In my sermon at the Princeton University Chapel this Christmas, I brought in good, old George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. My reference to It's a Wonderful Life was to pose the troubling question of which portrait looked more familiar: the bucolic final scene of Bedford Falls, or George's nightmare of the brutal and callous Pottersville? Which depiction of America was a closer representation of the economic reality as we enter the second decade of the 21st century? One of the questions I asked my congregation to consider was the moral agency each of us possess to do good in this world by fulfilling God's desire for the economic well being of all humanity.
A week later I heard about the Move Your Money movement, went to the website moveyourmoney.info and coincidentally saw a video that featured George Bailey vs. Potter. The video uses these archetypes to set up the distinction between big banks and community banks. The site encourages us to shift at least part of our money out of the banks that were too big to fail, and are now too big to loan money, and into community banks which are more likely to serve the needs of local people.
Religious people should seriously consider the merits of this growing movement, as the way we treat our money is tied into our spiritual commitments. The connection between religion and money is hotly contested. In one camp, we preach (impractically) that money is the root of all evil and we should rise above it; and in the other camp, we preach (untruthfully) that God blesses the faithful and wants each person to be fabulously wealthy. While money may be difficult to talk about within the religious setting, is not impossible. Indeed, the Hebrew prophets certainly took on the subject of economic justice, and Jesus talks about no subject with more frequency and passion than his concern for the poor.
How we, as individuals and as a country, deal with our money and our economy are moral questions. Rev. Jim Wallis is fond of saying that the United States budget is a moral document, but our national and our personal economic choices are also moral decisions.
Like the terms ecology and ecumenism, the word economy has the root oikos, which is a Greek word that translates as family or house. Any economy should be judged on its ability to provide for the needs of the entire human family it is meant to serve. Banks are an important part of our economy. As part of our economy they should be judged on how well they are serving our community and national family.
And the current answer is -- not well.
My great grandfather, Louis D. Brandeis, wrote a series of essays in 1914 called "Other People's Money, and How the Bankers Use It." Brandeis warned of the 'curse of bigness' in the banks as they orient themselves to the interest of big business at the expense of the individual consumer, and gamble with the collective money of the small investor. One hundred years later, Brandeis' essays are like a textbook on what went wrong with the banking industry in our recent crisis. We are still cursed by bigness, and as politicians consider financial regulations in the near future they would do well to look at Brandeis' writings.
The curse of bigness in banks should be a major concern of religious people and their churches, synagogues, mosques and any other religious institution. When banks and corporations get too big they grow indifferent and lose the sense of responsibility to and for the people they are meant to be serving. Just remind yourself of the scene in The Smartest Guys in the Room when the Enron guys in Dallas are messing with the energy in California without a thought for the people whose lives they are destroying.
Bigness has created alienation and disconnectedness in our banking institutions and the result is that they are able to give themselves bonuses to buy a second or third home while refusing to help those in desperate need of financial help to keep one roof. The projection is that one million American households may face foreclosure this year. This turning away from the stranger and the neighbor in their time of need in order to gratify oneself is sinful and should be understood in those terms.
Walter Rauschenbusch, another of my great grandfathers, wrote a remarkable treatise on love and the economy entitled "Dare We Be Christians" in which he warns that, "The severest test and the most urgent task of love today is in the field of business life. Unless love can dominate the making of wealth, the wealth of our nation will be the ferment of its decay."
We might scoff at the idea of love dominating the field of business. But by love, Rauschenbusch meant ethics and justice. As Dr. Cornel West says: Justice is what love looks like in public.
The big banks were greedy, which was the 'ferment of their decay.' They played with our money, and we bailed them out, and now they won't lend it back to us. It may not be the big banks' fault. They may just be too big to be able to focus on the kind of community support that we need our economy to provide. So, maybe we should make them a little smaller.
It may be time for us as individuals and as churches, synagogues and mosques to move our money to smaller banks that are connected and responsible to our local communities.
I encourage you in your congregation to consider the following question regarding where you keep your money:
How does my religious tradition view money? What purpose does money serve in the ideal society envisioned by my tradition? Does it matter how our money is made? What is the best way to make my money serve the ethical mandates of my tradition? Does my bank reflect the values that I hold regarding money?
Each of us has many ways to live out our religious convictions. One of those ways is to be conscious and have a conscience about how we make, spend and where we save our money. If you are interested in learning more go to moveyourmoney.info
Follow Paul Brandeis Raushenbush on Twitter: www.twitter.com/raushenbush
Imagine my disgust when I found my money at Bank of America, Wachovia and RBC.
The solution is to break up the big banks that are “too big to fail” back into the smaller local and state banks from where they came! Do not let them sell insurance, do sub-prime loans or play in the stock market. If we do not they will extort even more “bailout” money we the taxpayer in the future.
Big bonuses are paid to create incentives to make more money for shareholders. It is illegal for managers to write checks solely for community good. They must write them to generate greater returns for the shareholders.
It is not the "too big" but "for profit corporation" that is a problem. The virtue of community-based corporations is that the owners are more likely to be in the community, and don't want dirty looks. The virtue of closely held private corporations is that their owners are likely to be their managers, and not likely to sue themselves if the "management" side of the individual gets too generous with the "owner side'" money -- more likely to act a a sole proprietorship.
At the family-owned community bank (with no shareholders to please), they don't charge fees. Instead, they pay better interest on checking than big banks pay on savings or CDs. They refi'd my mortgage at a lower rate with no closing costs. The bank pres knows me by name, his door IS always open and every depositor is treated the same.
The money stays in our community of which the bank is a cornerstone. When the mortgage fiasco hit, the bank suffered a 300% increase in mortgage defaults in one year. They'd gone from ONE default to THREE. Imagine that. After 100+ years in the community, they'd suffered only one bad loan and now had three. Why so few? Because they know their customers and a handshake still means something.
BTW, lest you think this is some quaint "Hooterville" backwater -- we're 62 miles from Wall Street. So poke around. Do some research. There's a bank near you that WANTS your business and will treat you well. They just have low profiles b/c they don't spend money on advertising, toaster ovens or gimmicks that eventually cost you money.
Yes, moving your money is good both socially and ethically. But it's also a smart move financially.
Mortgages should NOT be allowed to be traded as a commodity. The issuing bank should be required to HOLD your NOTE. If they do want to sell Your note, then you should have the option to approve or refinance. The profits the banks make, should be returned to their depositors, not the bonuses for those that are risking the depositors money. That idea means that banks should not even be allowed to sell shares....I thought that was what depositors were. But depositors are lucky to make .05% on our savings, and the multi million dollar bonuses go to the top risk takers.....hmmmmmm MOVE YOUR MONEY.to local community banks and credit unions....EVEN THE CHURCH's Bank accounts.......take control of your money where you can.....then we have to work on REAL campaign finance Reform. If you can't vote...then you can't give money......but wait....did the supreme court ever rule that corporations are people?
The TAKERS at Enron, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Insurance giant AIG, and now the Wall Street gang who took away our children’s Flu Vaccine, are still TAKING America and Americans on a roller coaster ride of a re-run of 1929. This time around, the balance of loss unlike ’29, avoids for Board Room Members equal time on the cross. This time, the Rich have continued to get richer and the Middle Class has joined the poor in the unemployed lines, getting poorer.
"We the People" need to close our accounts with International Banks masquerading as American pie, who need Your Green to dissolve healthy competition from real Banks for Community. A better idea is to invest in your family financial soul, by opening accounts with a bank that is just local. Now divert cash flow from reaching the Board rooms of Banker’s schemes. Deposit it in neighborly Credit Unions.
Tell the TAKERS and “money changers” that this is our “Public Option” and see how quickly Bank CEO’s find some humane adoption. Then more of Your Green will provide for Family food, mortgages, & medications, instead of being Conservative with the partnership of Congress & Corporations. When you take your money from The TAKERS and millions of Our Green set us free from the coffers of Wachovia & its sugar daddy Wells Fargo, from PNC & the greedy CITI, from the most Un-American Bank of America, “Change we can Believe in” will naturally follow.
"In one camp, we preach (impractically) that money is the root of all evil and we should rise above it;"
This is an example of a hugely common erroneous idea.
Money is not the root of all evil. It is neither good nor bad. It is simply a tool.
What is important is how it is acquired and how it is used.
It is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil.
1 Timothy 6:10 states:
For the LOVE of money is a root of all [kinds of] evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (Emphasis mine)
It's ok to have money (God knows we need it to live) as long as acquiring money doesn't become your sole focus in life. If it has then money becomes idolatry. I think this idolatry the reason most people are mad at the big banks. These big banks are all about making money rather than serving the people they got the money from.
MIsquoting and misunderstanding the Bible has always been tragic.
"All that is not given is lost." Indian proverb