that god is dead

We nod, in this country, to a separation between church and state; but the reality is that we bow to a powerfully deceptive theology.  And that's the theology of unfettered free market capitalism.  Looking for a good read?  Check out an essay called "Family" in a book called THE DEATH OF ADAM by Marilynne Robinson.  She writes of the devastating grip this 'faith' has on our nation: the belief that human beings are born to out-earn and compete with one another; the belief that the common good is pursued at the expense of individual happiness and freedom; the belief that governments are simply intrusive, barriers to free market innovation and wealth.  There's an orthodoxy in this that's as rigid and as seductive as any humankind has known.  And it threatens, I think, to suck the democratic energy right out of us.

Fundamental to all this is the sense that you just don't question it.  Unfettered markets are God's true way.  Unfettered capitalism is natural law.  Unfettered American corporations create wealth that trickles down to bless the rest of us.  Question any of this and you're, well, un-American or weird or even a socialist...

And yet.  And yet, even Lawrence Summers at the National Economic Council acknowledges that our American economy is fundamentally broken.  It needs not simply to be tinkered with, infused with cash, inspired.  The American economy needs to be re-imagined, re-built, re-vived.  And for that to happen, I suggest, we'll have to examine and set aside the state religion that presides over our present brokenness.  Unfettered free market capitalism.  That god is dead.

In its place, we'd do well to recapture the ideal of democratic participation: not only in matters of voting districts and marriage rights, but in matters of economic development, economic opportunity, job creation, and the greening of our economy.  Democracy has always been protection against the selfish pursuits of the few or the many.  We should extend democratic governance to the economy itself and make it OUR economy: an economy of the people, by the people and for the people.

I believe that the teachings of great world religions encourage human agency, democratic participation and collaborative decision-making.  If we are created in the image of God (the big G-O-D), we are created to work together to create opportunity and wealth for all.  And we are created to dream, negotiate, collaborate, cooperate toward a common good.  We’ve reached a hugely important crossroads in America. I dare say our soul’s on the line. Will we reclaim our birthright as citizens, shapers of the common good, neighbors one to another? Or will we wander off after an impotent deity who just doesn’t give a damn? It seems to me that the choice is ours.