The joy of sales resistance

A talk by Bill Cavanaugh shows how the economic crisis can be traced to a perverse spiritual quest, an attempt to overcome the limits imposed by the material world…thanks, Alister, for pointing us to this and to the thinktank Ecclesia for posting it

Bill Cavanaugh speaks clearly and devastatingly about the economic realities of our society. Starting from mortgage lending he draws us into the complex, interwoven deals of the financial institutions with the oft repeated refrain ‘but it is really much worse than that because’…

He shows how the financial institutions are trying to create a world that transcends the need to pay attention to the limits of the natural world, our vulnerability and the need for realistic trust in our relationships. As he sees it, this is a spiritual disease akin to the sort of gnostic heresies that were around in the first century.

He points out how the Judaeo-Christian worldview begins from the presumption that the creation is real and good, that it is both different from the creator and yet intimately connected to the creator. And he urges us to recover an incarnational attitude to life, where we take back responsibility, relocalising, working from face to face relationships, making things, growing produce, creating new cooperative enterprises.

He ends by saying that such a transformation of our lives would not be a sadness, but part of what Wendell Berry calls ‘the joy of sales resistance’.

You can access the talk here

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