c. 1999 Religion News Service
UNDATED _ The head of Canada’s largest Protestant denomination has officially kicked off what he hopes will become a national debate on capitalism by saying too many people worship the market economy as a God that will solve everything.
United Church Moderator Bill Phipps told a Toronto-based teleconference March 11 that Canadians’ long-time commitment to compassion has been eroded in the past 20 years as governments give up sovereignty to harsh global economic forces and”right-wing American ideology.””The ideology of the so-called free market is obliterating all other criteria for the development of human society. The market has become our God,”said the outspoken Phipps, who in 1977 sparked a cross-country theological debate when he questioned traditional beliefs about the divinity of Jesus and existence of heaven and hell.
As Phipps launched a special Web site, a series of public forums and media appearances he’s calling”The Moderator’s Consultation on Faith and the Economy,”he urged Canadians to come up with ideas about how to create a”moral economy in which everyone is included in the well-being of society, without the Earth being plundered in the process.”How can a country that is as wealthy as Canada tolerate the poverty that slaps us in the face every day?”Phipps asked.”It’s obscene that homelessness and food banks are growth industries like ours.” But at least one business leader _ Darcy Rezak, managing director of the Vancouver, British Columbia Board of Trade _ questioned Phipps’ analysis and invited the church leader to visit the province and debate whether it is high taxes or economic globalization that is making the average Canadian worse off.
International trade specialist James Brander of the University of British Columbia said it is important to allow a religious ethical perspective to become part of the economic debate over why the average family is struggling more than in the past.
But Brander said:”I don’t think it’s correct to characterize anybody as making a God of the marketplace. There’s not many who will say there’s no role for governments in regulating the economy.” A Calgary clergyman who trained as a lawyer, Phipps was voted in as head of the 800,000-member United Church of Canada two years ago.
Phipps pointed to numerous scholars and theologians who have strong ideas for creating a more moral economy that doesn’t have”obscene”gaps between rich and poor.
The president of the board of the British Columbia Council for the Family, Heather Clark, agreed with Phipps that society needs to find a balance between the values of the global marketplace and those of a caring society.
And while Clark said she didn’t accept Phipps’ argument that the marketplace is the”big, bad ugly,”she did agree that the gap between rich and poor is definitely growing in Canada and”it’s becoming tougher to maintain a family.” So far more than 420 groups and individuals have joined the discussion since Phipps posted a paper a month ago on the United Church’s special economy Web site (http://www.faith-and-the-economy.org).
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