave of massive layoffs that threaten to push official (and usually under-estimated) levels of unemployment up to 10 percent or more of the work force this year.

To progressives, this was a tremendously irresponsible misuse of the opportunity created by the crisis. The bank bailout was based on the old trickle-down economics that had been discredited by the years of Republican and neo-liberal policies that actually yielded the current meltdown. If you want to stimulate spending, progressives insist, give the money directly to those in need: Create a national bank to give loans to people who wish to buy homes or expand their businesses; provide funding to banks willing to forgive bad mortgages and renegotiate them to affordable levels; raise the minimum wage to a level that makes it a "living wage"; grant citizenship and rights to all the current illegal immigrants, making it easier for them too to spend more money on consumption; and fund a single-payer health care plan that would provide care for the 45 million-plus Americans currently uninsured (while simultaneously imposing strict cost controls on hospitals and other health-care providers).

Yet progressives too may be too limited in their thinking. The economic crisis is global and requires a global solution. Spiritual progressives insist that this is the moment for Americans to acknowledge to ourselves that our well-being depends on that of everyone else on the planet. Instead of each nation-state trying to develop policies meant to benefit only its own citizens, we need the world's major economic powers and representatives of the developing countries to cooperatively work out policies that dramatically reshape the way that we, the human race, produce and consume the resources of our planet.

A central part of such global thinking requires a new conception of efficiency, rationality and productivity. The old bottom line measured productivity and efficiency by how much money or material goods were produced. We need a "new bottom line" that evaluates corporations, government programs, laws, social policies, and even personal behavior by how much love and kindness, generosity and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, are produced and how much we are encouraged to respond to the universe with awe and wonder at the grandeur of all that is. Hundreds of years of capitalist excess made the old more narrow utilitarian attitude seem like "common sense," because it worked to generate an ever increasing accumulation of material goods.

But the societies that have bought into that old bottom line are now reeling from the economic collapse generated when tens of millions of people acted on the assumption that trumping all ethical and spiritual concerns was the obligation to maximize one's own material well-being regardless of environmental and human-relationship consequences.

Only a year ago it might have seemed "unrealistic" or "utopian" to imagine a new bottom line and a society reconstructed on that basis. But it is no longer so far-fetched when the government is spending trillions of dollars to repair a system that based itself on a fundamentalist belief that progress could be judged by how many things we accumulated. In my book The Left Hand of God (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006) I detail what this "new bottom line" might look like in our schools, corporations, health care, legal system and our approach to foreign policy.

Spiritual wisdom and daily spiritual practice may be needed by the entire human race in order of for us to develop the intellectual and psychological foundations for a green economy. There is a difficult balance to negotiate between improving the material well-being of the most oppressed and materially deprived citizens of the planet, while teaching the majority of citizens of the more advanced societies how to reduce their level of material needs. Many today feel deprived if they cannot get a new model car every few years or dramatic escalations in the capacities of their iphones and computers.

People have to get to the point where they no longer believe that their personal success is measured by how many new material gadgets, electronic devices, automobiles, apartments or houses, home furnishings, and exotic vacations they have.

Spiritual progressives believe it is time to bring into the democratic process a discussion of the kinds of consumption that are worth fostering and the kinds that actually contribute to the further erosion of our planet's life support system.

To some the conception of democratic control of an economy is going to be dismissed as nothing more than a slippery slope toward a "command economy" that failed when tried by the communists. Yet market fundamentalism is no longer an unchallengeable element of American faith, and the values of a New Bottom Line resonate not only with those of us whose spiritual consciousness already predisposes us to question the ultimacy of material accumulation but also to millions of Americans who can no longer believe that the planet can survive based on profligate consumption of its raw materials. Thinking through the details of building a society based on shared values and committed to treating the planet as more than a bottomless cookie jar-from which we can extract whatever we wish without fear of consequences-will not be easy, and will require the fostering of a new spiritual awareness. Too many liberals and progressives, lacking a spiritual and ethical foundation for making such choices, have simply embraced the notion that any kind of spending will get us out of the current crisis.

No wonder, then, that the Obama bailout seems so completely unfocused on achieving any particular social good (e.g. adequate health care, environmental repair, or elimination of domestic or global poverty). The Obama plan reflects the lack of direction or values orientation that bedevils most progressive thinking, and reminds us of the important role that spiritual progressives from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela have been able to play precisely because they have this other dimension in their thinking.

A spiritual progressive approach to bailout is badly needed for the U.S. This is the moment in which biblical ethics and the wisdom of spiritual traditions are actually more realistic than the plans of the capitalist economists. Ideas like the biblical prohibitions against waste; the command to be stewards of the planet; a legal system that obligates us to care for others (which thus transcends a system of rights based only on self-protection) -all these should no longer seem utopian, but instead recognized as matters of survival for the human race.

Even the amazing biblical view of a society-wide sabbatical takes on an attractive allure. Imagine an entire society that stops its production for a given year, and relies on the food, fuel and wealth that has been accumulated during the other six years and now gets redistributed equally to everyone for the sabbatical year, meanwhile freeing the entire population from work so that they can participate in everything from job retraining to get new skills to pure vacationing with the planet to democratic assemblies in which people collectively define their societal priorities for the coming six years. A sabbatical year for every person once in seven years is a practical work benefit that should be a right of all workers. But this takes on a whole different meaning and opens up amazing possibilities for everyone if everyone takes off the same year, creating a festival of freedom and creativity that would be experienced by many as a far greater reward than any material benefits that they were giving up because their society had taken itself off the productivity grid for a year. Yes, there could be enough food and fuel and health care-though this will take careful planning for many years before implementation. But the idea itself points us into unexplored terrain: what if we really didn't have to work all the time, what if the world and our own personal world could survive on less? If, instead of appearing to be a huge sacrifice, the reduction of consumption was experienced as part of an exciting spiritual journey, it might just be possible for us to get off the juggernaut of endless material "progress" before it destroys everything.

Don't we need to work to have enough money to buy food? Well, this begs the question. We have enough food for everyone on the planet. Money has become the distribution mechanism, making it possible for some people to have way more food than they need or is good for them, while others living only miles away, don't have enough money to buy the food they need. The same is true of health care, education, and even energy. By having a year in which these goods are distributed equally and for free may be the necessary first step toward making it possible for people on the planet to imagine a world in which money is no longer the arbiter of essential goods and services.

Labels: bailout, money, President Obama, Rabbi Michael Lerner, spirituality, the economy

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Monday, February 09, 2009

A spiritual approach to money

One group’s formula for trying times: Live gratefully, spend less, buy justly, give more.

By Jane Lampman| Staff writer/
February 1, 2009 edition

In turbulent economic times, the watchwords are usually: Cut back. Live frugally. Hunker down and put money in safe places!

But here in Boston, small groups of churchgoers have been applying a different message to money management. During the past two years, they have studied what the Bible teaches about money and wealth, discussed their personal budgets, and taken concrete steps aimed at four commitments: “Living gratefully, spending less, buying justly, and giving more.”

With gratitude as a foundational principle, the study groups follow a 12-session curriculum called “Lazarus at the Gate,” referring to the challenging gospel story about a rich man who persistently ignored a beggar named Lazarus at his gate (Luke 16). They discuss passages from the Old or New Testaments that consider wealth as a blessing, a potential idol, a resource for meeting needs, and to be justly distributed.

Many participants say the experience has been eye-opening and life-changing, as they explore the meaning of economic discipleship.

Each individual decides on ways to live more simply, such as not buying sodas or snacks during the week or selling a car and taking public transportation instead. At the final session, they commit some of the resources saved from new spending habits to charitable organizations they’ve researched and prioritized.

The first group to follow the Lazarus program met once a month for 12 months in 2007.

“It was a fantastic experience. The group of 14 people wound up giving $40,000 to five organizations dealing with poverty around the world,” says Mako Nagasawa, of InterVarsity Campus Ministry. He and Gary Vanderpol, a Boston pastor, initiated the program, and worked with BFJN to offer it to churches in the area.

For Jo Hunter Adams and her husband, Eugene, the small-group experience brought remarkable results in their own lives along with an increased capacity to give.

“Creating our first budget and sharing it with the group really helped us. We didn’t buy anything we didn’t need, and we didn’t eat out,” says Ms. Adams, a public health worker. “We stayed away from ‘lifestyle inflation.’ ”

Instead of moving into a larger apartment as they had planned, Adams and her husband remained where they were.

As a result, the couple managed over the year to reduce the $50,000 they had in student loans to only $3,000. “It was miraculous!” she says.

A step in the process that really opened her eyes, she adds, was checking their financial position in the global economy on the website, globalrichlist.com. After entering their annual income, she learned that they were among the top 0.7 percent in the world. While she had always thought she could give time and energy to good causes but not much money, “now I see I can give a lot of money, actually,” she says.

What she most appreciates, however, is being able to live her Christian values more consistently. “I tended to think that being saved was the most important thing. Now I’m more interested in reflecting God’s love as much as possible,” she says. “And God wants us to be involved in dealing with poverty and justice.”

Along with Bible study, the Lazarus curriculum guides groups through research on global poverty and development. Participants educate each other about specific organizations active in development, microfinance, and fair trade.

Many involved speak of the way the Lazarus process builds community, enabling each group member to accomplish more than he or she would on their own. For instance, Letizia was giving away 1 or 2 percent of her yearly income though she had thought about giving more.

“Doing it in community lends a different joy and excitement,” she says. “This year is the first time I’ve been able to give 10 percent, and it comes from doing it with others.”

The question for many is whether they can sustain the lifestyle changes and commitments – or build on them. Some groups decide to continue meeting weekly or monthly. A few participants are leading new groups to spread the message. So far, 18 groups have completed the Lazarus program in Boston, and 15 more are getting under way this spring.

The curriculum is available on the Web (click here) to encourage churches in other parts of the country to sponsor groups.

It’s now being used in La Jolla, Calif., and Colorado Springs, Colo., and perhaps soon in New York, Mr. Nagasawa says. He’s also created an eight-week version for use by college students. The Lazarus program is part of a broader BFJN initiative to encourage people to consider what it might look like to have a “gratitude economy.”

Labels: frugality, generosity, gratitude, Jane Lampman, Lazarus at the Gate, the economy

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Friday, January 02, 2009

Economy takes a toll on mental health

Edward Guthmann, Chronicle Staff Writer
(01-01) 17:17 PST --

In October, the American Psychological Survey reported that 83 percent of American women and 78 percent of American men were experiencing heightened stress over job stability, housing costs and the loss of retirement savings.

Women, the study said, are today more concerned with money issues than their personal health. Women of the Baby Boomer generation are especially distressed: Worries about the economy rose from 18 percent in April, to 92 percent in September.

Coping with crisis

For anyone touched by the economic crisis - and very few aren't - the escalating levels of stress and anxiety require tools that weren't needed in less troubled times. Bay Area psychotherapists suggest these coping mechanisms:

-- Exercise, rest, eat healthful foods.

-- Talk to people. Don't hold worries and anxiety inside. Not talking about fear and stress only reinforces those feelings.

-- Volunteer - be of service to others.

-- Look for positive distraction. Start a new hobby; watch a favorite movie.

-- Get some support. Seek professional help, or go to one or two friends who are good listeners and won't judge you.

-- Socialize. Get out of bed, out of the house. See family members and friends on a regular and frequent basis.

-- Meditate. Take long, deep breaths. Getting oxygen to the brain gives your body the message that you're not in danger.

-- Talk with your kids. Give them a context for understanding the economic crisis and your own anxiety. "Fear is the No. 1 threat to our collective mental health right now," says Mill Valley psychotherapist Jan Edl. "I believe the best antidote is to support a cultivation of staying awake and present. It's a good time to have an inner life or spiritual practice."

Labels: coping mechanisms, Edward Guthmann, mental health, the economy, women

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Wealth advisers filling a new counseling role in tough times

The erosion of personal wealth, along with local and national stories about massive financial fraud, are causing people to re-examine everything from their grocery bills to how they valuate themselves as human beings. And that creates some intense and revealing conversations with the ones who know them as intimately as anyone: their financial advisers.

“Instead of a five- to 10-minute talk about the markets, we’re talking about faith and values, and right and wrong,” said Suzann Brown, a partner with Virchow Krause & Co. Wealth Management in Minneapolis. “The big question is, ‘How did we get here?’ and it’s a much more emotional conversation. And you have to be willing to have the conversation. That’s how we can create calm and peace of mind without being able to fix what’s happening on CNBC.”

Besides fear and grief, the intense introspection that follows a dramatic drop in personal wealth can unearth a sense of guilt in some people, said Kathy Kuehl, a principal with Minneapolis wealth-management firm Lowry Hill. Kuehl recently had a meeting with a client who had given some money to her grandchildren and then watched as their accounts shriveled because of the recent market turmoil.

While the questions Kuehl has been asking her clients have become more introspective and abstract in the wake of recent financial fraud cases, her clients also are asking some fundamental questions about the role of trust in the adviser-client relationship.

“If you look at everything that’s happened with [disgraced Wall Street financier Bernie] Madoff, people are re-evaluating their relationships with their advisers,” Kuehl said. “Who can I trust? Am I getting good advice? Am I not getting taken? No matter how much money you have, everybody has to be cautious about their adviser relationship.”

That kind of conversation can ultimately lead to a deeper, more intimate relationship, said Brown, who recounted a recent conversation she’d had with a widowed client in her 70s. The woman asked Brown if she was going to be OK, and Brown reassured her that, with some lifestyle adjustments, she would be OK. Brown, who had never talked about spiritual matters with a client, even after 9/11, recommended that the client turn her television off and reflect on the things in her life for which she was grateful.

“Once we get into this conversation about hopefulness and gratitude, that’s where the spirituality of the conversation takes on a little meaning.”

Labels: faith, fear, financial advisors, grief, the economy, values

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The Year in Religion 2008: Faith's role in election dominates religion news

12/27/2008

WESTERVILLE, Ohio - The U.S. presidential election was the impetus for the nation's top religion stories of 2008, according to a survey of more than 100 religion journalists.

The top story was the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, with Democratic outreach to faith communities and GOP vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin's selection as the second and third top stories, respectively.

Controversial sermons by Wright surfaced early this year, resulting in pressure on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who eventually withdrew his membership in his church, Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago.

Obama was named the top religion newsmaker of 2008.

An online poll of religion reporters was conducted Dec. 8 to 10.

The Religion Newswriters Association has conducted the poll since the 1970s.

The list of suggested top religion stories was compiled for the RNA with help from John W. Smith, religion columnist and retired religion editor of the Reading Eagle.

The other top 10 stories are:

4. The California Supreme Court rules gay marriage is legal.

5. Pope Benedict XVI makes his first U.S. visit

6. U.S. conservatives alienated from the Episcopal Church say they will ask Anglican Communion leaders for permission to create the Anglican Church in North America.

7. Terrorism believed motivated in part by religious fervor results in deaths of almost 200 people in a three-day siege in Mumbai, India.

8. China cracks down on Buddhists seeking Tibetan independence in a prelude to producing a peaceful Olympic games.

9. The crumbling economy and subsequent drop in contributions force many faith-based organizations to cut back on expenses.

10. Violence continues in Iraq as Sunnis and Shiites attack each other, and Christians also are targeted.

Labels: 2008 top stories, Barack Obama, China, gay marriage, Pope Benedict XVI, religion, Religion Newswriters Association, terrorism, the economy

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Election results pointing to new religious coalition

Poll: Social concerns go deeper than abortion

By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

The election of Barack Obama as president is a signal that the religious right is on the way out, according to several experts reviewing a newly released poll on the religious vote.

But don't look for its successor to be the religious left.

The data indicate Mr. Obama's victory was aided by the emergence of a new and diverse religious coalition that views fighting poverty, protecting the environment, and promoting world peace to be critical issues - not just abortion rights and same-sex marriage upon which the religious right has focused.

The poll, conducted by Washington-based Public Religion Research, examined the reasons given by people of faith for voting for either Democrat Mr. Obama or Republican candidate John McCain.

Robert Jones, president of Public Religion Research, said one of the key findings was that a majority of both evan-gelical Christians (55 percent) and Catholics (51 percent) said agendas best reflecting their values include the issues of poverty, the environment, war and peace, abortion rights, and same-sex marriage. In contrast, only 21 percent of evangelicals and 13 percent of Catholics said a narrower agenda focused on abortion rights and same-sex marriage best reflected their values.

The new coalition includes black and Latino voters, younger white Christians, new evangelical pastors and students, progressive Catholics, and Protestants...

The poll reported that while only 21 percent of white evangelicals voted for Mr. Obama, of those who did, 39 percent considered him to be friendly to their religion and 39 percent felt he shares their values.

Among Catholics, 54 percent voted for Mr. Obama while 64 percent said the Democratic candidate shares their values.

Among all religious groups, 58 percent considered Mr. McCain friendly to religion and 54 percent said Mr. Obama was friendly to religion. Mr. Obama's numbers in that category are 16 points higher than his party's; only 38 percent of voters said the Democratic Party was friendly to religion.

The survey also reported Mr. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate proved to be a net loss for the party. The Alaska governor increased support among 30 percent of evangelicals, but decreased support among every other religious group and among political independents, according to poll data.

The most important issue by far among religious voters was the same as that of the general public: the economy. Seventy percent of all religious groups cited the economy as the most important issue, followed by the Iraq war (35 percent), health care (31 percent), terrorism (19 percent), abortion rights (14 percent), and same-sex marriage (6 percent).

The Public Religion Research survey polled 1,277 voters between Nov. 5 and Nov. 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. It was sponsored by Faith in Public Life, Sojourners, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Labels: abortion, Barack Obama, David Yonke, Iraq, John McCain, Public Religion Research, the economy