Open Thread: What Might Be God’s Purposes In A Major Economic Downturn?
November 26, 2008 by iMonk
None of us know God’s ways and purposes beyond what He has revealed in scripture or in our own experience. But taking those lessons and “sanctified common sense,” we can think in terms of possibilities.
For instance, I have my students answer the question: “What were God’s possible purposes in allowing Saul to be such a failure as king of Israel?” Their answers help them think about what God was doing in the nation and for David.
So here’s an open thread question that I promised on last week’s podcast:
“What Might Be Some of God’s Purposes In Allowing A Major Economic Downturn?”
Talk amongst yourselves.
It sure is easy to take God for granted when things are going well.
I found that when I was a poor college student that those with the most faith in God supplying their needs was those who had the least.
If you can’t count on Daddy or Mommy to supply food for your table, then you are much more likely to be asking God for help.
Good question. I can theorize a bit, but we’ll see for sure someday if we do have a major economic downturn. (we ain’t having one yet, not by historic standards)
The first refrain is what happened to Israel – they became complacent and rejected God, and he allowed/sent disasters to come to them to remind them that they were no longer following Him.
The second refrain is to stretch the faith of those who are following Him, to allow them to rest more fully on His promises and grow in maturity. (Going nine months without a job, with a wife and two kids, while desperately trying to short-sell a home which has a mortgage that is way more than can be afforded in a market that REALLY wasn’t moving. Yeah, God’s good through even stuff like that, and I know it now.)
The third might be the basic “Rain falls on the just and unjust.”
I wonder if God did allow it, or is it all our doing? Our job is to remain faithful no matter what the economic situation. We will have some real opportunities to serve others during these days. We have already seen even here in suburbia where I live, not to mention where the I-Monk holds forth.
um… perhaps an illustration of the principle: “Be ye not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
The same purposes that allowed the tsunami that killed 200k, a Kashmir earthquake that killed 80k and other natural disasters. Piper says it’s a mixture of judgment and mercy. I think it’s just inscrutable.
But perhaps the economic news is scrutable.
This is not an economic downturn, btw. This is a disaster of historic proportion. Record job losses, record drops in consumer spending, pension and retirement savings vanished, record drops in real estate values, the list just keeps on growing . . . Without jobs, folks will lose their health coverage and then bills will pile up and financial strain will lead to marital strain. It’s not going to be pretty. People–our brothers and sisters, our neighbors–are going to suffer.
So several things spring to mind:
1) People matter
2) Because people matter, economic policy matters
3) Because economic policy matters, politics matter
4) Because politics matter, informed voters matter
Here’s a proposition: Being indifferent to good government is a violation of Jesus’s command to love your neighbor as yourself. We need to think in terms larger than “the local church will take care of everybody.” It can’t, and it won’t.
Sinners work in business. Sinners work in government. But Jesus is Lord of all. So we need to think in larger terms about the role government should play in helping the poor, the sick, the hungry, the homeless, the imprisoned, and even the middle class. Maybe that’s the message in the bottle.
Maybe indifference, even hostility, to government and government regulation of businesses and financial institutions run by sinners is not an option. Maybe we need to think harder about how Christians living in the kingdom can think of ways of helping others through the mechanisms of government, even if it’s done imperfectly.
Because imperfect approaches are better than the massive government intervention now taking place to support a “free” market system that has failed. We as Christians have to deal with the world as it is, not with the world as we wish it could be.
He is trying to remind us what it really means for your children to be “better off” than you were.
Which is why I find the current trajectory of the bailout so troubling… It is all about stimulating more credit more spending more consumption more more more.
Maybe we need less of these things and more of what lasts.
So we can show our faith by saying, “We are NOT in an economic downturn. We refuse to own that in our lives. By faith we declare that we are always prosperous and healthy. By faith we claim that we are having our best life now.” Just keep grinning and remember to ask, “WWJD: What would Joel (and Victoria) do?”
Seriously, though, maybe, just maybe God will use this recession to expose the vacuous idolatry of the prosperity preachers? Is it wrong at a time like this for me to think in such an imprecatory way?
Well, I know what a lot of Christians think is God’s Purpose:
When morning drive-time radio devotes a whole half-hour segment to the “Obama IS The Antichrist” urban legend…
When your financial planner (i.e. the expert you trust to manage your money) starts out a consultation with “You know that We Are Living In The End Times…”
When End Time Prophecy websites (usually with “Rapture” in the name) show an upturn in hits… And you hear Survivalist rhetoric exceeding that of Y2K…
When your burned-out preacher of a writing partner blames Hal Lindsay and John Nelson Darby for killing American Protestantism and has to preach “Don’t Go Stupid on Me!” three Sundays in a row…
There is only one conclusion: Christian flakeouts. And the last thing you need in a crisis is high-volume flakeouts.
Free will. God asks us “Okay, are you sure you really want this? Fine, have it. But remember, you wanted it.”
Which is what Israel was warned about, when they demanded a king so they could be as good as the other nations.
We’ve been told we can’t serve both God and Mammon. We seem to have decided Mammon was a better bet, and now we’re seeing how he treats his servants. We can’t say we weren’t warned.
Let me first say that I do not intend to imply that everyone who is struggling financially brought it on themselves.
But I do have hope that a financial crisis and a required tightening of belts will serve as a wakeup call to our materialistic, idolatrous nature. In America we live in a society where we desire more, bigger, newer all the time. It is an attitude that leads many to exceed there means in an effort to meet society’s criteria for success.
I like to eat out. I’m longing for a flat screen TV. Neither of those things, or many others I could list, will improve my quality of life, further my relationship with God or His people, or make me a better person. My hungry brothers and sisters are still on the street corner, likely joined by a few more than were there the week before. And I’m drooling over TVs.
Being short a few bucks may help some of us take stock of what is truly important, and perhaps accept that all that we have is a gift from God, which in turn can be used to serve Him instead of our own material desires.
Peace to all this Thanksgiving!
DK
“When your financial planner (i.e. the expert you trust to manage your money) starts out a consultation with “You know that We Are Living In The End Times…””
Well, you can at least tell him:
“Yeah, sure, we have been for the past 2000 years. Now, if you believe that Jesus is coming back soon to judge the living and the dead, what do you think he will have to say concerning capitalistic greed and exploitation?”
That shoud be a good conversation starter…
I know for me, it is a reminder that God is my provider. He wants me to have what I need, and dare I say what I want. However he does not want my needs or wants to have me.
Behaviors have consequences.
This whole financial mess could have been avoided by studying Proverbs. I am try-vocational and have been in Government loans for over a decade. This sub prime mess was crazy when it started and actually this is not the first time the mess exploded.
For God to have stopped this would be on the level of making rain fall up. He could, but it would go against a lot of other things He set up.
An interesting companion thread to this would be “How have you personally been affected by the current crisis?” Not your neighbor, not your wife’s best friend’s brother…you.
Paper losses of retirement or college savings don’t count unless your retirement or child’s education has been postponed as a result .
Is God responsible for China’s economic upturn? India’s?
Wal-mart’s?
I guess it all depends on if you think Christians are the Tribe that God is especially watching over and providing for, right?
e. None of the Above.
I don’t presume to speak for God, or to understand His purposes, particularly since I think we mostly brought this mess on ourselves; but I can think of several lessons we would do well to learn from it. Whether or not God had a hand in the world’s economic troubles, perhaps He meant for us to remember:
–Greedy, wasteful, and arrogant is not good.
–You can’t always get what you want.
–What you want is generally not the same as what you need.
–Enough is. . .enough.
–The correct answer to “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is “Yes.”
Perhaps it could check our hitherto boundless ability in the technological age to transfer things out of the category of desires and luxuries into the category of needs.
If that trend could be reversed …
We are all doomed !!!! aaaaaaaaarrrrrggh
But seriously yeah there will be (is) some serious reshuffing of priorities in the western world.. God is bringing us back to basics and our financial systems will have to face reality. Banking practices will change completely. There will be significant social upheaval forcing us to become less materialistic and more community oriented. Wealth will be redistributed more fairly– but only after grassroots movements force governments to pass laws that empower citizens not corporations. Truth and justice will prevail over greed and corruption.
fingers crossed anyway..
“The truth shall set you free”
Who can say?
While this recession is having worldwide effect, I think that to ask this question presupposes, to some degree, a belief in American exceptionalism, in which the US is seen as the apple of God’s eye. It also presupposes, perhaps wrongly, that a good economy (good overall, because someone’s always hurting somewhere) demonstrates God’s blessing, while an economic downturn is His curse.
To build on Patrick Lynch’s comment above, most of us don’t ask about God’s purposes in allowing, for example, so much human slaughter in the Congo. Yet those living in the Congo probably would like to know the answer to that question.
The question doesn’t presuppose American exceptionalism.
The questions presuppose God’s sovereignty and a largely American readership of my blog.
I have to say, that God’s warning against Ursury, his rules for forgiving debt regularly, and other biblical financial advices predicted our debt-based financial systems problems thousands of years ago.
God’s only purpose would be to show us to return to a more righteous route to wealth, but the truth is that in western societies, we have lived so decadently for so long under the rule of Babylon finance, that if we were to go back to short-term debt only, no lending to those who cannot repay, and a non-fiat currency, the decline in quality of life would be so great that there would be riots in the streets.
I fear to suspect that the devil has won this battle. I cannot imagine western society going back.
Back at the end of September I posted this simple entry on my blog:
“Rejoice!!! Heaven just got a little more attainable.”
That was linked to Matthew 19:24.
if we were to go back to short-term debt only, no lending to those who cannot repay
That may be true so far as it goes but that has almost nothing to do with the current economic crisis which has far more to do with reckless decisions made at the highest reaches of the financial industry.
Look up Peter Schiff on youtube and watch the guy predicting the bubbles popping not only in the subprime mortgage sector, but in other parts of the economy as well. He did this almost 2 years ago and was universally derided by fellow panelists. I don’t know him from Adam but his prescience is incredible. Main street had very little to do with the machinations on wall street. So no lesson about the borrowing habits of the average Joe to be learned from this one. This was a big, fat systemic problem that wasn’t being addressed.
And God is always good, in good times or bad. I don’t think he could care two shakes about a righteous route to wealth or about wealth-creation at all. He wants our hearts. If he gets that, we loosen our grip on the rest of it.
You guys at not thinking in the spirit. Don’t you know that every world event, like when a termite farts in Tanzania, that is more proof that the end times are near?
No, ditto what most of you have said. I am not a very superstitious person. God has created a wonderful universe, and within it, laws of physics, psychology, sociology and thus economics. The cause and effects are real (and sometimes with bad results). There’s no secret meaning but the obvious. Yet, we can discuss a proper Christian response to any world crisis.
Is God sovereign over the economy?
Damian: There are pretty good arguments that the laws against usury were aimed at the abuse of fellow Israelites, and not at the paying of interest in an ethical way.
It’s an interesting topic.
What might be some of God’s purposes in allowing the economic downturn? Since the downturn is worldwide, it does seem plausible that a “Messiah” type person could emerge and correct the problem. That person would then be acclaimed worldwide. Is this not the first time in history when the entire world is inter-connected economically?
God? If you put your hand on a stove and get burned, what does God have to do with it? God has just about as much to do with this economic mess as He has to do with Joe-six-pack going bankrupt 4 years ago by buying a huge house and going into credit card debt buying unnecessary stuff. This crisis is human caused, human driven and is only a natural progression of diffuse human greed. This part of America, just like disease goes with gluttony and sloth. And since America’s greatest export is materialism, the rest of the world is going down with us. I am sure Satan’s whispering got us into this mess, but hopefully God’s grace will get us through it – together, “with faith working through love.”
Boethius, for real? It’s “plausible” that one man might emerge and correct trillions worth of bad debt?
Man. Sometimes I wonder about a Christianity that makes anything seem “plausible”.
>This crisis is human caused, human driven and is only a natural progression of diffuse human greed.
I don’t think any Christian I know would disagree with that. If discussions of God’s purposes don’t fit into that view of causation, then there are a number of problems with the Bible.
I tell my students that it is fundamental to understanding the God of the Bible to know that one event can have multiple layers of causation.
Since the downturn is worldwide, it does seem plausible that a “Messiah” type person could emerge and correct the problem. That person would then be acclaimed worldwide. Is this not the first time in history when the entire world is inter-connected economically? — Boethius
i.e. “SIX-SIXTY-SIX!!!!! DON’T TAKE THE MARK!!!!!”
Patrick Lynch:
I did not say one “man”; don’t be so sexist. Well, if our complicated, worldwide, inter-connected economy could be solved by one person, it would be a miraculous event, now wouldn’t it? Many Obama supporters I have talked to believe his policies will be the cure. Time will tell.
Time is NOT moving negative from the BEGINNING for infinity! Man’s time of earth is set between the BEGINNING and the ENDING. Geeze folks…why do some have such a hard time accepting THE END of measured time?
WE ARE SEEING AN ESCALATION OF THE DETERIORATION OF THINGS THAT SUSTAIN BOTH PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE.
The economic crisis, I deeply believe, is moving us to a world monitary system which will, ultimately, be used by 666 (Father, Son, and Unholy Spirit) and will culminate in the Second Coming of Christ..without sin unto Salvation.
Carolyn –
Are you serious … or is this a level of depth of sarcasm I’ve yet to plumb?
If the former, wowsers. Besides, even given this economic downturn, the world is materially wealthier and less plagued by war than at any point in history. Remember, war used to be a season of the year and every male a soldier. I would say we’ve come a long way.
If the later, I’m an ass.
… Well, I might be an ass anyway, that that’s another topic.
Is this not the first time in history when the entire world is inter-connected economically?
Uh, no. The Great Depression is the obvious example (the 1931 collapse of the Vienna Creditanstalt bank had a lot more to do with the Depression being so bad worldwide than the stock market collapse here, incidentally)
and there was also a major worldwide downturn in the 1870s that began with–bad debt in the United States that had to be written off, causing large problems in both the US and Europe. There is also
economic analysis stating that the world is less economically interconnected today than it was right before World War I (a time when American textile jobs were being outsourced to Japan and China, actually).
FWIW, I think the standard conservative interpretation of prophecy is nonsense, so that obviously influences my willingness to discount Boethius’ ideas (which are widely shared among people I know).
you should be able to guess who wrote this
We know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity …….. which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to, feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
What might be God’s purposes?
1. To get our focus off of materialism. We place our faith not so much in God, as we do in our technology, our money, our homes, our property, our clothing, our cars and SUVs, our nice, crime-free, sanitized neighborhoods, our safe churches, our family-friendly media. God is said to be a jealous God, and a loving God. Maybe in His love he will help us lose some of our stuff and affluence, to help us refocus on Him.
2. To get our eyes on a holy God who not only demands righteousness of us but loves us immensely, and desires the very best for us.
3. To purge worldliness out of the western church. We don’t necessarily have to look to the insanity of some parts of evangelicalism for examples, either. The worldliness in many of our hearts should be sufficient.
dac…Abe Lincoln’s proclamation of a day of national humiliation, prayer & fasting in 1863.
What would it require for our leaders to proclaim a day of national humiliation in 2008?
Boethius, I’m not implying seditiously that you were saying something sexist, I am up-front trying to tell you that it makes absolutely zero sense to imagine that a cascading worldwide credit freezeup could possibly be solved in a “Messiah-like” fashion by one dude, especially not an American president, especially not nowadays. As for me lamenting about the Christianity that produces the kind of credulity that makes that kind of articulation possible, I’m wondering how to read your statement as something other than an Antichrist / End Times prediction – because that would just make me sad.
Although, I am 100% certain that nobody in here imagines that anybody was imagining a Woman stepping up in a “Messiah-like” role to save us from our bad spending.
Can You think of any billionaire female financiers?
Also people nobody was imagining were going to come along and save our system: billionaire Africans, young gay credit geniuses, John McCain..
Maybe the purpose (if there is one) is to make us realize how ridiculously blessed we are. We whine and complain about a recession or depression when we have houses with air-conditioning, typing on our computers and driving our cars. We are only going to increase our spending on Christmas by 2.2% this year. Whah whah whah.
Patrick Lynch:
“Chrisitanity that produces the kind of credulity that makes that kind of articulation possible …”
Seriously? Christianity is the religion that makes that kind of articulation possible. As for me, I am always looking and, may I add, hoping that the Lord will wrap it all up in my lifetime. I do want to see it. Now, if I do not get to see it, I’ll be okay with that as well, but I will continue to look. However, allow me to add, the economic crisis has not affected me personally as yet. It has affected a wealthy female friend of mine who is heavily invested in the market.
“I am not implying sediously that you were saying something sexist…”
I did not say anything sexist; your response(s) are sexist.
K from St. Pete:
Thank you for your response. It was a serious question. Peace.
Boethius, not all Christians are End Times hopeful???? But the Christians that are aren’t the only doomsday cultists around – any “Christianity” that sponsors an apocalyptic reading of the Bible leading to people declaring the Last Days at the drop of a hat, especially after centuries of wrong predictions, has a Wiley E. Coyote-shaped spirituality.
And I’m not sexist. Come on, dude. I didn’t invent this system. We all know what nations and what gender controls the money on this planet, no matter how soon you think this planet is going to be erased by the merciful deadly vengeance of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ.
Besides, You KNOW you don’t think the Anti-Christ is going to be a woman. Or this mythological banking personage. His name is JONATHAN STONEGAL OH SNAP I’VE BEEN LEFT BEHIND!!!!111!
Patrick Lynch:
Declaring the end times with a certain date and time will ultimately lead to disappointment as no one knows the day or the hour. However, I never declared that this IS the end time, just a possibility and even a plausibilty.
Truthfully, I don’t KNOW who the anti-Christ is and certainly wouldn’t discount an entire gender from the possibility.
As for Jonathan Stonegal, I’ve never heard of the name. I’m assuming it is from the Left Behind series? I’ve never read it nor seen the movies, so I can’t be sure.
Myrddin: I’m totally serious. We are much wealthier. Look at the whore sitting atop the beast in Revelations. She’s the queen of Mystery Babylon….fleshly indulgence to the max. And world wars are less. But the world is in a more non-peaceful state…..specifically..the Middle East. Russia is readying to be a major player. But Armageddon is personal spiritual warfare and that war rages. Evil is becoming the prevalent morality. The big one has already been fought and God won. We don’t know the day nor hour…but scripture tells us WE CAN KNOW THE GENERATION. Only two prophecies are yet to be fulfilled…reign of the Anti-Christ…and the Gospel of the Kingdom being preached as a witness to the blinded/deafened of Israel. And according to Matthew 24…when Moses and Elias complete their ’sermons’…measured time on earth as we know it…IS A DONE DEAL. The current financial downturn is only one of the indicators. But it is an indicator. O.K….call me crazy but the cry has gone forth, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh,” and I am not the only one who heard it. Yes, I said..’HEARD’ IT….from Elias himself, in an audible voice, in broad daylight. But, hey, most don’t pay much of a diddle concerning prophetic realities. But, no matter, Elias remains the forerunner, as he was at the first coming of Christ, in the person of John the Baptist. The return of Christ won’t surprise the ‘children of the day’ because we are ‘watching.’
Carolyn: With all due respect to your way of looking at the last days, you may find that a lot of IM readers, while agreeing that we are seeing some of the manifestations of evil, may have a significantly different view of end times events than you do. Just an alert to the diversity that exists among Christians on that subject.
peace
ms
Carolyn, I’m not on the same spiritual mailing list that you are; is this Elias a character from Biblical times, or a pastor in your church, or..??
Patrick: He’s the Elias who was prophesied to be the forerunner of Christ. Isaiah prophesied that God had given the remnant of Israel ‘eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear…until this day.’ At the time of Christ..He explained (but He knew they could not ‘hear’) that Elias ‘has’ come in the person of John the Baptist….another place says Elias ’shall’ come. Elias is one of the two witnesses in Revelations who prophecy for three and a half years just before the return of Christ. Matthew 24 says, ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom (the gospel that Christ preached) shall be preached as a witness to all nations…then the end will come.’
IMONK: Thanks for the alert. I’m aware of the complexity of views…in all subjects…especially those related to interpretation of scripture. Experiences and visions from God get about the same response they got in Bible times ……a great big ‘WHO CARES.’ I don’t expect ‘hearing.’ But I do expect mocking and ridicule. It’s no biggie.