Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Economics in Service of Life

Ulrich Duchrow | 27.03.2004 17:59 | Ecology | Globalisation

"The ideology of neoliberalism is incompatible with the vision of the ecumene, the unity of the church and the whole inhabited earth.. Injustice, exclusion and destruction are the opposite to sharing and solidarity, the indispensable part of our being the body of Christ.." translated from the German

“Economics in Service of Life” – The Ecumenical Status Confessionis

By Ulrich Duchrow

[This address from the 2003 Ecumenical Church Day in Berlin is translated from the German on the World Wide Web. Ulrich Duchrow is a professor in Heidelberg and a liberation theologian.]

This forum is part of the ecumenical status confessionis process, “Economics in Service of Life”. This theme is hardly known in Germany because our churches in the past were afraid of viewing neoliberal globalization as the fundamental challenge to the nature of the church just like National Socialism in Germany and the apartheid system in South Africa. A 1995 consultation of reformed churches in southern Africa in Mindolo/Kitwe, Sambia urged this perspective. This consultation formulated the momentous sentences: “our painful conclusion is that the African reality of poverty caused by an unjust world economic order is not simply an ethical problem. Rather it is a theological problem. This unjust order now justifies a status confessionis. The gospel itself, the Good News for the poor, is at stake with the mechanisms of the global economy.”

The Reformed World Alliance declared at its 1997 plenary assembly in Debrecen, Hungary:

“Today we call member churches of the Reformed World Alliance (RWA) to a binding process of growing discovery, enlightenment and confession (processus confessionis) concerning economic injustice and ecological destruction.

The 8th plenary assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Harare, Zimbabwe, 1998 encouraged member churches to join this process. The Lutheran World Alliance (LWA) also adopted this orientation. In the meantime the process has begun on all continents. Massive regional consultations took place and take place to analyze the effects of neoliberal globalization in the different parts of the world, to explore alternatives under particular social and cultural conditions in the different continents and to assure the solidarian ecumenical community.

In June 2002 the delegates of western European churches met in this framework in Soesterberg, Netherlands. They wrote a letter to the churches in Western Europe. The general secretaries of the ecumenical organizations WCC, RWA and LWA sent the letter to all church administrators with the request “to respond to the challenges of economic globalization in a binding way – both through broad discussions and decisions in responsible groups. The results should be considered at the next plenary assemblies of these organizations. Common worldwide decisions are expected (LWA, Winnipeg 2003; RWA, Accra 2004 and WCC, Porto Alegre 2006). The letter to the churches in Western Europe is very clear:

“The churches participating in the ecumenical process confirm that the ideology of neoliberalism is incompatible with the vision of the ecumene, the unity of the church and the whole inhabited earth. Far-r and growing injustice, exclusion and destruction are opposite to sharing and solidarity, the indispensable parts of our being the body of Christ. What is at stake here is the quality of church community, the future of the public welfare of society, the credibility of the confession of the churches and the churches’ proclamation of God who is with the poor and for the poor. For the sake of the integrity of theirs, the churches are called to oppose neoliberal economic theory and practice and to follow God.

The Soesterberg consultation that presented this text analyzed the churches’ position on the financial system in the context of neoliberal globalization. The reason for this increasing gravity is unmistakable: the fundamental predominance of capital ownership over working people and the whole society in the capitalist system has intensified since the 1970s through the transnationalization of capital. Corporations can manipulate prices through free trade zones and avoid taxes. Banks and investment funds often accumulate through speculative financial transactions instead of through the real economy and force up profit expectations (casino capitalism). All owners of capital cause debts for the public budgets through tax evasion, tax dumping and subsidies and compel governments to social cuts. The result is increasing structural unemployment and the ever-wider gap between impoverishment and enrichment within the different societies and between South and North.

The letter to the churches in Western Europe urges our churches to comment on the following questions, proposals and initiatives for alternatives:

“With reference to the debt question

· Acknowledgment of the churches for the mounting debts actually owed to the people and countries of the South;

· Continuing efforts for cancellation of the bi- and multilateral debts of the poorest developing countries and the creation of a mechanism for debt arbitration to substantially reduce the debt burden of other developing countries; the non-recognition of illegitimate and morally reprehensible debts…

With reference to the financial system

· Reform of the international financial architecture that assures a reasonable representation of all developing countries and civil society in decision-making processes…;

· A mechanism for deterring exorbitant and de-stabilizing currency speculation (like an effective tax on financial transactions, the Tobin tax). Attac, an advocate for this mechanism, is supported by ecumenical groups and churches;

· An analysis of the possibility of treating money like other goods and covering it with taxes since currencies are handled in financial markets and are no longer instruments in the service of the economy;

· More controls on monetary policy and concerning markets; development of a multilateral initiative to define common standards for limiting possibilities of tax evasion of transnational corporations and investment funds;

· Multilateral agreements allowing states to tax transnational corporations on a uniform-global basis together with proper mechanisms for internationally allocating tax revenues…”

However the churches are also summoned in the letter to scrutinize their own practices as economic subjects, for example:

· “Why do our churches make poverty into a theme without discussion wealth and prosperity?

· How do our churches deal with their own money, their pension accounts, investments and real estate holdings? Are h banks connected with our churches entangled in tax flight, ethically irresponsible investments, speculative practices and other activities that undermine the ability of states to care for the public welfare?

· As churches are joined with our social- and health services in markets defined by competition, can they influence market conditions in the interest of the public well-being and the interest of our churches? How do we respond to the continuing privatization of public and social goods and services essential for life like water, health care, education etc.?

· What form of consumption and what lifestyle do we practice and promote? How can we as churches and individual church members strengthen the consciousness for climate change and work for conservation by dealing more carefully with energy consumption in our churches, apartment buildings, transportation etc.?

Wolfgang Gern will focus on the question of the churches’responsibility for politics and the economy in the context of neoliberal globalization. Dorothee Soelle will discuss how Christians, communities and churches can correspond and follow Jesus Christ in this situation. This includes:

* Clear rejection of the system of neoliberal globalized capitalism as destructive idolatry;

· Spirituality of resistance and solidarity and

· Practical conversion of alternatives in dealing with money, labor and consumption.Resistance joins the voices of the South. In April 2003, the meeting of the Reformed Churches from Africa, Asia and Latin America in the ecumenical status confessionis process took place in Buenos Aires. Following the Ten Commandments, the delegates made the following commitment in their “Declaration of Faith in the Global Crisis of Life”,

You are our God who liberates us from all oppression, exclusion and exploitation.

I. We will not make mammon into our God and accumulate power and wealth.

II. We will not build any idols by worshipping the efficiency of our works.

III. We will not misuse the name of God our Lord by representing the enforcement of markets oriented in accumulating riches and imperial wars as Christian policy.

IV. We will respect the Sabbath and neither exploit human workers nor destroy nature.

V. We will champion solidarity between the generations – both through advocacy for a life in dignity for seniors and by preserving future generations from ecological destruction and heavy debts.

VI. We will not kill by excluding those persons from markets who either have no private property or sell their labor power on the market.

VII. We will not tolerate that women and children are made into commodities and sexually exploited.

VIII. We will not accept the diverse theft of actors on the markets.

IX. We will not misuse the legal system for our own material advantage but will promote the economic, social and cultural rights of all people.

X. We will not become enslaved to the greed for unlimited accumulation of riches and rob our neighbors of their means of production and income so everyone can live a life in dignity on God’s rich and wondrous earth.”

That our communities and churches join in this declaration of faith and act accordingly is the goal of the process. Kairos Europe is preparing a volume with the most important texts and proposals for their conversion. What is central is listening on the foundation of the Bible to the voice of those whose personal and communal life on this earth is increasingly destroyed by neoliberal globalization and financial mechanisms.


Ulrich Duchrow
- e-mail: mbatko@lycos.com
- Homepage: http://www.mbtranslations.com

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech