Economic Recovery for All 1: Launching "10% Is Enough"

For the past few days, I have had trouble thinking about much else than an organizing campaign that launched on Wednesday. The local organizing group I am part of through Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church, Durham CAN, joined with the other IAF affiliates in North Carolina, who go by the name NC UP (North Carolina United Power), to hold a press conference and action in Durham. On the same day, actions took place in the UK, in Boston, New York, Washington, and Chicago. The name of the joint campaign is "10% IS ENOUGH."

This campaign addresses a broad range of economic issues emerging in the current crisis. The first matter to be addressed is usury, the charging of exorbitant interest on loans, especially toward the poor. Our first target for action in North Carolina is the CEO of Bank of America. In the meantime, we are distributing a statement on the economy jointly released by over 20 professors from eight institutions of theological education in North Carolina. It will go to over 1000 churches and to banking leaders throughout our region, and beyond. I wrote about this statement earlier this spring when the project was just getting underway.

The statement is theological and ecumenical. It does not try to speak imperialistically as if Christians could speak for Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith. Yet our research showed us how much the Jewish and Muslim traditions share with Christianity, and how much we can learn from dialogue. NC UP also has examined a Muslim theological analysis of the issue of "riba," the Arabic word for the practice of usury. Moreover, we are aware that all of the theological schools in North Carolina are Protestant, and our statement (despite efforts to be broadly ecumenical) no doubt bears a Protestant perspective. Yet the Catholic church has outstanding resources for examining these economic issues in such documents and resources as the JustFaith program, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' statement on "Economic Justice for All," and Benedict XVI's recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate. We look forward to continued mutual learning among these communities of faith as we pursue common ends of economic justice.

I will post the text of "Theological Reflection on the Economy: A Working Paper for North Carolina United Power from an Interchange Among Theological Educators, July 2009" in several pieces. I hope readers will take opportunity to examine the ways that we believe the tradition of the gospel speaks to our times.

As of July 22, the following 22 professors have endorsed the document. We are awaiting replies from others who are traveling or out of the office, and we expect the list to grow.

Endorsing Professors Arranged by School Affiliation

Campbell University Divinity School, Buies Creek, NC
Dr. Cameron H. Jorgenson, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics

Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC
Dr. Kenneth L. Carder, Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry
Dr. J. Kameron Carter, Associate Professor in Theology and Black Church Studies
Dr. Curtis W. Freeman, Research Professor of Theology and Baptist Studies
Dr. Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Professor of Theology
Dr. Amy Laura Hall, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics
Dr. Willie J. Jennings, Associate Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies
Rev. Daniel P. Rhodes, Preceptor in Theological Studies
Dr. William C. Turner, Jr., Associate Professor of the Practice of Homiletics

Hood Theological Seminary, Salisbury, NC
Dr. Reginald D. Broadnax, Dean of Academic Affairs
Dr. Samuel V. Dansokho, Associate Professor of Religion and Society

Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, SC
Dr. Daniel M. Bell, Associate Professor of Theological Ethics
Dr. James R. Thomas, Associate Professor of Church and Ministry and Director of African American Studies


School for Conversion, Durham, NC
Prof. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Director

Shaw University Divinity School, Raleigh, NC
Dr. James P. Ashmore, Associate Professor of Old Testament
Dr. Mikael N. Broadway, Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics
Dr. Dumas A. Harshaw, Jr., Adjunct Professor of Theology and Ethics
Dr. Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Professor of Theology, Ethics, and Women’s Studies
Dr. Andrew M. Mbuvi, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics
Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling

Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Charlotte, NC
Dr. Rodney S. Sadler, Jr., Associate Professor of Bible

Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Winston-Salem, NC
Dr. Douglas M. Bailey, Assistant Professor of Urban Ministry
Dr. Stephen B. Boyd, J. Allen Easley Professor of Religion and Chair Department of Religion
Dr. Bill J. Leonard, Dean and Professor of Church History

Winston Salem State University, Winston-Salem, NC, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Adjunct), Charlotte, NC
Dr. Eric J. Greaux, Sr., Assistant Professor of Religion, and Adjunct Professor of Greek

Bailout 14: Thinking About Jubilee

Last Monday I was in an interesting meeting at Wake Forest Divinity School. The Wake Forest folks and some of their ecclesial friends from Winston-Salem CHANGE showed up in force. I was there as a faculty member of Shaw Divinity and as a leader in Durham CAN. No one from the other invited divinity school was able to attend.

There were two purposes for the meeting. The one I was most aware of was an effort to bring together divinity faculty to discuss ways for community organizing to be taught to their students. The second purpose, which turned out to dominate the meeting, was the idea that North Carolina United Power (NCUP) should consider a campaign relating to the economic situation.

Gerald Taylor, who called the meeting, is the regional organizer for IAF, the oldest of the national institutions which promote Alinsky-rooted community organizing. Gerald discussed the current economic situation and what he sees as the wrong-headed direction of the governmental responses. In that context, he brought up the biblical concept of Jubilee.

The most significant thing said at that meeting was that biblical Jubilee is not merely about solving the economic problems of the wealthy. Forgiving debts of the poor and setting the oppressed free are its central concepts. Thus, a bailout which attempts to benefit everyone by clearing out the debts of the banks and financial instututions contradicts the wisdom of the Jubilee tradition.

Taylor argued that the way to help the economy, including the banks and other financial institutions, would be to help the average person who is deep in debt. Provide debt relief to everyday people, and they will pay off credit cards, pay and restructure mortgages, pay for higher education, and purchase goods. For those persons who are not in debt, the same financial stimulus would provide economic opportunities that would strengthen economic activity, bolster retirement funds, and stabilize families and businesses.

Taylor also went on to discuss the ways that credit card companies and other lenders are sticking it to common people at the same time that they are able to borrow at the lowest rates in history. This is what the Bible condemns as usury, and the state of usury laws in the U. S. is such that the credit companies can locate in one or two of the fifty states which give them the greatest freedom to charge whatever they want in interest. The situation calls for a national policy.

What kind of bailout would a jubilee call for? It is about fifty years since the Civil Rights Movement. It is about fifty years since the Nixon government began to institutionalize the backlash against progressive reforms. It may be time to proclaim a Jubilee.