It was in the shadow of rising Nazism that a Conference met in Oxford in 1937. Drawn from many different Christian expressions it wrestled with issues that have since - and not least this weekend - shaped the post-War world too. It was notable for its clarity, something rarely achieved in Ecumenical conferencing.
As the Greek people vote in the most economic of all elections it is interesting to notice the 1937 Conference's warnings about Capitalism. It was a feature of the Conference that it refused to identify any overarching political system with the Kingdom of God (at a time when every overarching political system was claiming to be God's or, in the case of Stalinism, god). Fascism and Communism have (for a while) had their day, Monarchy fell earlier and now we have Market Capitalism and Democracy which are starting to fall out with each other.
"Could anything, possibly, be wrong with Capitalism?", my Western generation asks, expecting the answer No.
In 1937 the Conference believed it systemically brought the following four negatives - enhanced acquisitiveness; shocking new inequalities; irresponsible possession of economic power; diminishing Christian vocation.
Last night I returned from visiting someone on a nice new well-staffed ward (yes I know that the NHS has its problems but . . .). Earlier in the day I had collected a regular prescription and dropped it into the nearest pharmacy I was walking past. This morning I listened to a Doctor in a Greek Hospital telling how there was one nurse for 50 children and that they had to scour the region for drugs that they needed, sometimes failing to find them.
And I thought. My generation of Westerners has reaped great rewards from Capitalism. But the negatives those Christians saw are alive and well in the way it works today; where the added suffering of a sick child in Greece is deemed positive to protect a currency union. It takes a spiritual outlook to believe that the child will, in fact, outlive money and not the other way round.
Last night I returned from visiting someone on a nice new well-staffed ward (yes I know that the NHS has its problems but . . .). Earlier in the day I had collected a regular prescription and dropped it into the nearest pharmacy I was walking past. This morning I listened to a Doctor in a Greek Hospital telling how there was one nurse for 50 children and that they had to scour the region for drugs that they needed, sometimes failing to find them.
And I thought. My generation of Westerners has reaped great rewards from Capitalism. But the negatives those Christians saw are alive and well in the way it works today; where the added suffering of a sick child in Greece is deemed positive to protect a currency union. It takes a spiritual outlook to believe that the child will, in fact, outlive money and not the other way round.
No comments:
Post a Comment