Everything Must Change.
In this week’s email from Relevant Magazine (850 Words of Relevant), they featured an interview with the well-known, controversial author and emergent church leader Brian McLaren.
Regardless of personal opinions of Brian’s teachings, he has some profound insights on the church. Relevant Magazine contributor Phil White asked Brian a few questions about his new (and not surprisingly, controversial) book, Everything Must Change.
**As a side note… I would link to the interview itself, but Relevant hasn’t made it available online… sorry for breaking copyright laws by posting an excerpt here.**
When was the seed planted for Everything Must Change?
When I was in my twenties, I asked high school kids at a youth conference to name the top five problems in the world and also the top five discussion topics at their churches. The lists they gave me were completely different and that birthed my desire to explore the disconnect between global crises and the inaction of Christians. I’m 51 now, so this idea has been growing for almost 30 years.
What would Jesus think of the state of the world today?
I think Jesus would have a tense relationship with modern religious leaders now, as He did in his day, because so many of them have used Jesus’ name to work against Him and what He stood for. For example, for about 80 years before the Civil War, a lot of American preachers misused the Bible to defend slavery. It was the same when I was a boy, when some Christians misquoted scriptures to advocate racism and to attack the work of Dr. King. I think there are similar things going on today, but our children and grandchildren will see it better than we do, unless we really want to see the truth.
Can you expand on how business can help bring about change?
As individual consumers we can help build justice for underprivileged peoples by changing our buying habits. One example is by buying through fair trade organizations such as TradeAsOne.com, and by deliberately avoiding purchasing goods we know were created in unethical conditions. When you go shopping without a conscience, you feel happy whenever you get a bargain. But when you are concerned about ethical buying, you aren’t happy at all if your bargain was purchased at the expense of a young woman working for thirty cents an hour, ten hours a day, or a child being exploited in an unsafe factory that pollutes the air he breathes and the water he drinks. You’d feel a lot happier to spend a little more money if you knew that your purchase strengthened an ethical business in an ethical economy.
Government policies must change if we’re to truly bring justice to impoverished nations. For example, U.S. Government subsidization of the cotton industry allows American producers to sell cotton so inexpensively that African producers can’t compete. Our tax dollars are upholding this kind of injustice, and most of us are completely unaware of it.
Now I feel pretty lousy about buying my new pair of jeans on sale.
We ALL mess up,and you’re honest...
How would it have changed if you’d paid a higher price for the jeans? The same jeans, regardless of end purchase price, would still have the same “baggage.” The fact that most things made in China are made by slaves doesn’t bother most Americans, even though most of the slaves are Christians. But those purchases may be the only things keeping the slaves alive so they can be exploited. I don’t honestly know what the right answer is there.
If McLaren wants to do away with government subsidies, that’s the first time I’ve heard anyone advocating government policy in the name of “justice” that makes sense from his camp. That’s encouraging–because often they’re talking about raising the bar on government spending, not cutting it.
I’ve got a book on economics that you will need to read–but the short version is that economics is both simpler and more complicated than most people make it out to be. As long as no one is willing to pay more for a product than it is priced, the price won’t go up. People will decide what has value to them (will they pay extra for quality? For the knowledge that something came locally? For a safer product? For a popular color or item?) and then pay accordingly. Making decisions based on ethics is important, and I agree with McLaren there (which is what ought to set Christians apart as consumers) but finding the nuances of what that means is much more difficult. Which is better–buying clothing made in China and using the difference to support a missionary or paying a private seamstress a living wage for your clothing which now exceeds the budget you would have spent for clothing and missions together? It’s not always clear, and in certain circumstances financial constraints make it less so.
We’re definitely on the same page here.
Obviously, if I had paid a little more, or even a lot more, for the pair of jeans I picked up, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. What I unsuccessfully was trying to imply was that my ignorance about whether or not those jeans were made by slaves in sub par conditions has started to weigh upon my conscience since reading that interview.
And also, that the church is largely out in left field somewhere while the world waits for help. People are starving and living in unlivable conditions, and most churches are still arguing over styles of clothing and what songs to sing… okay, I’ll step down from the soapbox now.
I realize that I just side-stepped answering your statements on economics, but this is really the point I was making in posting that portion of the interview here.