Organized religion can be an important force for financial reform, according to a group of scholars who took part in a panel at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on Wednesday (March 3).<\/p>\n
In the discussion \u201cFrom Wall Street to Main Street: The Search for a New Moral Compass for the New Economy,\u201d the panelists agreed that religious communities need to be actively engaged in shaping both the nation\u2019s economic reform policies and its moral direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe [economic] crisis is structural and spiritual,\u201d said panel member Jim Wallis, \u201cso we have to address both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wallis, an evangelical minister and president and CEO of Sojourners, an evangelical Christian organization, criticized the enormous bonuses paid out by big banks as \u201ca symptom of societal erosion.\u201d He cited the ubiquitous maxims \u201cgreed is good\u201d and \u201cI want it now\u201d as evidence of the need for a new national ethic, one that focuses on helping one another and that considers the repercussions of current actions on future generations.<\/p>\n
Issues of poverty and homelessness are \u201cdirectly out of the Bible,\u201d said television journalist and documentary film producer Liz Walker. A 2005 graduate of Harvard Divinity School<\/a>, Walker, who is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, called on religious communities to step away from their comfort zones and \u201cbe part of the action that makes things right.\u201d<\/p>\n Interfaith social justice organizations can play a prominent role in pushing for important change, the panelists said. So too can church leaders who can initiate conversations with their congregations about the economy and rally them behind consumer protection reforms and efforts to shift business from banks deemed \u201ctoo big to fail\u201d to smaller, locally based ones.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Catholic Church is fairly institutional,\u201d said the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir<\/a>, and as such is well suited to address \u201cwhat institutions need to do.\u201d Hehir, Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at the Harvard Kennedy School<\/a> (HKS), said people \u201cought to debate not how big government ought to be or how small government ought to be. We ought to ask, \u2018What is the proper function of government?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Using that type of institutional framework, people can \u201cthen open up into other aspects of civil society,\u201d said Hehir, and explore an institution\u2019s moral responsibility.<\/p>\n Wallis was optimistic about the emergence of a new national tone.<\/p>\n A recent tour for his new book, \u201cRediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street,\u201d evolved into a series of informal town meetings, he said, where he learned of grassroots campaigns and discussions taking place in many congregations about the intersection of faith and finance and the vision of a \u201ccommon, good\u201d economy.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there is a conversation going on now that sees this in a moral framework, that underneath the economic crisis is a values crisis, and we are not going to get to an economic recovery without a moral recovery that shapes it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe as faith communities are going to have to organize,\u201d said Walker, \u201cand step up to the plate and lift up our prophetic voices.\u201d<\/p>\n