c. 2008 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) The last time Election Day fell on Nov. 4, my wife and I voted on our way to the hospital.
The nation got another poor president on that day in 1980, and we got a son.
In the 28 years since, the rich have gotten extraordinarily richer, the middle class has lost ground, and the poor have fallen off the grid. Greed and poor management have drowned our economy. Jobs have disappeared. The world has grown more dangerous and exposed our vulnerability to incompetence in high places. Faux religion has cheapened political discourse.
Bridges and highways crumble as lives are squandered in foolish wars. Our culture grows coarser and more exploitative, and our children fall behind in the discipline and skills needed for this century. Our nation’s standing in the world has diminished to that of easily gulled bully and shopping mall, and our main accomplishment in 28 years has been the unprecedented transfer of a nation’s wealth into the hands of a few.
This is the age of the $1,600 spike heel, the $4,000 suit, the $28 million Greenwich manse, the seizing of coastal land for exclusive retirement villas, the $245,000 Bentley capable of 200 mph, multiple vacation homes, and executive salaries that defy normal standards of accountability.
For every Bill Gates who does invest in solving basic human problems, there are a thousand wealthy benefactors of government largesse who hide from human problems, load up on toys, and think it clever to avoid taxation.
Our political campaigns become exercises in diversion. Make voters afraid, tap their worst instincts and get them focused on irrelevant matters. Greet fresh ideas with snide dismissal, treat campaigns as television survival shows _ and all the while, the rich get richer, the nation gets weaker, and millions more wake up to unpaid bills and uncertain jobs.
Few talk about this ethical swamp, because they don’t want to endanger campaign contributions or their own place at the trough. In the next two months, we will hear about one candidate’s skin color, another’s verbosity, another’s tender age and another’s advanced age.
Everyone will end up being insulted: Women will be insulted as caring about nothing but gender, whites will be insulted as caring only about race, and all voters will be insulted as simpletons. Foreigners will be blamed for the jobs that incompetent American managers threw away, homeowners will be blamed for believing the predatory blandishments of the bankers they trusted, and families desperate for hope will be encouraged to buy guns.
On the surface, campaigns will turn on image management and issue avoidance. Beneath the surface, politicians will work to game the system through fraud and intimidation.
Will preachers speak up? Probably not. We, too, depend on the largesse of a few. We worry constantly about money, even as human needs grow, spiritual yearning intensifies and people crave the community that churches can provide.
We need to make our congregations less dependent on money, so that we can do what Jesus did _ namely, teach about wealth and power. Someone must say it: Worship of Mammon destroys lives. When the few build bigger barns, they undermine their own lives and betray the common good. When the haves lord it over the have-nots, the human enterprise is at risk.
If the clergy don’t say it, who will?
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)
KRE/JM END EHRICH600 words
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