Sallie McFague: Collected Readings

11. How Shall We Live? Christianity and Planetary Economics

11 How Shall We Live? Christianity and Planetary Economics In 1993, McFague published Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril, noting in the preface, “After completing Super, Natural Christians, subtitled How We Should Love Nature, I realized that love was not enough. I realized that we middle-class North American Christians are destroying nature, not because we do not love it, but because of the way we live: our ordinary, taken-for-granted high-consumer lifestyle. I realized that the matter of loving nature was a deep, complex, tricky question involving greed, indifference, and denial. . . . I realized that a basic deficiency . . . was the neglect of economics. . . . There is, however, no avoiding it—and what ordinary people need to know is not its technical side but the assumptions and results of consumer-oriented economic theory” (xi–xii). This selection, excerpted from A New Climate for Theology (2008), summarizes significant points from Life Abundant (esp. chs. 4 and 5). In addition to explaining the economic ideas that entered McFague’s theological thought then, it provides a rationale for Christians to embrace the ecological economic model she introduces, particularly in light of the urgent dilemma posed by global climate change. Source: 2008:81–97 It is notable that none of the world’s religions has as its maxim: “Blessed are the greedy.” –—Sallie McFague 139 We have looked at who we are and decided that an ecological anthropology is necessary for our contemporary context of global warming. It is also commensurate with Christian faith. We have looked at who God is and suggested that the model of the world as God’s body might be a persuasive contemporary and Christian expression for the God-world relationship in our time. We have, then, sketched out a picture, a way of imagining both ourselves and God within the context of radical environmental threat. It is time now to look at how we should live. If we are interdependent with all other creatures as well as radically dependent on God, the source of reality and goodness—who is transcendentally immanent in the world and expects us to be partners in earthly flourishing—then what should we do? Can we continue living in a way that consumes the world’s resources and undermines its most basic systems, as global warming is warning us we are doing? Must we not see the essential connection between economics and ecology: between the insatiable consumer society and the wreckage it creates at all levels—resource depletion and greenhouse gases, as well as a growing split between the poor and the wealthy? Religion and Economics It is notable that none of the world’s major religions has as its maxim: “Blessed are the greedy.” Given the many differences among religions in doctrines and practice, it is remarkable to find such widespread agreement at the level of economics. Often, however, people do not consider that religion has anything to do with economics; in fact, in most societies many do not want religion to intrude into economics. It is preferable, they say, for religion to attend to “religious matters” and to leave economics to the economists. But most religions know better. They know that economics is about human well-being, about who eats and who does not, who has clothes and shelter and who does not, who has the basics for a decent life and who does not. Economics is about life and death, as well as the quality of life. It is also about the life and death not just of human beings but of the planet itself and all its life-forms. Economics is not just about money; rather, it is about sharing scarce resources among all who need them. Economics is a justice issue, so why would religions not be concerned with it? In many religions, the concern for justice has been focused on human beings—and this is certainly the case with Christianity, at least for the last few centuries. But recently, the issues of well-being and justice have been extended to embrace the entire planet: the well-being of people and the wellbeing of the planet are increasingly seen to be inextricably related. Climate 140 | Sallie McFague change makes this case with stunning clarity. In Christianity, there is a return to the cosmological context for interpreting the faith, rather than the narrow psychological focus prevalent since the Protestant Reformation. In fact, many...