A Redemptive Financial Crisis?

Our church community just finished a sermon series on the topic of stewardship. As is our new practice, we completed this series with an interactive question and answer session. I particularly appreciate this practice as it satisfies my, some would say postmodern, desire for interaction. I am increasingly no longer content to silently ponder and respond to the ideas of the speaker, but desire real interaction so that the words have a better chance to take root in my life.

One of the more interesting questions asked, concerned the current financial crisis and the possibility that God is using the crisis as a punishment for our failure to defend the rights of the unborn. While I don’t believe there is much biblical support for this conclusion, I was challenged to consider the possibility of the financial crisis being linked to our failure to obey other biblical admonitions.

As I go about my daily work, I often pass by a prominently displayed adaptation of Proverbs 31:8-9

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."

As the interactive session continued, I could vividly picture this passage in my minds eye and I have been pondering it ever since. What strikes me is this passage seems diametrically opposed to the libertarian ideals of our “ownership society”. These ideals have both pervasively and perversely been the dominate world-view of our society for at least the last few decades. Up until the current crisis, the prevailing thought was – and for some still is - that we need to drop all control of “the market”. At best we have been silent; we have stood by while the rights of the poor and needy are trampled by increasingly freer-markets. At worse, we have strongly supported the principalities that endeavor to support this system, mostly because we’ve learned to personally benefit from our knowledge of its inner workings.

Perhaps there is a redemptive nature to the current financial crisis. This crisis is affecting me and I no longer feel that I have any particular knowledge of how to benefit from the current system. Maybe now, I’ll actually “speak up” and as a result defend the rights of the poor and needy.