DWTX from Anaheim – Saying the global economic situation is a crisis of truth, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, spoke on the topic to an audience of several hundred persons Wednesday evening. Williams is making a brief appearance at the 76th General Convention; on Thursday he will lead Bible study during the daily Eucharist.
“We have been lying to ourselves,” said Williams. “We are in a crisis of truthfulness and worthiness.”
Over the past decade, he said, there has been an erosion of trust in our financial institutions because, at very high levels, our word has not been our bond. Further, he said, “We have lied to ourselves about our limitless wants in a limited world. We have lied about the possibility of profit without risk.”
Thirdly, said Williams, we have lied about our relations to each other, telling ourselves that one group’s profit can be isolated from the rest of the human family.
The task before the global village, said Williams, is not simply to restore financial stability, but to look at the truth that we must learn to speak. Truth doesn’t happen simply because someone says “trust me” said the Archbishop. “We need to build a culture of patience if we are going to build a culture of transparency.” We also, he said, must speak truth about the world we live in; it is a world with material limits, and it cannot tolerate forever a human race living as we are.
What is good for human beings collectively is not simply the sum of what is good for individuals, said Williams, so we must begin to tell the truth about the common good. What the market can bear is not necessarily what should be charged. What can be done doesn’t have to be done.
Christians, said Williams, recognize the importance of the common good. “We are made so that what is given to us is made to be given to others.” He said the church is well-placed to lead the way in such things as microenterprise in which people of a community have ownership of growing their local economy. “Churches have a unique role because of what churches believe,” said Williams. “Churches believe we are made in the image of God, and that vision of human beings growing together is what we want to say to the economy.”
Tags: archbishop, bishops