Jubilee Spirituality

One of the basic biblical teachings is that our humanity includes spirituality.  We are created in the image of God and we image God in the world.  The scriptures teach us how to image the true God.  At the same time the scriptures recognize other gods who also desire humanity to image them.  A theme throughout the Old and New Testaments is how  people imaged the gods they served and the resulting consequences for their societies.

One of the ironies of modern `religious' life is that spiritual powers and their religions are not recognized for what they are.  Religion and spirituality are reduced to personal experience and personal morality.  As documented by Walter Wink in his Unmasking the Powers, the ancients understood that spiritual powers transcend life and that these powers readily supplant the true God.  But we have forgotten this.  The market, technology and science, and militarism function as gods with their own spiritual powers in our western society.  Although these gods are worshipped with `heart, soul, mind and strength', they are seldom recognized as spiritual powers.

The modern gods are given transcendent human powers.  The market converts the creation into commodities with values set by the market.  Science provides the basis for understanding life and technology through technique has become the organizing factor in life.  Militarism in defense of security ensures that benefits conferred by science, technology, and the market, continue to reside with the rich and powerful in our world.

All false gods require human sacrifice.  Science reduces human life to its physical components.  All governments are forced by the market to abandon the needs of the vulnerable to ensure that the more powerful retain their economic place.  Technology has displaced millions of jobs in the past decades.  Wars have killed over 100 million people in the past century.   Like all false gods, the gods are supported by the rich and powerful to ensure and protect their place in society.

Once we recognize the spiritual powers, the core human question becomes which power holds our allegiance.  The scriptures illuminate the life-giving spirit of the Creator who works with people in unfolding life for all people and other living things in the creation.  By allying ourselves with the Creator we practice jubilee economics to ensure that all people can experience their rightful place in the creation.

However, if we do not recognize the spiritual powers in our world, we can readily be manipulated by an evil power.  For example, a scientist whose work is funded by the military, can dedicate his or her life to doing the science but the fruit of the work will be twisted to serve the goals of militarism.  We may live with a good personal ethic but if we don't ally our whole life to the life-giving spirit of our Creator, the false powers can use us for their ends.  Jesus taught that an evil spirit may leave a person but if that person has not replaced this with the spirit of the Creator, other spirits will take charge and the final condition may be worse than the first. (Luke 11:24-26)

A key function of the the false powers in our society is that they not be recognized for what they are.  In this they have been very effective.  As summarized by Andrew Krimrell:

"One of the greatest prides of modernity is that it is very pluralistic when it comes to religions.  But, the reason the larger system can be so generous is that this religious pluralism is irrelevant.  Every religious tradition is completely irrelevant to the religion of modernity, which is the religion of progress, of the mastery of nature.  So there is a religion afoot.  Make no mistake about it.  We live it every day.  It is the complete mastery of nature through technology to create convenience and wealth. 

I will go so far as to say that there's a new Trinity, a secular reductionist trinity which mimics the sacred Christian Trinity.  Science is God, all knowing, yet unknowable to most of us who didn't make it through reductionist college science courses, and remains unknown, very mysterious.  Science isn't too available or tempting, just like the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh.  So, science incarnates through Technology, the Son. And the Son is with us.  It's not abstract, Technology is the magic that works.  How do we participate in the worship of Technology?  We have the ersatz Holy Spirit, the Market.  People don't get up in the morning for Science, and they don't get up just for the magic of Technology.  They get up in the morning with the urge to make money so they can buy things. Filled with the spirit of the Market we pursue upward mobility, more technology in our lives, and more consumer pleasures.  Belief in a secular trinity is an essential dogma of the religion of Progress.  Heretics to this religion are dismissed by scientists, businessmen and economists alike.  You tell us that science is going to let us know everything, technology is going to let us do everything, and the market is going to let us buy everything.  That's progress."

     --from an interview with Andrew Kimrell in Wild Duck Review, vol. 5 no. 2 (summer 1999), p.17.    

In his article, The Religion of the Market, David Loy has described how the market functions as a religion in western society.  He concludes that only by allying ourselves with true spiritual powers can we build a society which has a place for  everyone and the creation.

The framework for a true spirituality begins with understanding the human place in the creation.  Our world has unfolded through the action of the Creator.  Humans are creatures whose spirituality extends beyond themselves to other spiritual powers in the creation.  True life is experienced when humans ally themselves with the God revealed in the scriptures.  This new life was summarized by the ancients as `act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God' (Micah 6:8).  Jesus summarized it in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 8).  What counts is living and doing the will of God for life.  "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who build his house on the rock" (Matthew 7:24).  The key concept in living and doing, is practicing jubilee as announced by Jesus:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and the recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19)

It is in living the teachings of Jesus that our personal spirituality can be fulfilled.  Personal spirituality is integral with doing and, like Jesus, the doing starts with living in solidarity with the marginalized and vulnerable among us.   It is through understanding and identifying with the marginalized that we understand our place in the creation and appreciate the hope and meaning of the gospel.  

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