publications

Religion and society

The material here is on the relevance of religious belief to society.

Priests, sacrifices and modern economics

At their New Year Festival the ancient Babylonians recited the Enuma Elish, their account of how the world was created. After some wars between the gods one of them, Marduk, gained supremacy. To consolidate his position he did something to please the other gods. Until then they had all done their own cooking and housekeeping; but Marduk created the world, put humans on it, and gave us the job of maintaining temples and burning sacrifices. We are a labour-saving device for the gods!

Among the unconvinced were some exiles from the land of Judah. Preferring their old religion, they wrote it down, emphasising the differences. In their story the world was created by a single god, who designed it to be a blessing for humans and provide for everyone’s needs. It is therefore possible for everyone to live together in peace and harmony. When people go without the problem is moral, not technical: it’s because some people are taking more than their share and depriving others.

Those dissident writings later became the beginning of the Bible.

Modern science is based on the monotheistic view. The dominant account of modern economics, on the other hand, is rooted in the polytheistic view. It comes in secular guise, of course: we do not talk about the gods, but there is a rich vocabulary of ‘harsh economic realities’ to perform the same role. Full text...

Gift and gratitude

You are visiting relatives, and as you arrive you give the little girl a present: some crayons and drawing paper. She goes off to a table, too busy to offer the ‘thank you’ expected by her parents, and starts drawing. A few minutes later she comes back to you and says “Here. This is for you. It’s a picture of you.”

You look at it. It isn’t a work of art and it does you no favours. But it was drawn by her, and she did it for you. You give a broad smile, accept it and say “That’s lovely! Thank you so much!”

Gift and gratitude. At the end of the story the two have got confused: whose is the gift, whose the gratitude? This is the way they work at their best.

In the same way humans take the wheat and grapes which nature produces, turn them into something else, and give them back, using liturgical language. Full text...

<< Article on priesthood and economics, published in Signs of the Times July 2010

<< Article on the Eucharist and economics, published in Signs of the Times October 2009