{"id":1779,"date":"2010-12-05T00:48:47","date_gmt":"2010-12-05T05:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/hungerrumblings\/?p=1779"},"modified":"2010-12-05T00:48:47","modified_gmt":"2010-12-05T05:48:47","slug":"the-market-or-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/the-market-or-god\/","title":{"rendered":"God, the market, and me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do we really worship the Market and not God, as I asked in last week\u2019s post<\/a>?<\/p>\n

After rereading Harvey Cox\u2019s seminal essay, \u201cThe Market as God<\/a>,\u201d I thought I\u2019d watch my own actions this week and see. Is my life all about the Market, with a little lip service given to God, or is God at the center, and the Market at the fringes?<\/p>\n

Because it was the end of the month, I spent last weekend checking my balances on various accounts. I updated my Quicken records with recent interest and expenses. I paid my VISA bill and thought about end-of-year donations \u2013 how much, to whom? \u00a0I wrote an offering check for the church where I would worship Sunday evening. Reading the Sunday New York Times<\/em> business section reminded me that Cox calls the market omniscient, <\/em>a source of \u201ccomprehensive wisdom that in the past only the gods have known.\u201d And there I was seeking, through reports from Times<\/em> business writers, to know the Market\u2019s mood and direction. Poor God! There is no religion page anymore\u2014not in the Times<\/em>, not in my hometown newspaper.<\/p>\n

Cox says that the Market is also omnipresent<\/em>, making decisions that used to be private. I like to think that trying to live simply shelters me from this aspect of the Market, but\u00a0 the certified letter I received from a lawyer on Friday had a different message. It informed me that in mid-2011, after the estate is settled, I will receive a few thousand dollars from an elderly friend who recently died.<\/p>\n

This made me uncomfortable. I was a friend, not a paid attendant! \u00a0With no spouse or children, he wanted to distribute his estate among a dozen friends and cousins whose company he enjoyed. But does this legacy somehow commodify our long friendship, assigning it a price tag, as Cox might say?<\/p>\n

The commodification of labor turned up Wednesday night, when an midweek Advent event tackled the subject of time\u2014what it means to us, how we use it, how we feel about our schedules. The last time I punched a time card, I was 20 and weighing asparagus in a freezer plant. In the 90s, a company I wrote for made a big deal of removing its punch clocks to demonstrate its confidence in its employees. It was news to me that the new incarnation of the punch clock is the \u201celectronic time card.\u201d At this Advent supper, folks complained about having every moment of their work day\u00a0 monitored virtually: start time, end time, break time, break length, even the length of customer service phone calls, all measured by software lurking on their computers.<\/p>\n

One woman worked for a prominent shipping company. Guess who is demanding the World On Time, as the slogan says? Not some murky \u201cthey.\u201d We\u2019re the ones insisting on those electronic time cards, every time we check the status of a package or the value of its company’s stock.<\/p>\n

While there has always been a place to trade, says Cox, today we elevate the Market above everything else. We abide by the Market\u2019s rules, not God\u2019s, and our whole system\u2014like those electronic time cards\u2014is designed to enforce them. A short week\u2019s worth of observation confirmed that I am completely tangled up in that system.<\/p>\n

What to do? Perhaps revisit the powerful tools God has given us to keep the Market\u2014previously called Mammon\u2014from consuming us. Tools like Sabbath, a radical practice most of us have abandoned. Suppose tired Christians decided to observe an economic Sabbath and not purchase anything on Sunday, so as not to stoke consumer expectations that trap folks into Sunday work shifts. Could we let the World On Time be the World As Is, the World As Appreciated, instead?<\/p>\n

Watching myself interact with the Market is a tentative first step in a different economic direction. In coming weeks, the Advent gathering I’m part of will explore Christian practices of Sabbath and jubilee. Harvey Cox wants the Church to recognize the Market for the idol it is so it can provide some serious alternatives. Fair trade, socially responsible investing\u2014these are nice places to start, but how can Christians go deeper? Sabbath may hold a powerful key. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity: A Journal<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do we really worship the Market and not God, as I asked in last week\u2019s post? After rereading Harvey Cox\u2019s seminal essay, \u201cThe Market as God,\u201d I thought I\u2019d watch my own actions this week and see. Is my life all about the Market, with a little lip service given to God, or is God […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[233,216,108,221],"class_list":["post-1779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post","tag-economics","tag-finances","tag-lifestyle-stewardship","tag-simple-living"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGod, the market, and me - ELCA World Hunger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/the-market-or-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God, the market, and me - ELCA World Hunger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do we really worship the Market and not God, as I asked in last week\u2019s post? 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