Monday 13 October 2008

The end of the world as we know it... and we'll be fine.

I hope.

I thought my missives had lacked a distinct note of financial despair over the last few weeks, and now seemed like a good a time as any to thrash out my thoughts regarding the current economic climate.

First off, how bizarre is it that this 'crash' has no apparent ramifications for the 'real world'? I put those concepts in inverted commas because it would seem that the financial world, money markets and stock exchanges inhabit a different reality to the one within which we live. When we start talking about billions of monetary units, we're no longer talking of hard cash, but numbers which governments feel they can justifiably materialise from nowhere to steady the market. The actual outworking of these crashes will be felt perhaps in a few months, as long as the situation doesn't worsen, but currently, I have felt no realistic worry about my money, or the future of the world.

Perhaps this is due to my being a student, not currently owning a house, nor a car, nothing that will drastically depreciate or that I have a loan out on. Perhaps I am just being naive, and missing the point entirely, wandering about happily in my own world, about to shocked something silly.

But what is our theological response to this? We are told that we will soon be feeling the pinch, but I believe in a God who supplies all my needs. I'm not sure that Christians should be worried; concerned, yes - because we are seeing the potential shift in power from the banks to an unspecified 'other', but worried about money? No. God promises to provide all our needs. We should be more reliant on what he says he will do, as opposed to what the banks threaten to do.

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I have recently discovered the iTunes visualiser. This is amazing. Midway through this post, I was mesmerised by the visualisation of a Sigur Ros song... this could be fun.

2 comments:

Aaron said...

Yeah, I'm sure Christians are immune to the credit crunch.
"Hey, don't worry about your financial worries - God's going to grow a money tree in your garden". Seriously dude, wtf?

David said...

I didn't said 'immune'. I said 'should not worry'. And you've seriously caricatured the concept of God supplying needs, there.