We are all familiar with the famous pop culture image of a street evangelist holding up a sign reading, "Repent, for the end is near!" But repentance is actually a fundamental religious theme, and one that's often misunderstood. This week, one could imagine a group of pastors, priests, rabbis, and imams holding up a sign on Wall Street for the titans of the financial industry to see, reading, "Repent, or the end could be near again."
The biblical meaning of repentance is to turn around and start a new path. In a religious framework, it means realizing you have made a moral mistake and deciding to change your behavior. It's not enough to feel guilty or sorry for something; genuine repentance requires a change in decisions and actions, by moving in a different direction. Merely admitting you were wrong is not enough. You have to change.
In the past few months, I've had serious conversations with financial leaders about ethics, morality, and even faith. Some come like Nicodemus -- a religious leader who came to talk to Jesus in private -- at night. Many have felt remorseful about what happened on Wall Street and how it has hurt so many people. They describe the behavior in their profession with words such as "greedy," "risky," or "reckless." These business and banking leaders do feel sorry, but repentance means that remorse must be coupled with a change in the behaviors that led to the problems.
Those who led us down the path to financial ruin -- causing millions of people to lose their homes, jobs, and savings -- now have some serious repenting to do. Yet, this week's testimony by Goldman Sachs executives before a Senate committee investigating the bankers' role in the economic collapse made it clear that repentance and accountability were far from their minds.
When you preach, one of the most important parts of preparing is selecting a text relevant to the issue of the day. And the clear and obvious biblical text for this crisis is 1 Timothy 6:9-10. "But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil [...]." Or, as Jesus succinctly put it, "You cannot serve God and wealth" (Matthew 6:24).
The critics of Wall Street call it putting self-interest above the public interest. But the Bible would just call it a sin. We could call it the sin of putting profit and personal gain above the common good, the good of your customers and consumers, and even your investors. And there are times when outside pressure is needed to change destructive behaviors -- times like now.
Americans have always had a love-hate relationship with government and business. The climate shifts like a pendulum between eras of an "anything goes" mentality and periods of more careful public oversight and government regulation. The excesses of the 1920s, leading to the Great Depression, were followed by the reforms of Franklin Roosevelt, including the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and new rules of the road for banks and investment companies intended to protect citizens from excessive risk and abuse. But over the last 40 years, many of these regulations were relaxed (by both Republicans and Democrats dependent on the political contributions of Wall Street), while new financial realities developed for which there were no regulations.
Because of the Great Recesssion, a new financial regulation debate is now raging in the Senate. And while religious leaders should not get into the details or partisan wranglings, there are some principles that, from a moral and even religious viewpoint, should guide those deliberations.
First, provide transparency and accountability. Given the human condition and the many temptations of money, we need transparency and accountability in financial markets and instruments, including high-risk and questionable ones such as the now infamous "derivatives." To protect the common good, we need to enact greater regulation and oversight of all elements of the banking industry.
Second, provide consumer protection. Any pastor can now tell you stories of how parishioners were mistreated, cheated, and damaged by current banking practices. Many clergy strongly favor protecting consumers from predatory financial practices. They want a strong independent Consumer Finance Protection Agency, with jurisdiction and enforcement power over all companies in the financial sector, in order to protect people from fraudulent, misleading, and abusive practices.
Third, limit size and risk, so banks are no longer too big to fail and are bailed out at public expense. This means setting limits on the size of financial institutions and the risks they can take. Ban bank ownership of private investment funds, and establish an orderly process to dissolve a failing bank, in order to avoid future taxpayer bailouts. Give a stronger voice to shareholders and investors in institutional practices and policies, including determining the executive compensation of companies, and the now-infamous bank executive bonuses.
These principles -- clarity, transparency, accountability, and protecting the common good against private greed -- are not just economic policy matters. On a more transcendent level, they provide the metrics of real repentance for those who have behaved badly and now must change. So let's have some sermons on the repentance of Wall Street, some pastoral care for the financial giants who sit in our pews, and maybe even some prayer vigils outside of the nation's biggest banks. If the banks fail to repent, another financial meltdown could be very near.
Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street -- A Moral Compass for the New Economy, CEO of Sojourners and blogs at www.godspolitics.com.
+Click here to get e-mail updates from Jim Wallis
Follow Jim Wallis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jimwallis
Ray Waddle: Faith and Financial America's Moral Compass
People of faith are the last people standing with the power to inject spiritual realism into the financial conversation. They need to find their bearings again, fast.
Jim Wallis: New Economy, New Energy: Lessons from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount
The house that Wall Street built has fallen -- and great was its fall! The house that Big Oil built has fallen -- and great was its fall! We need to rediscover some of our old values on which we can build a solid foundation for the future.
Emilie Townes: A House Built on the Rocks of Righteousness
The house I hope to be a part of building each day is the one built on righteousness. To be builders of this righteous house means that we move beyond the afflictions, perplexities, persecutions, and violence of today.
Katherine Marshall: Mission Improbable: Priests on Wall Street
What's a nice Irish American priest like Séamus Finn doing on The Daily Show? Pressing a cause that has been his job and passion for over 20 years: banking and financial sector reform and social justice.
Our corporate media must repent their constant "news" of lies & fear.
Our corporate owned politicians must repent their "obedience" to their corporate masters.
The Pentagon must repent their "worship & addiction" to endless war for the benefit of corporate profits.
Wall Street the unholy-land of endless corporate greed must repent their unquenchable desire for more & more "power & profit".
The bottom-line is that America must repent our slavish suicidal ponzi-schemed greed fueled insanity that is CORPORATE EMPIRE!
Repentance requires seeing our misdeeds & moral shortcomings & then CHANGING OUR WAYS.
That will require We the People to WAKE UP!
Bible babble and religious doubletalk is for those marinated in blind faith as opposed to these who use of rational considerations. The business of business is business, not reading scripture. The business of an honest government is to create REGULATIONS that force businesses to behave in fair and honest ways. That requires LAWS not sentimental sermons and lectures about repentance (whatever that really is).
McCain Blasts Wall Street's 'Reckless Conduct, Corruption, and Unbridled Greed'
By Robert Barnes and Michael D. Shear
TAMPA -- Sen. John McCain responded to the crisis on Wall Street today with a fiery populist speech that decried what he called greed and corruption among the nation's financial elite and a lackluster performance by the federal government in regulating them.
"If Governor Palin and I are elected in 49 days, we are not going to waste a moment in changing the way Washington does business,'' McCain said a rally here. "And we're going to start where the need for reform is greatest. In short order, we are going put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption, and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street.''
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/16/mccain_blasts_wall_streets_rec.html
We are not talking about abolition of Capitalism.
But Wall Street MUST be seriously reformed. It is designed for exploiting the small investors and the majority of the tax payers who keep bailing out the big abusers of society.
humans have to learn and remember the connection we all have to each other and to existance as a whole.. that is true. is that repentance?
I guess SOJOURNERS is a pretty good business.
Like Al Gore and his new $9 million second home in Santa Barbara.
We are not talking about abolition of Capitalism.
But Wall Street MUST be seriously reformed. It is designed for exploiting the small investors and the majority of the tax payers who keep bailing out the big abusers of society.
americans dont get it
the system is reponsible for much of the defects in our lives and in organzations.
create a system that puts profits over people and you get a wall street and banks based in greed.
wake up americans capitalism is evil to the core.
in our wars for profits we killed over one million vietnamese, we are now in two unwinable wars trying to find jobs for afghans and stealing iraq's oil on the cheap.
the brainwashing of americans is about complete americans worship at the altra of capitalism even the chruchs are captialists always wanting money for this and that.
even our educational systems teach capitalism to the young.
we are a corrupt society just look around our prisions are overflowing
the capitalists solution: private prisons to make profits off the criminals.
the educational systems are self destructing: the solution private education to make profits off the children and teach capitalism to them.
the underlying reality of capitalism is greed. ie profits at any cost.
drill baby drill, burn baby burn, profits baby profits, and so it goes
those folks in the south hate gov but when the oil comes to their shores they want gov there now to fix it.
those tea parties folks hate gov except when they pick up their social security checks and love their medicare.
how can this be? greed pure greed the very foundation of capitalism.
Agreed, it is a terrible system, full of flaws. Problem is, there is not a better system.
---
Wrong-o.
Better systems are being birthed right now in a number of progressive countries. The combine the best features of capitalism - ie allowing free markets to flourish - with the restraining hand of what is sometimes called socialism - but is more accurately described as communitarianism.
Here's the truth: UNRESTRAINED capitalism is inevitably and always an unrestrained disaster. Bright psychopaths will ALWAYS exploit society mercilessly in favor of their own UNRESTRAINED self-interest. That's why we have laws and jails.
Capitalism without the restraining force of communitarianism is like having a car with a gas pedal but no brake pedal. Sooner or later, it's got to crash and burn, taking out not just the idiot driver, but plenty of innocent folks as well.
It's really time for our society to grow up.
Does no one else see the thinly veiled anti-semitism in this scapegoating? Now we are taking the next step by dehumanizing the alleged perpetrators.
Reverend Wallis, Wall Street was not solely responsible for the collapse. The collective greed of the whole nation was responsible. Why are you so willing to foment this ill-founded witch hunt?
We're not just angry at financial predators; we're also furious with the religious fanatics who seek to take over our political system, virtually all of whom are Christian Evangelicals. And the racists in the Arizona legislature who want to establish a bigoted a police state that profiles latinos as suspect. And the Birthers who push their cause against a legit president for blatantly racist reasons. Oh, and your Tea Partiers, by the way, who are also neo-Nazi white supremicists; they’re about as anti-Semitic as you can get. Sorry, but it’s your folks, Republicans and libertarians who have taken the art of demonization and eliminationism to unimagined heights.
So don't even go there. You pervert the entire discussion and make a mockery of anti-semitism itself.
No anti-semitism? Maybe, maybe not. At the very least your "profound contempt" might be more like profound envy. Especially since your envy or contempt or whatever it is, is based on a mistaken cause and effect. No one can really tell what "misery" Wall Street actually rained down. You could just as easily blame accountants, who required that securitizations including sub-prime debt be marked to zero because they couldn't be valued. Or you could blame Fannie and Freddie for providing the steroids to the securitization market in the first place.
This misdirected anger is not going to be productive, and it is not going to forestall future crises. Worse, it is dangerous, because people that claim to know better and should know better--Wallis, the President, the Press, the Congress--are engaging in irresponsible scapegoating. The targets of the scapegoating just happen to be Jewish financiers. You can tell from these posts that most consider the Jewish financiers unworthy of pity or their day in court. This has happened before.
Since we know religions are not true, and that heretofore no judging god has been evidenced to exist, we can take your substantive suggestions about regulation, oversight, and the like, and lobby D.C. to implement them, and leave things at that. Because that's the only way this will stop: Setting rules enforced by law. And that is what we're talking about vis a vis Wall Street: The rule of law, not the rule of free for all.
Reverend Wallis, take a few minutes and go through the records of home repossessions in your own neighborhood (well, not yours, the one ten or twelve blocks away). Look at all the Hispanic last names of people repossessed. Some were victims of predatory lending, but if the truth were told, most were just like you and me, people hoping to get a house at a good price and flip it for a profit someday. Exactly the kind of greedy behavior those at Wall Street engaged in. So you see, greed is a sin that is very close to home for all of us, and not just suffered by those evil Wall Streeters.
And the millions of us that hoped to get rich quick by purchasing homes we couldn't afford did far more damage to the economy than Wall Street.
(For those of you who don't know, Reverend Wallis purchased a home for more than a million dollars in one of Washington's best neighborhoods, in 2009. Probably at a depressed price).
At any rate, Reverend Wallis should stick to crying repentance a little more generally, and practicing personal repentance a little more specifically.
So try pitching your Ayn Randian tough love BS elsewhere. It's a specious argument, and the heaping of further abuse on the already screwed. Save your ire for those who made off like bandits. Or should I say, like financial rapists?
This is not an isolated incident. Remember the hit show "Flip this House"? The flipping mania was all over the country. In our town this mania drove home prices sky high, and my former landlords are fairly typical--immigrant, from the city, often marginally employed, lying to their banks to snap up homes in the hope of making a quick buck.
I have a real problem with phony-baloney preachers like Wallis making Wall Street out to be the heavy, when the problem is really much closer to home than any of us want to admit.
Scapegoating not anti-semitic? Why are the Jewish heads of a Jewish-sounding the scapegoats? There were other firms that tried to profit from the trouble, all of them to some degree or another did their best to make money. That is their duty to their shareholders, by the way. So can someone explain why Goldman Sachs is the scapegoat?
My parents bought a small bungalow so that I could live in it because I am disabled. They paid 138,000, paid it down (much of it on interest) and now it is worth 40,000. No greed here. No greed among any of the people I know, either, because I have good-hearted friends, many of whom additionally lost jobs, are hugely underwater in their mortgages and are now completely stuck looking for work in a horrid economy. This is because of Wall Street greed. And their greed has had no consequences of any sort. In fact, they pay themselves huge bonuses and walk/talk their butts off in the halls of my governmental buildings to maintain their unethical behavior. And my governmental servants are listening to them! We are in huge trouble.
I am angry, too, just like you. Yet your anger is spilling all over, willy nilly, and you want to let Wall Street off altogether. This makes no sense.
I brought up the Hispanic comment (not shouting) because anyone could make this issue out to be racial without too much trouble. In our area there was a huge influx of Hispanic home buyers, many of them illegal. But no one is suggesting that the housing crisis was caused by Hispanics, such would be riduculous.
But one group, Jewish financiers, is being falsely accused by the holier-than-thou Jim Wallis, the President, the Press, and anyone else willing to pile on. It is ridiculous to blame Wall Street for the crisis, and many of us see through the thinly-veiled veneer to the anti-semitism lurking underneath.
A lot of people blame the Tea Party for being racist, but there is no evidence to support this claim. I'm saying that it is much easier to conclude that the scapegoating of Goldman Sachs is anti-semitic.
The housing collapse was not caused by Wall Street greed. It was caused by easy credit to unworthy homebuyers, on a massive scale. Just because some were smart enough, lucky enough, or rich enough to avoid disaster is no reason to scapegoat them. Unless there is an ulterior motive to the scapegoating. (There always is).