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guest post: the interconnectivity of justice
This is a guest post from Steve Hamilton, a young Vineyard pastor in Maryland who is active in mobilizing the church to help the victims of human trafficking. Steve hosts his own blog, verse by verse.
The pathos [sorrow, suffering, pity are synonyms] of God is on the prophet. It moves him. It breaks out in him like a storm in the soul, overwhelming his inner life, his thoughts, feelings, wishes and hopes. It takes possession of his heart, giving him courage to act.”
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
You know how when you are in a conversation with someone and stumble upon some topic that they are really into, and they start getting all passionate and animated, and it makes you take a step back and say “Okay…tell me how you really feel about that…”; well, I believe for God, that issue is justice or what we might more precisely call biblical justice. Biblical justice is the more precise term that I prefer, mostly because it reflects the range of justice issues that I see God clearly and deeply cares about, as witnessed in scripture and in my own experience. The issues of biblical justice are social, economic and environmental. They are also intertwined and interconnected.
The Interconnectivity of Injustice
The U.S. Government’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons recently released their 2009 Trafficking in Person Report. At the release, Sercretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton remarking on the ramifications of the current economic downturn said, ”Economic pressure, especially in this global economic crisis, makes more people susceptible to the false promises of traffickers.” While that is entirely true, it is only the initial one-off assessment of interconnectivity. My own research into human trafficking has followed the river further upstream from the horror of human trafficking and beyond the economic pressures of poverty to the heart of the environmental crisis.
I first encountered the interconnectivity when I was doing some research on migration crises from countries like Cuba or Haiti to the U.S. I was researching mass migration and looking at the typical “triggers” that people point to (i.e. natural disasters – such as hurricanes – and civil unrest) that cause people to make choices. I quickly realized things like natural disasters and civil unrest were only triggers because there were other issues placing people in desperate situations in which a natural disaster or civil unrest was the final trigger to their leaving their home for something, anything else.
The desperate situations and issues before the final trigger included health and immense poverty in these countries. Most victims of human trafficking were all ready living with the consequences of the environmental crisis when lured into that life. As I continued to dig further, I found that it was indeed an environmental factor that had set off so many people’s trek down this pathway to the vile clutches of human trafficking. With little or no economic hope for even subsistence farming due to de-forestation and soil erosion (those are inter-related, especially in a place like Haiti), farming communities cannot eek out a living. Compounding the environmental degradation is the loss of generational-knowledge of good farming techniques due to the decimation of HIV/AIDS or the push of “advanced agricultural techniques” wanted or unwanted on the farming communities from “advanced countries”.
The primary cause of Haiti’s environmental degradation has been caused by Haitian’s need for energy. With an electricity sector that only covered 10% of Haiti’s population in 2006, chronic energy shortages have contributed to Haitian’s search for alternative sources of energy. Unfortunately for Haiti’s natural environment, wood became and continues to be the principal energy source for most of the populace, accounting for 70 percent of energy consumption in 2006. This has directly impacted the environment with the steady deforestation with an estimated 6,000 hectares of soil lost each year to erosion.
These factors contribute to increased poverty as people leave the countryside and the place of their relational core, family and support for the overpopulated urban environs. Poverty – both urban and rural – and the risk of disease place people in desperate situations, even to the point of believing (whether they really believe it in their heart) that their children are better off having a chance elsewhere. They are more susceptible to being blinded by the lies and false promises of a better life, a way out of their present life, for themselves or their children. This vulnerable situation is preyed upon by human traffickers, and desp erate people sell themselves or their children who may starve tomorrow into labour trafficking slavery (they call them restavek’s in Haiti) and as household servants of the urban and suburban wealthy, where eventually they might become a sex slave or be sold into sexual slavery and/or more labour trafficking slavery and brought into the U.S. or other wealthy nations. We must realize the market-aspect of this activity of injustice. It is the wealthy nations like the U.S. who are the major destination-countries of human trafficking, including Europe or Japan. Human traffickers are bringing their commodities to the marketplace. Justice is being trampled in our streets.
But the dots were connecting for me, seeing illegal immigration and human trafficking connecting to the situation of extreme poverty, in turn rooted in an environmental crisis. As I was talking to my boss at the time about my research, I told him, “If we could get to work on the root “push” issues of poverty and environmental crisis (while still working on the “pull” issues of sexual dysfunction and deviation in the U.S.)…if we could do something about them, these ‘homeland security issues’ might evaporate…”; then he looked up at me and said, “Steven please, we’re not the Church; we’re just the government…”
This struck me as a very astute assessment. It was one of those “a-ha” moments where all the brain-work I had been doing took the elevator to my heart and began working there. I realized something. I walked away from my time in government fighting against human trafficking with the firm conviction that my boss was essentially correct:the Church has to fight against this and be the place where the broken walk toward healing in community in Christ. But we have to also realize that it’s really difficult – nay, impossible without God – to do justice, while still loving mercy, not to mention walk humbly with our God.
Our Kingdom Projects and God’s Kingdom Projects
I heard Todd Hunter recently say something like, our Kingdom of God projects are rarely God’s Kingdom of God projects. You see, the issues of biblical justice are not issues to arm ourselves with for a culture war, nor mere hot topics for a lot of conversational hot-air. If we would just take to the streets and do something about them, we might in fact find no culture war left to fight in the wake of justice and healing that follows in our wake. The issues of biblical justice are about people who are broken and aching for justice and healing. It’s about God looking for a people to stand in the gap between the strong and the weak, between the powerful and the powerless. Truth and justice are being trampled in the streets of America, but a war on culture has not made a difference. What might begin to make a difference would be to wrestle not with flesh-and-blood, but with the powers behind environmental crises, poverty, and social injustice.
Unfortunately, the Church today is a place where the broken run from. In truth, the Church should be the safe place for the broken to run to. This fact grieves me so, because I know it to be a fact. I have sat and given permission to survivors of trafficking to speak their mind and lament what is in their hearts to God. And do you know what I witness to? They complain and lament to God that His people have failed them. And I have been part of that problem and I lament that too. How many poor are in your local church? Do those trapped in prostitution find a safe place without condemnation in your fellowship?
But hope persists in the margins, which in fact Christianity was indeed birthed. Christ was born in the margins, but His people have lost our roots. My imagination is sparked by “what if’s”:
What if the Church opened itself up to the prophetic pathos of God, so that His heart takes possession of our hearts?
What if the Church – possessed with the heart and Spirit of God – could be moved into action; simple stuff: do what is in front of you, do what the Father is doing kind-of-stuff?
What if the Church became known for doing-the-stuff Jesus did?
What if the Church – or any local expression of it – could become the place the broken ran to in crisis, and not the one it runs from?
What if the Church could swim further up-stream and tackle the messy root issues of an environmental crisis that spreads with each passing day?
What if it begins with me?
This is the kind of prophetic activity that I identify with; for it is indeed the Church who must lead the way in all whole range of contemporary and eternal issues but also in leading people to understand the interconnectivity, because many others get lost in their own selfish agendas and do not have the Spirit to sustain them to love mercy while doing justice. I think it was Chesterton who once commented, (and i paraphrase): The Church is the only organization whose mission is utterly other-centric, not self-centered, but other-centered as we follow Christ with His Mission into the world, not out of this world…
[He came not to be served but to serve and give His life for many...we who follow Him, take up that same way]
My Prayer
my soul is in torment
my spirit like the torrent of many waters
raging rapids fomenting within
the recesses seething and undulating
like a storm in my soul
let Your exploit overflow
let my life and my hands be Yours
let my actions flow from Your heart
let it be so, O Lord, let it be so…
Tags: Abraham Heschel, environment, Haiti, Hillary Clinton, human trafficking, Jesus, justice, migration, pathos, poverty, prophet, slavery
July 13th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Yes!
July 13th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Steve,
Yes!
July 13th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
“let Your exploit overflow”? What does that mean?
July 14th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I wonder if you have found much research on most of those who are involved in human trafficking are US citizens- an American business. There is also some research which suggest that the reason why so many foreign women have bought into promises of a better life is because the way American culture is shaped- consumption and “living well”- or fame and glamor. There was recently a documentary on Lifetime a couple of years ago on this matter.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:49 am
Remember the HBO show – DEADWOOD?
That show was ALL ABOUT human trafficking. And the chief trafficker was portrayed somewhat sympathetically at times.
Given the demographics and sensibilities of the Ann Arbor Vineyard, my guess is that there were/are a LOT of DEADWOOD fans in the congregation.
Why is that???
Bad Doctrine
PS Can’t wait for the CONDESCENDING lectures about nuance, conflicted characters and the value of meaty drama…
July 16th, 2009 at 4:08 am
Thanks so much for that, you articulate a lot of things that I feel inside but am rotten at explaining or expressing. I think you sum up the gospel.
July 20th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Steve, such a great riff. Traffickers shoot real bullets. Here in Nevada where prostitution is legal, or anywhere else, you’re going to make about as many friends as Paul made, casting the demon out of the young woman-diviner – her liberation ruined the cash-flow economy of trafficking in her psi gifts. But, I’d flee the inference that “church” solutions in contrast to “government” ones entail more comprehensive visions. As if governments are just waiting for Malthusian considerations to take over. And as if the church currently has already seized they keys to the healing of nations in the Final Tree to end human trafficking. Churches variously sell their own forms of indulgences: trafficking souls out of purgatory. Trinkets, holy land tours, buy-my-handkerchief charismania. I’d say the practical line between church and government spheres of solutions is just too fuzzy to maintain. Especially for buck passing. And because all our best knowledge is scaffolded (we know in part). We know in part and we put our parts together across the fictions of our government and church spheres. I wouldn’t wear the church mantle too much. My two-cents. Bring down the high places. Call us all to quit hiding in the winepresses of our pews.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:09 am
Great post Steve, it is amazing the way that poverty, environmental issues, injustice are in a strange way interconnected; holistic in a perverted way. Loved the prayer.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Jim –
thanks for the comment, I like the analogy of the woman-diviner in Acts, so apropos.
i don’t mean to make the case that government rightly has a role to play, but rather, what i see clearly is the church has not awakened to this, and if they have they are mostly paralyzed by fear and not knowing what to do and trusting that government is doing all that can be done. That may be true with respect to traffickers, but the victims and survivors need more help…here in maryland we need safe places for those we are heloing and we are really out of shelter-space. the spheres of church and government definitely (and should in the best sense of each) over-lap…but the motivations and motivator/prophetic aspect is what the Church, following Jesus, was made for…he kicked the authroities many times in the rear about their lack of action on critical issues, like justice. for me, i’m mainly a both/and kinda person when it comes to taking this kind of wickedness on…stumbling toward an answer and action, even just knowing it in part…
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Cassady –
great question/comment. it is tied rather messily to cultural aspirations and “the American dream” and money. it is demand. take a look at what one of our partners, Shared Hope International, has done in their documentary on the demand side of this problem:
http://www.sharedhope.org/what/enddemand3.asp
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Hmmmm. I’ve been thinking long and hard on this post and some of the comments that have come from it. What I seem to hear (and correct me if I’m wrong)is that once again the church is slackin’ and needs to WAKE UP. If that is truly what is being felt here, then I need to strongly disagree.
It was the church that rose up in opposition to slavery with the abolition movement. It was the church that stood up against racial injustice. And again, it is the church that is raising the loudest voice in the area of human trafficking. I speak from a perspective of experiential knowledge. I am extremely involved in helping the victims of human trafficking. I sit on a core team of a ministry that ministers to children that are rescued from the sex trade.
I can’t tell you how many conferences I have been to that deal with this issue. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read, or how many articles that I’ve read. And guess what? The loudest voice that I’ve heard is that of the church. She is rising up to the challenge. She IS being the prophetic voice to the the world in this arena right now. So please, please, please find something else to bash the evangelical church for.
I also think the true cause of the vast majority of human trafficking is misogyny and the unbridled lust of men, not global warming. If men would rise up and honor and love women rightly, there would be no demand.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Happylad, I agree that many in the church are taking a lead role on this and I think it’s fantastic. Maybe Steve’s point is that there’s more to be done and we haven’t scratched the surface of possible influence. I didn’t hear Steve saying that environmental issues were the only or even main cause of human trafficking, just that environmental factors were part of the equation. Villages don’t have access to clean drinking water because the watershed has been polluted, so women have to walk long distances to get water for the family every day and become easy targets. Isn’t that a valid observation?
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
happylad, astute observations, and my prayer for those who are crying out, those who are raising their prophetic voice keep going so more and more hear us….and respond.
so let me clarify some things (ken’s comment is helpful and true and valid observations).
it isn’t that the church hasn’t awakened to this crisis, much of the church has, but little is being done in some significant areas, while other areas are doing really well.
awareness, which is really important, is doing really well (for the most part) in and out of church. although, i would say that most of the church-goers i have talked to were not aware of the pervasiveness of the problem, nor aware that it is happening in their own backyard. human trafficking does not just happen in SE Asia…it is happening in America, in your town today, right now. you are correct that many of the helpful organizations and people that have raised their voice are from the Church: Shared Hope International, World Vision, Love146…my main point, and i was being provocative, was thati know and believe that this problem won’t be best fought by para-church organizations…it is local faith communities that need the call to arms…and to be armed!
the significant area that has been lacking (again, from my perspective and experience) is that the great followers of Jesus aren’t doing as much as can be done, whether from lack of knowing what to do (and i’m a big advocate of think-pray-then act…education is a big issue). if indeed the gathered communities who bear Christ’s name are to be a healing community, why aren’t those who need healing welcomed? (i realize that too may be seen as a generalization, but true by-and-large, but possibly not in your community). advocating and passing laws are one thing (since slavery is techically illegal almost everywhere on the globe) but this criminal activity is going on right before our eyes, so we do need to be trained to recognize it and then know how to respond. these are critical issues.
also, there are many factors in human trafficking, although the three i point to (social, economic and evironmental) are bound-up in it and often work in-tandem, as i outlined. sin is a big, messy issue, and this is big-time sin.
i hope that is helpful and clarifying as to my intentions and some more detail…
peace
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:11 pm
I feel your anguish over the inadequate response to the problem of human-trafficing, Steve. My own heart feels that anguish when I think of the enormous and deep-running ripple effects of global warming, industrial “advanced” farming, and our consumer-driven economy. And happylad, you are so right about men’s influence on the “demand side” (pull) of the equation. Steve’s post had more to do with the “supply side” (push) of the equation, giving insight into something I’ve wondered: why would parents ever be willing to sell their children (especially common with daughters) to human traffic’ers? Rather than judging their decision, it helps to understand the desperate situation they are often in – a choice between known starvation and poor/no prospects versus an unknown evil with the ever-so-slight possibility of a brighter future (further softened by smooth-talking promises by the dealer). We cannot really say what we’d actually decide unless we were in their shoes. I’m not excusing the decision, but when there seem to be no options because of environmental (e.g., farming), economic (earning a living), or political (e.g., persecution by warring factions) issues, it’s hard to say what we would do. Many of the current wars and humanitarian crises are rooted in scarce resources because of environmental devastations – e.g., drought in Darfur, widespread deforestation forcing migration to cities without jobs or housing. The inter-linkage is undeniable.
Related to inadequate response by churches, I agree with that too. I think in the typical local church, it is all to often not safe for victims of domestic abuse to fully disclose about their current or past experiences, let alone a victim of human traffic’ing.
July 24th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I usually write my posts, save them, read again, check my spirit, etc., before responding. I haven’t always done this, sometimes I shoot from the hip. But yesterday I wrote a response, felt a check in my spirit and did not post. I’m glad I waited.
Steve, thanks for a great post and the gentle response to Happylad. I love you Happylad, and yes you can have my Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat beer. You are both working in different trenches, but fighting the same enemy. It is on the ground where this war will be won, not in churches, conferences, and offices. Keep fighting for those who have no voice.
At the macro level, governments must take the sword to the enemy and enforce existing laws, with extreme force against groups that condone and support slavery. At the micro level, the gospel and changed hearts are the only hope. It is encouraging that the gospel is spreading rapidly in the undeveloped countries of the earth. The church is the hope of humanity as this is taking place. The church is not the problem.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Steve ~ Happylad ~ Laura ~ (thread)
Steve, thanks for the correction, namely, that your heart is to guide/educate, while feeling and co-learning alongside those in church who have the fire, who want to get the job done, but, who are in the dark for how-to. I apologize for my skepticism/paranoia, reading too much into the comments by the Haitian gov. official, which I took to be a form of dumping the problem on the lap of the church, while local police eat donuts, looking the other way inside donut cafes dotted along the same highways where traffickers drive plain color vans full of cargo. Not that this doesn’t happen. See below, on the new corruption case in New Jersey.
On Happylad’s point, I’m not sure how much or little I can join in the poster boy-ism of the church taking turns on midnight shifts on the underground railway. And other ventures. Mainly because the record of history shows the “church” equally justifying trafficking in slavery, using every theological arsenal available, to keep the cotton-picking economy robust in the those old cotton fields back home – ever heard of “Southern” Baptists? For starters. We really don’t have enough hard data on whether the “church” as a whole church, or just whether some peculiar heroic anomalies and church-freaks really actively laid down their lives (real life risk) to resist slave trafficking, that is, whether our favorite poster-boys makes us feel good about “church.” The real life data is too mixed. And it was this mixed-bag feeling that I had in mind about “church” as much as about “government” in my riff to Steve, learning in the trenches just who his real “friends” (a nod to the Quaker underground) will be, that is, if the church gets real about breaking up a lucrative trafficking trade, guarded by real bullets. Viva Romero.
Laura, I love your point about domestic abuse and battered women. Dead center on: how these women sometimes find the church no-refuge, and for too many reasons to list. I’ve drafted restraining orders for poverty-level battered women for nearly 30 years, and, it can take months, in some cases years, for these women simply to tell the raw facts of their abuse (can’t get a restraining order without facts) in private, one-on-one, settings: no less before small groups in churches, who they fear might re-enforce or not care, or not know how, to break the demonic inner cycle of self-judgment, and self-loathing that God has forsaken them to suffer their abuse – because they “deserve” it. How much moreso the inner self loathing of orphan girls sold in sex slave trade – god-forsaken. Ignored in real life by the same pulpits preaching unconditional love. The irony makes me wretch. I’m guilty of it.
I might disagree in part with your comments about scarcity of resources (maybe I’m misreading you too?) correlated to poverty – I’m thinking of Amartya Sen’s (Nobel Laureate), egg-heady econometric analysis that differentiates kinds of poverty/scarcity ratios, but that basically lays heaps of blame on corrupt governments’ faux claims of scarcity. Scarcity is just the publicized claim to cover up deep government motives to destabilize, impoverish, enslave, or dispossess poor populations. The prose part of Sen’s point (you don’t need to crunch numbers for this) is that scarcity of resources is less a problem than scarcity of good faith and humane conviction. Which makes me think, as I hinted to Steve in my first post, that the governments might really have the resources to fight sex trafficking after all (but, what do I know?). If so, then this dirty filthy job gets tossed back on the laps of churches whose members are already paying taxes to fund the sword of governments looking the other way. Which sucks. Again, when I see real life cases break, like the recent case in New Jersey, with rabbis indicted for money laundering as a lifestyle, and deep in bed (Steve’s original point about “interconectivity”) with government officials, then I’m seeing a mountain to be moved – when it comes to stopping sex trafficking. Who is in bed with whom? – for how much of the cut?
So I applaud guys like Steve, who dig in to move whole mountains – one stinking shovel at a time. If that’s what it takes.
July 24th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
It’s a pleasure to see people actually listening to each other blog comments. Often comments in blogs seem more driven by a “gotcha” spirit, which just seems out of step with what is that word, Love?
July 24th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
happylad, this question of scarcity of resources, even apart from this question of human trafficking is an important one. For many years the wisdom of capitalism, which has worked rather well, is that wealth can be generated–it’s not a zero sum game. But some of that wealth generation depends on using up resources that are limited. The earth is not an unlimited space. The number of people on the planet is enormous–we are a very dominant and widespread species with a very high impact on the environment. The pope has been making this point. He’s saying the earth is telling us that there a limit to nature that must be respected, and if not, we will pay a price for it. This I think is deeply biblical, but
it’s not something that we Americans like to hear.
I think this is one of the reasons that American Christians seem to care less about the environment than Christians in other places. One of many reasons. Would you agree?
July 25th, 2009 at 11:03 am
“The watershed has been polluted, so women have to walk long distances to get water for the family every day and become easy targets. Isn’t that a valid observation?” – Reverend Wilson
If that LUDICROUS proposition is ‘valid’, then it’s just as valid to BLAME GOD for human trafficking. After all, if he would just SMOTE the traffickers or better yet SMOTE the people polluting the water, then all human trafficking would go away. haha
It’s amazing to what lengths liberals will go to poison the well (whoops! bad metaphor) against their ideological counterparts. I thought I’ve heard everything until I now find out that evil polluters are responsible for child prostitution.
Mind-boggling.
But wait. There’s more…
“The record of history shows the “church” equally justifying trafficking in slavery, using every theological arsenal available, to keep the cotton-picking economy robust in the those old cotton fields back home – ever heard of “Southern” Baptists?” -Jim
Yeah…as a matter of fact, I HAVE heard of Southern Baptists. Come to think of it, there’s a Southern Baptist church here in Ann Arbor called Crossroads and I’m friends with some of their members. Why are you SMEARING them with the spectre of slavery?? Shameful.
BTW, the church was where virtually ALL the abolitionists movements were birthed not to mention the Civil Rights and Suffragette movements. And no, the data is not “too mixed” to make such an assertion. But you seem to want to FOCUS on the church’s wrongdoing. That’s curious to me, but I also want to thank you for your post as it answers a longstanding question I’ve had.
We’ve finally discovered where the deeply held liberal doctrine of BLAME AMERICA FIRST is rooted!
———-> Blame THE CHURCH First.
B.reaking it D.own
July 25th, 2009 at 11:10 am
“The earth is telling us that there a limit … This I think is deeply biblical, but it’s not something that we Americans like to hear….American Christians seem to care less about the environment than Christians in other places.” – Evangelist Ken
That’s soooooo true. When it comes to overpopulation and pollution, if only us AMERICAN Christians could be more like, say…
….the CHINESE!!!
haha
B.oundless D.etermination
PS Correction – Blame THE AMERICAN Church First!
July 25th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
B…D, ouch. Thanks for your call to accountability.
I apologize to you and Southern Baptists for “smearing” them. I know that SoBo’s publicly apologized for their pro-slavery position in a formal apology from their highest body (Convention) a few years back. The Spirit of conviction fell so heavily upon the president that he staggered and buckled in sincerity. So say some of my SoBo friends who attended. I agree that it’s totally unfair to pin the tail on a donkey that’s already fessed up to its failure by pinning the tail of confession on itself. At the local level, I meet regularly for prayer and accountability with groups of local pastors from all kinds of families, who I consider great heroes and examples to me personally, often because of their honesty and humility in confession. And equally because they pay the price for social advocacy. I should have known better. And I should have invoked my better exhibit “A” for thinking about the church as a mixed-bag, namely, the first three chapters of Revelation where the Spirit of Jesus is totally honest in both praising local churches for their virtues, while simultaneously disciplining the same churches for their vices – my favorite picture of Jesus telling the truth both ways – affirming and correcting mixed-bag churches. In a letter circulated publicly. No one got a free hall pass. The Spirit in a public letter, circulating and saying, “let he who has ears, hear.” I’m not Jesus. Nor close enough in likeness to the Jesus Who hits without pulling punches; but, Who stops short of hitting excessively hard. I hope the mixed-bag example of churches in the book of Revelation isn’t too controversial. So again, my apologies to Christians generally and SoBo’s in particular who I have offended by using them as exhibit “A” in the mixed-bag-church department.
And best wishes and prayers for Steve (on trafficking) and Ken (on enviro-science, earth-stewardship advocacy) and for other advocates in local churches doing the nitty-gritty dirty work of banding together in street-wise corps to put heels on heads of local snakes.
Peace.
July 25th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Ken, quick note.
Just wondering if your hard questions on resource scarcity were inadvertently directed at happylad, that is, instead of directed as questions to my post (sloppily indicting happylad by reference?), in my comments on Sen and scarcity? (Where did happylad deal with this? — scratching my head?).
If “no,” then I won’t answer for happylad. If “yes,” then I agree with you and strongly agree with your cite to the pope who is arguing for public education on the limitedness of our resources. We tend to think of omnipotence (or, omni-resourcefulness – a nod to your Boyd) as equivalent to an infinite supply of goodies. When in fact, the real life hand that we’re dealt by Smith’s Invisible Hand in our market-place-earth is limited supply (limited at least in the biological and medical sciences sense). Last I checked my bank balance, anyway. So yeah, the Invisible Hand lays responsibility on us for our limits. IMHO the pope has been right on this since “Pacem in Terris” (1963) – appealing to everyone, everywhere, “of good will.” Talk about “interconectivity.” It’s all over my head, really, because interconectivity is exponentially complex. My brain melts even in my own house. No less, in the pope’s extended family of “good will” among all people, everywhere. How catholic can we get? Alas.
July 29th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Ken, you asked if I believed we were depleting the resources of the earth. My answer is a simple “Yes”. But to equate that with sounding the alarm that global warming is one of the primary causes of human trafficking is a tremendous stretch that will only cause the hearts and minds of evangelicals to shut down.
Although most climate scientists agree the earth is warmer than it was 200 years ago and that man has had a hand in that warming, there is little consensus on the effects to the earth; long-term and short-term. These same scientists believe that the media has done a horrible job of reporting the truth concerning global warming.
As evangelicals put on their warm jackets this summer they are scratching theirs heads and wondering if all this global warming fear mongering is true at all. To mix the bag of global warming with the very real threat of trafficking to humanity is, to me, foolishness. I think it will not help the cause at all.
Let’s just deal with the true root causes; lust and greed.
And to Steve: I am on the education end and the actual hands on rescuing and restoring of those in human trafficking, and again, it is the church whose voice and hands are deepest in the mix. I’m just sick of hearing the church trashed on this blog when she’s actually the one leading the charge on this issue.
Bash where bashing is due!
July 29th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Gosh, Happylad, it seems to me that the issue of whether or not its easy for evangelicals to consider this is not the point. Is it the case or not the environmental degradation, including effects of a warming planet (regardless of the cause)are a factor in human slave trade. Isn’t it OK to raise this, whether or not it is a major factor or minor? Wouldn’t it be good to build a bridge to those who care about the environment AND ending the slave trade? Why must it be either/or? I think you understate the evidence for climate change and the scientific consensus, but that’s fine. Shouldn’t our concern for greed predispose us to consider the evidence–since climate change cause by humans would be one of the clearest evidences of greed? And why is climate change such a hot button issue among evangelicals? Do you think that’s a good thing?
August 2nd, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Jim,
Apology….accepted.
BD
Plays well with others…