Richard's Blog

I've been absent from the LICC site for way too long - thankfully an email today has got me up to date with a lot of their recent stuff : well worth a few minutes of chewing...

Thrift as Solution to the Credit Crisis

The current credit crunch stems from a deeper moral and spiritual crunch. At stake is a virtue on which capitalism depends – thrift. Peter Heslam argues for the recovery of this virtue as a solution to the current credit crisis. More.

 

Redundancy

With the UK and global economy heading towards recession, Paul Valler (an LICC Associate Workplace Speaker) explores the impact of redundancy, offers some theological reflection and provides practical advice for people wanting to support those who have lost their jobs. More.

 

I've posted before about Breathe - an organisation based out of St Paul's Hammersmith that aims to inspire you to live a simpler, richer, less consumerist and more generous life.

Their latest newsletter is out new - downloadable in pdf format here - and the website continues to be worth a read... and a listen, since you can catch up on talks given by Bishop Graham Cray at their first ever conference.

It is, in many ways, a much richer - and certainly more challenging - conversation for us to have about how to live a simpler (more sustainable) life, rather than just an "eco-friendly" one.  It draws into the mix, not just our self-interest (how can I help my planet survive), but our attitude to money, possessions, luxuries and so on. It also makes us ask very complex questions (as does the front page article) about how our lifestyle affects others for good or for ill.

Thanks to Dave for the steer to a BBC online magazine article summarising the new book by world-renowned clinical psychologist Oliver James: The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza.

The findings of the book wouldn't surprise any Christian who's read the words of Jesus about money (nor anyone with a reasonably self-aware sense of what money and "stuff" does to our lives our sense of peace), but they are thought-provoking and challenging, nonetheless.

Part of his message is fairly controversial, in his connection between what he terms "selfish capitalism" (great phrase) with not just unhappiness, but mental illness. Here's their summary and a quotation from the author himself:

The main problem is that where the average English-speaking person's real wage has broadly remained the same since the 1970s, he or she is now constantly bombarded with messages to buy, buy, buy, and aspire to a Posh-and-Becks quality of life, according to James.

"It is not economic inequality between the rich and the working classes that causes mental illness, though that certainly still exists," says Mr James. "It is the combination of that inequality with an all-pervasive consumerist culture which constantly tells people 'it could be you' you could be a well-off winner too."

A rather vital follow-up for us is to ask what part the church can/must play to make a difference in this type of society.

The creators of this new website say "We hope it inspires you to live a simpler, less consumerist and more generous life.".

I'm not sure it's quite at the 'inspiring' stage yet (not a huge amount of material and very slow to load), but they offer a free quarterly newsletter and articles on things like "Consumer Detox".

Worth signing up for their input and having a look around - it's certainly the issue most of us living in this part of the (relatively affluent) world find most difficult: how to live a "simpler, less consumerist and more generous life.". That really would be a breath of fresh air!

From the latest quarterly paper coming out of the Cambridge-based Jubilee Centre is this one (available free online to view or download in pdf format) - Promises, Promises:

We all make promises, whether informally, to our friends and family, or formally, in contracts, deeds and vows. Promises are made by companies, governments and international leaders. It seems obvious that a promise carries moral weight. Nevertheless, all of us make rash agreements, or over-commit ourselves, or entirely forget what we have said, and therefore fail to carry out our promises. At the corporate level, it is sometimes easy for a promise to be overridden by financial or political concerns. This paper explores promise-making from a biblical perspective, and suggests some pointers for how we might promise well. [from the summary]

Looks (on first skim) a good paper - it's a solid read, but worth chewing over if you want something to stimulate some reflection on a wet Tuesday morning! 

A thoroughly engrossing presentation courtesy of the New York Times (nice way of doing a news piece: slideshow + voiceover) looking at the way one so-called "Megachurch" (in this case, ChangePoint, a 4000-strong church in Anchorage) is making an impact on its local eco

I'm waiting for a new gadget to arrive, so these thoughts from Donald Miller (see yesterday's post from his book