What Does the Bible Say, Really?

There are some things we just don’t think about.

Susan Thistlewaite, Chicago Theological Seminary professor, author and scholar, gives some sobering information in her latest book, Occupy the Bible. She says that we ought to read the Bible from the perspective of the homeless, the hungry, the economically stressed.

It was from their perspective that Jesus formed his ministry, she says …and the Bible says.

In a workshop she gave, she said, “Student debt is approaching one trillion dollars. That’s more than credit card debt and if the trend continues, in a few years, student debt will be higher than the national debt. We need to read the Bible from that perspective.”

Students are stressed out and depressed. They have gone to school and gotten degrees, only to find that they are not able to get work, or enough money to pay their student loans.”Students are stressed out and depressed,” Thistlewaite said. “Some are committing suicide.”

There are a lot of reasons for the economic state of this nation, but greed is a big one, posits Thistlewaite. Greed has led banks and other financial institutions, including those which dole out student loans, to go haywire, thinking not about the people who are getting the loans they are giving out but instead by the profit they will make off people who are really trying to make an honest living.

Jesus was a revolutionary, primarily because he challenged the Roman government. He didn’t get into trouble because he taught people to love; he got in trouble because he challenged the status quo. He got into trouble because he taught people that the kingdom in which they should seek comfort was the heavenly kingdom, where there was fairness and equality amongst people, not the earthly kingdom, headed by the Romans, which led people into economic despair and support economic inequality.

“Theology begins where pain is,” says Thistlewaite. And clearly, there is pain amongst the people who are working and still cannot make ends meet. That group includes students, but also the so-called “working poor,” who, in spite of working sometimes two and three jobs, are still struggling to keep their heads above water. The economic state of our nation is slowly wiping out the middle class, and, observes Thistlewaite, there can be no democracy without a middle class.

Our economic dilemma is made all the worse as the issue is argued using the Bible as justification for both liberal and conservative positions. Thistlewaite says that “the Right thinks the Bible supports free market capitalism.” The Left, conversely, uses the Bible to support an economy which supports equal distribution of wealth. Parables, like found in the Book of Matthew 25:14-30, where a wealthy landowner gave three different “slaves” (translated from the Greek “doulos”) rewarded the two who multiplied money given to them, and cast out the one who hid the money given to him, invite two different interpretations, one from the Left, one from the Right. Who, in that parable and others, is doing the will of God, asks Thistlewaite.

One Bible. Two desperately different interpretations …and the odd men out are the struggling, working poor.

We don’t want to think about the state of our economy or what God really demands. It is totally inconceivable to me that anyone would think that God supports poverty or the abject and real suffering that is endured by the working poor, just as it is inconceivable to me that a good God would support racism or sexism or militarism. I grew up believing that a good God wanted all people to be taken care of, that God wanted economic and social justice for all people. Is that naive?

Neither the Hebrew Scriptures nor the New Testament, naiveté notwithstanding, seem to support misery, with a very few people being very comfortable at the expense of many poor people suffering. People got into big trouble with God in the Bible for not being hospitable, not taking care of widows and the poor. God didn’t change, did He/She?

There are some things we don’t want to think about it, but we need to. Bottom line, there’s too much suffering caused by economic distress, in this, the wealthiest nation in the world.

A candid observation …

Visit Thistlewaite’s website at http://www.occupythebible.org

Big Government Be Damned?

OK. So Nancy Pelosi says Republicans are anti-government ideologues. My question: So why do they run for office?

If one does not believe in government, then what do such political candidates believe in? Why spend literally millions of dollars to be elected to office? Why are they there?

What do these anti-government ideologues want? They don’t want the government to do anything for the underdogs of our society. They prefer for the private sector to do that, some kind of way. But doesn’t the private sector, businesses, want to make money most of all, and are pretty much not concerned with the well-being of those who do the work?

President Calvin Coolidge said that the business of government is business. Some have said that democracy and capitalism, as two belief sets, are not compatible. Democracy as we have come to understand it, or the way many interpret it, is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We who believe in democracy have internalized that to mean ALL people.

But capitalism is different. Capitalism seems to adhere more to the line of thought which promotes the “survival of the fittest.” Capitalists scorn those who cannot “make it,” and do not believe that democracy is supposed to mean that everybody can and should get the same benefits. Capitalists promote the thought that the only reason some people don’t make it is because they do not try, especially in America.

True, there are more opportunities for attaining the so-called “American Dream” in these United States, but some people really try to make it and just cannot. Maybe it’s because of extenuating circumstances or personality flaws, but maybe it’s because of something called discrimination. Surely that cannot be ruled out, no?

If it were not for government, people who have dealt with discrimination wouldn’t have had any protection, it seems. Blacks, browns, women …have all had to call on government for help and fairness when business and/or society would not budge. Government acted …albeit slowly …to insure a more level playing field for those who had been essentially pushed off to the sidelines.

So, there IS a need for government.

So, if there was no “big government,” what would happen to those who are making their way to center field now? Would there be a repeat of post-Reconstruction, when blacks, who had made political and economic gains were essentially pushed back into legalized slavery in the system known as “convict leasing?”

The federal government really stayed out of the Southern states after Reconstruction got underway, and slowly, state governments began to return their society to the way it had been before. The powers that be didn’t want blacks, and certainly not women, to have the opportunities that white men had. They didn’t even think blacks should have been freed from slavery.

Big government, then, has its place, it would seem. When people are trying to make money, they want to make money, not babysit or placate people who are having a hard time making it. They want the most work for the least buck, period. Without a big government that cares about people, many ordinary folks would just be out of luck.

That’s not to take away the fact that some people are extremely skillful at pushing against the resistance that comes with pursuing any dream. Some people just will not quit, and they deserve to move ahead. Vince Lombardi once said “winning isn’t everything but it is the only thing.” That is the mantra for many people and it works.

But some people with a little less chutzpah, or a whole lot more discrimination working against them, need help. Heck, even the most tenacious people need help. So if that help comes from big government, that should be OK.

Of course, this conversation is kind of superfluous. Everybody calls on government once in a while, whether or not one is pro or anti-big government. Everyone has a sense of entitlement when something catastrophic happens; then we want our government to kick into gear, and be BIG. If the government does not, we get indignant.

But we tend to only understand, as human beings, our own needs, and cast the needs of others aside. We don’t even want to think about the “have-nots” too much; we avoid really getting to know why they are where they are, because to see their suffering makes us uncomfortable. That’s human nature. Nobody wants to see suffering.

So we work hard to make sure we are comfortable, and criticize big government it attempts to do things that will make the lives of some legitimately suffering people a little easier. We shut our eyes to the real barriers which spring up in a capitalistic world and society and instead blame those who struggle for the situations in which they find themselves. We regard those who cannot make it as moochers.

Some of them are, and some of them are not. We just don’t want to take the time to make the distinctions and give help where it is needed. We are content to charge the poor and blame the poor for being poor, thus helping to keep them poor, and we defy the government to try to change that reality. We in America have little regard, it seems, for the burgeoning population of older Americans who barely have enough to live on once they can no longer work. And so, many older Americans are living in deplorable conditions, and we will not look that harsh reality in the face.

What does it take to make people in a democracy do what democracy purports to do – to make a society where all people are created equal? Those who do not like such a notion say that to want that is to be socialist. OK, but really, that’s what our United States Constitution says – all men (people) are created equal.

We have a problem in our formative ideology. It seems that there is an untenable tension between capitalism and democracy, and capitalists are criticizing the very political system which has made their wealth acquisition a reality.

A candid observation …

Poverty By Design

Even while survivors of our own country’s horrible 2012 “storm of the century,” Hurricane Sandy, are still reeling from Sandy’s wrath, Haitians are still suffering from the 7.0 earthquake that happened three years ago today. Over 200,000 people were killed; 1.5 million were left homeless.

Homeless Haitians set up tents nearby the Pres... — Homeless Haitians set up tents nearby the Presidential Palace, in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In spite of billions of dollars pouring into the tiny country, said to be the poorest country in the world, the look of destruction is almost as stark as it was three years ago. Too many people are still living in overcrowded camps, where people are living in tents, with no fresh water, no sanitation, no electricity, and no privacy. Some camps have closed down, with some Haitians having been paid to leave them, but with so little new housing, one wonders where they have gone. A report on National Public Radio (NPR) said that some people have moved into new houses, but have ended up back in camps because they haven’t been able to get work to pay their rent. (http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=2&t=1&islist=false&id=169078876&m=169117672)

A friend of mine recently visited Haiti, and came back shaken. “I can’t stand to see that kind of poverty,” he said. “It’s too much.”

If it’s too much for a visitor who sees what is there but can leave it, one wonders how those trapped in the abject poverty and destruction are faring. One wonders what the overall psychological effects are on the spirits of the people who live in such squalor.

There was money pledged, billions, in fact. That money was received and according to Haitian officials, used well and wisely, but apparently the “wise and well” spending of the money did not extend to the millions of people living in misery. What happens to people who get “used” to being miserable? And what happens to the world when there are so many people, internationally, who live in such disgusting poverty?

In every poor nation, there are people who live quite well, and I would bet that those who live well try their best to stay away from the poverty and misery literally at their feet. Poverty is ugly. Nobody wants to see it.

And yet, perhaps if they would see it, and smell it, and taste it and hear it…they would be moved to help in ways they could. Maybe if they could see the squalor they know is there, their hearts would be pricked.

Once, when I was a reporter, I did a story on poverty in the city. I visited the “home” of a family, where the walls were cracked and broken, where there were holes in the floor of one of the upstairs bedrooms, where the roaches were everywhere, even in the refrigerator. The resident, a mother with small children, explained that she could not afford anything else, and that the landlord ignored her requests for help. “I clean,” she said, “but the roaches are everywhere. I can’t get them out.” At night, she said, she would put cotton in her ears and in the ears of her children so that no roach would climb inside of them.

“I don’t sleep well,” she said. “I worry for my children.

Yes, she worked, but at a job which paid her barely enough to live. She had no benefits. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing.

“In the winter, we all stay in the kitchen,” she said, “and stay warm by the heat from the oven.”

I don’t even know why I wanted to do that story, but the images, the voices, the smells have never left my consciousness. That there are people living like that in these United States is troubling…and the fact that the poverty here isn’t even close to the poverty I have seen in other countries is sobering. Jonathan Kozol, in some of his books, describes the poverty and squalor that many urban kids and youth in this country face every day, in their schools, of all places. The facilities many of our kids go to every day do not encourage learning or the desire for wisdom. Rather, as students shudder in the winter and roast in the summer, as they go to bathrooms which many times do not work well, as they look through broken windows, or, worse, look at the place where windows are supposed to be, but see giant pieces of plywood instead, one wonders how they manage to learn anything. Even the poor like nice surroundings.

The poor are not objects, though we tend to look at them that way. I read recently that in the system of capitalism, some are supposed to be poor; that’s the way the system works. Wrote H.W. Brands in his book, American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900, democracy and capitalism are two opposing ideologies, antagonistic to each other. Juxtaposing the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, Brands called them “dueling manifestos.” “Democracy depends on equality, capitalism on inequality,” wrote Brands. “Citizens in a democracy come to the public square with one vote each; participants in a capitalist economy arrive at the marketplace with unequal talents and resources and leave the marketplace with unequal rewards.” (page 10)

In order to make this capitalist democracy work, then, we have to be able to look at some people as objects, not human beings with souls and needs. Their suffering cannot be allowed to reach our nostrils or our hearts. They become objects which can and will be used to further the wealth of those who, frankly, do not need more money, but who are driven to get more and more.

It is the way the system works.

That reality is sobering. When I think of the people squashed in those tents in Haiti, while some in Haiti are living in luxury, when I think of the poor in this nation, the richest in the world, we’ve been told, when I think of the poverty in India and in Latin America…and even in the places where we who are more fortunate actually go for vacations. I shudder.

Something is wrong and not enough of us want to face it.

A candid observation …

Talking “Stuff”

It is the day after Thanksgiving, and Black Friday sales have lured shoppers into stores. Some people finished dinner yesterday and then went shopping. It is an American tradition – this Black Friday thing, and it is the love of almost everyone – to shop.

After President Obama was re-elected, Bill O’Reilly, apparently disappointed about the outcome of the election, said ” “It’s not a traditional America anymore, and there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama.”

Is that accurate, about the percentage of Americans wanting “stuff?” Doesn’t everyone want “stuff?” Don’t wealthy people want “stuff,” too, and the more “stuff” they are able to purchase, the more they want to purchase? Isn’t the knowledge that people want “stuff,” stuff they do not need, the driver behind capitalism? Isn’t the desire for stuff the reason wealthy people buy the most expensive clothes, buy as many homes as they want, and engage in collecting art and jewelry. and cars. Stuff. And the more they can get, the more stuff they want to get.

O’Reilly was criticizing the president’s base, that “50 percent” which, he says, is the proof that we don’t have a “traditional” America anymore. These people, he says, feel entitled to “stuff” from the government, things like health care, mortgage assistance, provision to make it easier to go to college. Said O’Reilly: “The voters, many of them, feel this economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You’re gonna see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things — and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?”

Everybody wants stuff. When it comes to some of the entitlements that are so expensive, the government helping “the least of these” is making fiscal conservatives worried and angry. I understand the worry…but if the government did not help those who are suffering unduly because they are poor, what kind of government would we be? While we are engaging in wars all over the world to help people attain “freedom,” what does our “freedom” here look like? I heard yesterday that there ought to be a distinction made between those who are “rich” and those who are “wealthy.” This economist said that the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is getting larger and larger, making us look like the oligarchies of Third World countries that we criticize.

I don’t do Black Friday. I like “stuff” too, but I don’t have a need or desire to buy “stuff” just for “stuff’s” sake. We capitalistic system teaches us to want stuff; we are manipulated by skillful marketing to look at “stuff” so that we keep making the rich richer. Our spending is what keeps capitalism rolling along. And that spending and desire for “stuff” is not limited to 50 percent of the populace who voted for President O’Bama.

I hate it when the masses of people are criticized for wanting what the elite want. We all see the same commercials, and yearn for “more and more.” Elite as well as commoners are deeply in debt. The majority of people want to live beyond their needs.

It’s the desire for “stuff” that keeps everyone spending, and keeps the rich, or perhaps the wealthy, as comfortable as they are.

It’s human nature, Mr. O’Reilly. It’s not Democrat or Republican. It’s not black, Hispanic or white, male or female It’s human.

O’Reilly wants America to stop giving what he thinks are hand-outs to people in need. There is nothing wrong with wanting health care, or wanting a college education to be more affordable, with wanting to be able to make it in America. It’s the American way. The people out shopping now are going to be using credit cards, keeping credit card companies in the black. Retailers are salivating, hoping more and more people will come out for “stuff.” The purpose of being in business is to make money, make a profit. Companies don’t care where people spending money got their money. They just want the money. They want us to want …stuff.

Mr. O’Reilly, your comment was one of the most ignorant I have heard in a long time.

A candid observation…

Are Capitalism and Christianity Compatible?

It so happened that as I was reading something this morning about the requirements Jesus asks of those who love and follow him that a thought struck me…and stayed with me.

What Jesus asks of us seems fundamentally incompatible with the principles of capitalism.

As I read and study, it seems clearer and clearer that Jesus got in trouble, yes, because he riled church leaders, but more so, or at least equally so, he got in trouble because he got in trouble with government officials.

Jerusalem and the Jewish people were under Roman rule and Roman oppression. The Romans ended up destroying the Jewish temple in 70 AD because the Jews had tried to lead a rebellion against the Romans. While Jesus was alive, he noticed the disparity between rich and poor, the “haves” and “have-nots” and he spoke against that…and in so doing, angered the government.

Jesus was in alignment with Hebrew scripture, which asked the Israelites to take care of the poor, of the widows. Yes, the God of the Hebrew scriptures was angry at the Israelites for breaking covenant and for following false gods…their apostasy seemingly grieved Yahweh enormously. But this same God was furious at the Hebrew children for forgetting their role as His “chosen” ones. In the Book of Isaiah, the very first chapter, the prophet writes, on Yahweh’s behalf, “Stop doing wrong! Learn to do right. Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”

It is a motif which appears throughout the Hebrew scriptures. In the Book of Deuteronomy, part of The Law, Moses says to the Israelites, on behalf of Yahweh, “Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. Pay him his wages each day before sunset because he is poor and is counting on it…Do not deprive the alienor the fatherless of justice or take the cloak of widows as a pledge…(24:17) In the 15th chapter of that same book, it reads, “If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardh

earted or tight-fisted toward your brother. Rather, be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs…”

In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet writes, “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord.

Jesus, the reason for Christianity, asks followers to take care of “the least of these,” and says, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

None of what I just quoted seems to be in alignment with the principles of capitalism. The free market system is such that the acquisition of profit and possessions are the prize, the goal, often at the expense of the poor, who are exploited so that profit margins may be larger.

Indeed, the tension between government and labor seems to be partly because unions ostensibly work to protect the poor and the laborers, who would be mercilessly exploited without such protection. What capitalism aims for the the biggest gain for its buck. That in and of itself is not bad…but I am just not sure that it is in alignment with principles of Christianity.

I wrote a paper which I presented at Oxford University several years ago, saying that there seems to be a real tension for some American Christians between the Bible and the United States Constitution. Both documents are important, but they are used and manipulated in order to accommodate the desires of people at any given time, and for some, the Constitution is a document more worth defending and quoting than is the Bible.

Why? Because where the Bible admonishes followers of God to treat each other fairly and with dignity, the Constitution seems to make it OK to treat others the way one wants…because we have the freedom to do so. The Bible talks about the way God works, giving, for example, the same amount of money to a person who has worked for one hour as to the person who has worked a full day. (Matthew 25) The Constitution, written to define and protect the idea of republicanism, wrote of the “inalienable rights” of people – but those people were primarily property owners, white male property owners, at that.

Capitalism, or the ideas of capitalism, were written into the Constitution, along with the omission of the need to treat all people fairly, including blacks, women, and whomever else might join the new republic. And so, at the outset, it seems that the Constitution was in direct conflict with the Holy Bible.

All that being said, it seems highly unlikely that the division between rich and poor will ever go away, no matter what the Bible says. There is resentment against the poor in this very Christian nation; the “victims” are too often blamed for their predicaments and the fact that this is a “free country” is thrown up in our faces as proof that “anybody” can make it. Hypothetically, that is true, but in reality, that is scarcely the case. And no amount of Christian mouthing off about the unfairness of capitalism is going to change that reality.

If Jesus were to visit this nation, this world, today, I wonder what He would say? So much of the world lives in abject poverty, while the rich squander money and scramble to make even more. The very rich make money and stash it, against Biblical principles, but perfectly in compliance with the working of capitalism. The poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed…are scorned, used, manipulated…and too often, forgotten.

It seems that capitalism is really held more dear to hearts than is Christianity, except in certain instances or as applies to certain issues…like contraception or homosexuality. The Bible is cast aside in its call for fairness, for example, as all-male Congressional committees listen to the conditions of women, or all-white juries serve in trials involving black and brown people.

As I watch and read, it just doesn’t seem that capitalism and Christianity are compatible; they work against each other. There is definitely an issue here. And it’s a serious one.

A candid observation …