[Dialogue] 2/18/10, Spong: Let Them Eat Cake!

[elliestock at aol.com]

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Thursday February 18, 2010 

"Let Them Eat Cake!"

These words, probably apocryphal, are attributed to Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI of France. They were said to have been spoken during the early days of the passion and upheaval that would later be called "The French Revolution." Although most historians today do not think these words are authentic, they do express the attitude displayed by both the King and Queen of France as the pressure of revolution in that land grew, and therefore they are probably accurate in attitude even if never spoken literally.
These words were, however, implanted vividly in my mind as I recently completed a monumental study of western history, by the noted historian Jay Winik, entitled The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World. This 1000-page book concentrates on a narrow slice of history, the 12 years between 1788 and 1800, showing the deep interconnections that linked the Russia of Catherine the Great, the United States of George Washington and everything in between. As every historian knows, the cataclysmic event in the western world that occurred during those years was the French Revolution, which turned from grievance to revolt and revolution, to a killing and vindictive anarchy and finally to the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, the 5' 4" military leader. Order was finally imposed on French chaos, but at the price of a dictatorship and one of the bloodiest wars in European history.
Winik's book was a frightening one to read for two reasons. First, it made me newly aware of how evil human beings can be. More than 50,000 French people, including Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, were decapitated at the guillotine as violence engulfed the nation. Before that violence had run its course, many of the leaders of the Revolution itself, including one of its chief architects, Robespierre, had themselves been executed. Second, it made me even more apprehensive as I watch the rising tide of anger in American politics and the deliberate attempt by the minority party to render our government inoperative, which causes me to wonder if we are spiraling out of control with a similar conflagration on our horizon. As this anger grows more intense and we even hear talk of "secession" by established political leaders, one has to wonder whether there is any public policy that can now effectively cauterize the pain in order to create a society with less greed a nd exploitation on one side, while still serving to build a more effective safety net for those at the bottom of America's social structure that might usher in a new era of progress, opportunity and tranquility on the other. As acrimony rises the jury is still out, I believe, on the issue of clarifying our nation's destiny and its future.
These are the signs that cause me to see a comparison between our day and the years leading up to the French Revolution. The United States in the 1990s went through a decade of enormous prosperity. More wealth was created in that decade alone than in all the history of American independence from 1776 to 1989 put together. In this single decade, massive fortunes were made, primarily in the field of technology. The world's richest man, Microsoft's Bill Gates, acquired most of his wealth in that decade alone. Almost every executive and many of the workers at Microsoft became millionaires during those ten years. Microsoft was not alone. Hewlett Packard, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Oracle and Intel were all companies born in the tech explosion of the final years of the 20th century. The inevitable tech collapse came as that decade ended and the 21st century began, but even a stock value correction of 40% on the NASDAQ still left the brilliant entrepreneurs behind thes e innovative companies with wealth beyond most people's imagining. They lived the American dream that new ideas and hard work can and will be rewarded with enormous profits. While this massive increase of wealth was going on publicly, however, the election of the pro-business, Newt Gingrich-led "Contract with America" Congress in 1994 began the task of deregulation of both business and banking rules, making it possible for this creation of wealth to be unencumbered by any sense of public responsibility. These weakened regulatory laws laid the groundwork for what we now call "the dismal decade" (2000-2010). But those years were not dismal for everyone. Statistics now reveal that while the average household in the United States making less than $100,000 a year saw their wages remain relatively stationary during this decade, the cost of health care and education, both major items in the middle class budget, skyrocketed. At the same time, however, the super-rich saw their st andard of living rise to a point that they would be the envy of most of the kings in European history. If this trend was not bad enough, in 2002 George W. Bush was elected President with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, and they proceeded at once to respond to the needs of the constituencies they served. While regulations continued to be weakened on how business was done, a massive tax-cutting bill was passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President that gave 90% of the tax benefit to the wealthiest 10% of our population. All the opposition could accomplish was to add a sunset clause to the bill. These tax cuts were to expire at the end of 2010 unless renewed by the Congress. The argument was made that by taking the regulations off business and stimulating the economy with these tax cuts, business would create more wealth, allowing these tax cuts to pay for themselves in the expanding economy that would inevitably result. It was the old "tr ickle down" theory of economics at work yet again. Expanded wealth does indeed trickle down, but usually no farther than from John D. Rockefeller to Nelson Rockefeller. Adding pressure to America's financial stability during this time, this nation entered into two wars, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, both enthusiastically endorsed by the oil cartels. Not one cent of the cost of these wars was ever reflected in the national budget. The major result of these wars was a massive public debt, while the citizens of America's middle class experienced the shock of the doubling, even tripling, of the price of gasoline at the pump, another painful and serious blow to their standard of living.
Next, the now virtually unregulated banks, together with mortgage companies like Countrywide Finance, Washington Mutual, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, began to offer sub-prime financing on houses, creating in the process a housing inflation never before known. The strapped middle class leaped for these bargains. No money down and sub-prime mortgages designed to lower the total cost of the house became the norm. This practice was predicated on the dream that housing values would continue to rise and that these new owners could, whenever they chose, sell their homes at a significant profit, which in effect meant that housing was thought suddenly to have become free. It was too good to be true, and it was! Banks, lending agencies and mortgage companies then began to sell these high-risk mortgages to speculator banks around the world. The quality of those loans was hardly ever discussed. Incentives in the form of bonuses drove bank executives to stretch every dollar far beyon d its worth. Middle class people were seduced into feeling that they were finally sharing in this booming affluence.
Then came the crash in the last year of the Bush administration, as the chickens came home to roost. Countrywide Finance went into bankruptcy and was gobbled up by Bank of America. Washington Mutual went into bankruptcy and was absorbed by JPMorgan Chase. Lehman Brothers went out of business and Barclay's Bank, like a vulture, swept in to take over the assets of this once-proud symbol of American capitalism. Bear Stearns collapsed and its few remaining assets were swallowed whole, once again by JPMorgan Chase, for $2 a share. The whole financial world shuddered and governments rushed to bail the economy out with massive infusions of wealth from the average taxpayers of the world. Houses went into foreclosure by the hundreds of thousands, but no one rushed to rescue these middle class people. Indeed, they were castigated for being financially foolish. Businesses shed jobs by the millions in an effort to reclaim profitability, so unemployment rose to over 10%. None of the bonus money that had been paid to those who fueled the collapse was able to be reclaimed, but those who were left holding mortgages were broken financially — and when their jobs disappeared, they lost not only their income but their health coverage. The anger of the masses now became the anger of the bottom 90% of the American population.
When we learned of the bonuses paid out to those who developed this scheme, the anger became palpable. When the banks, which had to be saved with massive amounts of taxpayer money, recovered their liquidity and responded not by making loans to small businesses and individuals that might have saved both jobs and mortgages, but by once again proposing huge bonuses for their executives, the anger erupted. When health care reform, designed to protect the poor and the middle class, was stalled in the Senate by a massive propaganda campaign funded by the health care lobbies, pharmaceutical lobbies and right-wing political groups, leaving millions of Americans vulnerable while unemployment refused to begin to trend lower, the anger became extensive. To add insult to injury, skillful right-wing political propagandists, who are in the employ of the wealthiest American businesses, sought to turn this anger on the government, creating the "Tea Party" movement, calling any attempt to aid those who had lost homes, health care and jobs "socialist." In the now deeply vulnerable masses of America, the rising anxiety lifted hostility to audible decibels. This was when America began to feel to me like France before the French Revolution. "Let them eat cake!" is what many Americans now hear from the economic powers that be.
Am I an alarmist? I hope so! I am, however, also a student of history, and I see danger ahead. As biblical apocalypsists like to say, "those who have ears to hear, let them hear!" 

–John Shelby Spong
 



Question and Answer 
With John Shelby Spong


George James, from George Street United Church in Peterborough, Ontario, writes:
I really feel the Church should stop referring to church services as "worship services." Could we not more meaningfully call them "celebration services?" Marcus Borg, when in Peterborough recently, played the part of God in a very humorous way and mimicked him as only Borg could do with his Swedish wit: "Oh that feels so good to be worshiped that way, as just last week some others attempted worship and it was not very good and I felt terrible — please keep it up as I need you to be on your knees before me, etc., etc., etc." If we agree worship is usually meant for idols, why do we keep using it in the mainline churches? To me the life of Jesus and through him, God, the ground of all Being, should be celebrated every day. It changes the whole focus, in my humble opinion.
George James, from George Street United Church in Peterborough, Ontario, writes:
I really feel the Church should stop referring to church services as "worship services." Could we not more meaningfully call them "celebration services?" Marcus Borg, when in Peterborough recently, played the part of God in a very humorous way and mimicked him as only Borg could do with his Swedish wit: "Oh that feels so good to be worshiped that way, as just last week some others attempted worship and it was not very good and I felt terrible — please keep it up as I need you to be on your knees before me, etc., etc., etc." If we agree worship is usually meant for idols, why do we keep using it in the mainline churches? To me the life of Jesus and through him, God, the ground of all Being, should be celebrated every day. It changes the whole focus, in my humble opinion.



Dear George,
Words do matter and you have put your finger on a real issue. Does God need our worship? Does God relish our praises? Our acts of self-deprecation? Can God simply not wait until the next person tells God, "How Great Thou Art?" Marcus Borg is correct. Worship meets human needs, not divine needs.
Behind our use of words there is always the context in which these words were born and in which they are and will be interpreted. This means that when the context changes, the words will inevitably become detached from the reality of their original meaning. That is what has happened to the language of faith.
A God who is defined as an external being, supernatural in power, who hands out rewards and punishment according to human deserving, is a rather primitive, childlike deity. This is nonetheless the definition underlying most forms of liturgical worship. No change will occur until this definition is raised to consciousness and dealt with. Celebration, as a substitute for the word worship, becomes no better if it is this same definition of God that is being celebrated.
If worship is to have meaning, it will be found in asserting the ultimate worth of life, love and being that are to me the primary way in which human beings experience God. If celebration is to be used, it needs to refer to the celebration of life, love and being through which people experience the Holy.
I have been twice to your church in Peterborough, George, and I think your congregation and your outstanding minister understand this better than most.

Give them all my best wishes,
John Shelby Spong
Note: I am indebted to Butch Hancock, a musician with a group called "The Flatlanders," for this bit of wisdom from West Texas:
"Life in Lubbock, Texas taught me two things:
One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell.
The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love."






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