Pursuing God's dream where everyone belongs, everyone matters, and everyone can thrive.
Have you ever heard the sound of wealth? Listen carefully to the sound of wealth… Remember, wealth is not your income it is all your assets minus all your debt. This includes your house, your car, money in the bank, etc. Listen…
After “hearing” that, how might that affect how we understand our society, if it does at all? What might a Christ shaped response look like? How might the covenant community (aka the church) respond collectively? Flow with me…
Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world is concerned about how small his taxes are, check it out!
Flow with me on this, what are you thinking…
There has been a lot of discussion around the distribution of wealth and of government taxes recently in the U.S. Some have even argued that the raising of taxes on the wealthy is unfair and is moving our country towards socialism. Rather than “sharing the wealth” as some suggest, they prefer a more pure capitalism, in which the wealth of the rich trickles down to the rest of society.
As a Christian who takes serious both the prophets of the Old Testament as well as Jesus Christ of the New Testament, I cannot support an economic policy that desires to trickle down wealth. The very language and rhetoric of this economic theory exposes its intentions… to merely trickle down. The word trickle is not only passive (giving the image of one trying to hold on to and contain as much as possible, yet a little trickling down anyway) but the word definitely does not assume pursuit of justice, equality, nor any compassion for the poor, marginalized, and most vulnerable in our society. When will this trickle down begin to kick in… generation after generation awaits the crumbs from the masters table!
On the contrary, wealth has actually not been trickling down much at all, rather the rich have been getting richer and hoarding wealth, while the gap between rich and poor increases (and the middle class shrinks). In the U.S., “the top 10% of Americans hold 71% of all wealth, while the top 1% alone holds up to 33% of all the nation’s wealth.” What happens when the rich hoard the wealth at the top, and refuse to increase the wages of their workers as their profit grows?
In 1960 CEO’s made an average of 41 times more than their workers and in 2004 that number had grown to CEO’s making an average of 431 times more than their workers. In 1980, the average CEO pay was $1.4 million (in 2004 dollars) and the average worker pay/hour was $15.68 (in 2004 dollars). In 2004, the average CEO salary rose to $11.8 million while worker pay/hour remained steady at $15.67. Not even a trickle…
In response to letting wealth trickle down, the Bible says “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” I know this is a touchy subject… but chime in and share your thoughts on this… freestyle with me.
(My statistics are widely availabe, I got mine from Census stats as well from United for a Fair Economy)
This week a sermon of mine will be featured on the GOGF.tv channel at the Christian.tv website. The Sermon is entitled “Laid Bare: Reading God’s Word”Along with my sermon, you can also enjoy 2 other featured sermons from other pastors (one of them being Tony Evans). Definitely check it out…
I want to make sure that you are not sleeping on a great book that is refreshing and also exemplifies freestyle theology at its best, through the use of Jazz as a metaphor for life. Robert Gelinas’ Finding The Groove: Composing A Jazz-Shaped Faith is one of the most relevant books I have read recently (and I have read plenty)! It reads like jazz, flowing and improvising on our faith and its implications and praxis for our time. Buy it through amazon here.
If you have not noticed, I have joined the twitter community and have added twitter to the top right hand of my blog as well. Follow me now on twitter under the name Freestylogian and stay up on freestyle in the moment.
Listen to the last minute of King’s famous speech, the night before he was killed…
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“Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the richly ornamented robe he was wearing— and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. (Genesis 37:20-28)
Does this sound familiar? How does Joseph play a Christ like figure in the story? How does this text point us to the life of Christ?
Drew G. I. Hart