{"id":1310,"date":"2009-10-16T00:26:15","date_gmt":"2009-10-15T13:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=1310"},"modified":"2009-10-16T00:26:15","modified_gmt":"2009-10-15T13:26:15","slug":"the-global-financial-crisis-our-response-as-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/10\/16\/the-global-financial-crisis-our-response-as-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"The Global Financial Crisis &#8211; our response as Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Professor <a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/10\/09\/ian-harper-profile\/\">Ian Harper <\/a>gave an outstanding address at this week&#8217;s Tasmanian Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast (now in its fourth year)\u00a0about the Global Financial Crisis and our response to it.\u00a0My notes, with apologies to the Professor \ud83d\ude42\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Global Financial Crisis has called forth moral responses \u2013 \u201cgreed\u201d, \u201cexcess\u201d, and \u201cselfishness\u201d.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Society has shifted its moral and philosophical moorings.<\/li>\n<li>The great economist Adam Smith (Professor\u00a0of Moral Philosophy) is best known for his\u00a0book \u201cAn Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations\u201d but he also wrote &#8220;The Theory of Moral Sentiments&#8221; &#8211; the essential foundation for the &#8220;Wealth of Nations&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The morning\u2019s text was\u00a0Luke 12:15-21, the Parable of the Rich Fool, from which Professor Harper posed the question, \u201cWhere is your security?\u201d &#8211; a person\u2019s life is more than their possessions.<\/p>\n<p>The moral failure of the Global Financial Crisis allows us to speak of <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">moral failure<\/span>, sin.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We are not surprised to see \u201csin\u201d in others, in ourselves. His own confession of failure at the news of the GFC, &#8220;I went to the ATM.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>We are all sinners.<\/li>\n<li>As Christians we have the Gospel, life of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit working in us.<\/li>\n<li>We have God\u2019s grace and forgiveness, then when we fail, God\u2019s moral remedy to go on: integrity, not moral compartmentalizing of our faith.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He posed two questions to people without Christian faith:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How do you call yourself to higher ends, moral conduct?\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Where do you look when you fail?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Professor Harper went on to say that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We need to rebuild trust and rebuild on moral foundations<\/li>\n<li>We need to live for others as much as for ourselves<\/li>\n<li>Regulations will not be enough<\/li>\n<li>We need trust and faith<\/li>\n<li>We need something beyond ourselves<\/li>\n<li>He is calling for \u201cMoral revival\u201d<\/li>\n<li>We need to live our lives with moral courage<\/li>\n<li>Our faith in Christ empowers us and gives us grace when we fail<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">This response is up to me and you!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>\u00a0You can find the basis of this address at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.onlineopinion.com.au\/view.asp?article=9546\">&#8220;Morality and the GFC&#8221; here<\/a>, which is an extract from his lecture (Transcript will be available end of October) at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithlecture.org\/\">2009 Smith Lecture<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Ian Harper gave an outstanding address at this week&#8217;s Tasmanian Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast (now in its fourth year)\u00a0about the Global Financial Crisis and our response to it.\u00a0My notes, with apologies to the Professor \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 The Global Financial Crisis has &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2009\/10\/16\/the-global-financial-crisis-our-response-as-christians\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1326,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions\/1326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}