The time for economic engagement is now
by Dick Gillett

Richard Parker is a Senior Fellow and economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is also a practicing Episcopalian. At the fall meeting of the House of Bishops last year Parker addressed the topic of globalization, the theme of the bishops’ meeting. It was an extraordinary speech, garnering a rare standing ovation from our normally staid prelates. His talk was notable for several reasons. For example, he reminded the bishops that history is important, both in our appreciation of the phenomenon of globalization (in its most recent form – it has been around for at least 500 years), and in recognition that in seemingly bleak periods of our history remarkable rebirths of hope and action have occurred. For example, Parker pointed out close parallels between our own times and 100 years ago in America, when economic and social conditions for ordinary working people were likewise abominable, while the wealthy heaped up riches and expanded their monopolistic practices. But beginning in about 1880 conditions for poor working people sank to such abysmal levels as to arouse the churches. Over the following three decades the churches – the Episcopal Church prominently among them – began to be directly engaged from parish level right on up to top ecclesiastical leadership.

We know this movement as the era of the Social Gospel, when the churches actually influenced the society around it to address the prevailing injustices. Theodore Roosevelt rode this social concern to the presidency in 1901, issuing in an era of social reform.

My own observation is that despite the unrelenting right-wing policies of the Bush administration and the feeling that a large part of the electorate has disengaged from politics, a new wave of engagement with social injustice – one not dissimilar to that of 100 years ago – is already underway. This is preeminently the case in Los Angeles, where Episcopalians from our bishops on down to clergy and parishioners have joined in concerted strategies with other religious bodies and with the community to enact living-wage ordinances and to work in close partnership with progressive unions to win victories for low-wage workers. To me it feels like a "kairos," a holy moment of new birth. And L.A. is not the only place where hope and activism combine in a holy combustible mixture.

Reportedly under consideration by our bishops as a follow-up of the globalization addresses they heard in September 2001 is a pastoral letter on this topic, to be ready for General Convention 2003. That is neither soon enough, nor is it an adequate response by the bishops, especially when one considers both the social and the moral dimensions of our current economic near-meltdown. In 1986, in a period of considerable less urgency for the nation than our own, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a 10-point "Framework of Economic Life" which had notable impact both on the Roman Catholic Church and beyond, and was reproduced on pocket-sized laminated cards for wide distribution.

But it would be a mistake to wait for episcopal action before we move (nor would our more progressive bishops encourage us to), just as it would likewise be a mistake for parish activists to always wait for vestry approval before acting. The sense of urgency demands much more from both the bishops and us. To adapt Pogo’s saying: We have met the enemy, and the remedy! – and it is us.