October 2008

Finding a new way in this season of change and renewal
by Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss

As the voting season begins here in the battleground state of North Carolina, I can’t help but recall the first time I exercised my right to vote. The year was 1996. A freshman in college, I had traveled back to the Detroit suburb that I called home to visit family and cast my ballot.

My dad drove me to the polls, where we each waited in line, then stepped into private booths to have our say. On that day, and most election days to follow, my dad and I cast opposing votes, preceded by stimulating conversation about our political leanings. And yet my dad always observed with a smile, as he did on that day, that voting is one of the greatest privileges afforded to us as Americans.

We may have some differences of opinion, but we share the right to make our voices heard in the public square. In fact, the history of the struggle for voting rights in our nation renders the right to vote a moral obligation. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to vote. (Men of color were granted that right in 1870, but it was not until 1957 that the Civil Rights Act, to end voter discrimination and intimidation, passed Congress.) Progressive women of my grandmother’s generation protested, picketed, marched and spoke out for a woman’s right to vote, even after some were jailed and tortured. Women who vote in this country do so only because we stand upon the shoulders of the bold, persistent women who refused to be halted or hushed. This year, when I pull the curtain closed behind me in the voting booth, I will think of these women, and of my dad.

And in the thick of the worst economic storm since the Great Depression, now is a critical time to make our voices heard this election season. As we fight two wars, witness the collapse of Wall Street, and feel the relentless pinch on Main Street of home foreclosures, frozen credit, and unprecedented job loss, there’s widespread agreement among Americans that our country is headed in the wrong direction. Something fundamental to our way of life has broken down like a junked car abandoned along the highway to some place better. It’s as if the soul of our nation has surrendered to the seductions of greed and excess, not to mention militarism. We’re not simply facing an economic crisis, but a spiritual catastrophe of biblical proportions.

There’s a story about the Tower of Babel in the Jewish and Christian traditions. The tower gave form to the fantasy of omnipotence, with “its top in the heavens.” Its builders justified their efforts to one another, saying, “we will make a name for ourselves.” God examined the tower being built by mortals, and promptly confused their language, then scattered them across the face of the Earth, rendering project Babel abandoned and incomplete.

Theologian Ched Meyers calls the tower of Babel “the archetypal project of civilization.” Rabbi Michael Lerner defines it as a symbol of “human hubris,” an attempt to “storm heaven.” He concludes, “Our contemporary capitalist system and its globalization of selfishness have evolved into a similarly grotesque distortion.”

As the autumn leaves flame and fall down around us and the economic storm churns, it occurs to me that we’ve made the same terrible, tragic mistake as Babel’s builders. We have confused our power, systems, and way of life with God--the Creator of all things, the Author of compassion, the Source of all that is good and whole. On some level, we believed that our economic systems, our military might, and our brand of civilization were omnipotent, and we were sorely mistaken.

Though it may not be a bad idea to parade the financial managers responsible for this mess down Wall Street in sackcloth and ashes, as Cokie Roberts suggested, we the people bear some responsibility for this current economic and spiritual crisis. Not because we are bad people, but because we are inextricably linked to systems that degrade people, dishonor the Divine, and denigrate our one, shared Earth. According to Jim Wallis, we’ve been “seduced into lifestyles beyond our means.” We’re drowning in debt, but still struggling to keep pace with the Joneses. We have not used our resources wisely, sometimes wasting and sometimes hoarding. We have participated in, and sometimes benefited from, a global economic system that grinds under children, elders, and the poor. We have allowed our tax dollars to underwrite an unjust war and fill to overflowing the coffers of the Pentagon. We are not innocent bystanders.

And yet, abandoning Babel offers an opportunity to start anew. Where we have concentrated power, God prefers to scatter it across the face of the Earth (and, if we’re unwilling to listen, render us mute and confused in order to do it). While we have hoarded security and wealth, God’s vision diffuses power and calls forth human diversity to live in right relationship with the rest of creation. The God of forgiveness, compassion, and new life reminds us that it’s never too late to change our ways and live as God intended. Theologian Daniel Migliore once wrote, “If we believe in God, we must expect that our ways of thinking and living will be continually shaken to the foundations. We will no longer be satisfied with the unexamined beliefs and practices of our everyday personal and social world.”

In the current climate, the conversation about how we order our economy, pursue peace, and spend our nation’s dollars is increasingly important. I have come to think of it as a spiritual dialogue. So what are some real, common-sense solutions to this economic crisis that get at the root of the problem--a culture of debt, greed, and excess inextricably bound to the military industrial complex? According to Rinaldo Brutoco, president of World Business Academy, we must:

• launch an immediate project to strengthen and expand our nation’s infrastructure, to the tune of $50-100 billion per year, creating well paying jobs
• zero out (quickly!) the $10 billion we spend on the Iraq war each month
• cut annual Pentagon bloat by $100 billion annually, spending each third of the savings on green energy, infrastructure, and reduction of the national debt
• radically slow the rate of home foreclosures
• invest in comprehensive health care for the American worker, an affordable education for their children, and a secure retirement through an intact and adequately funded Social Security system

Brutoco adds, “Even after the minor 10% cut recommended above, military spending would be dramatically higher than when George Bush took office…we are so broke we can no longer afford to spend more than the rest of the world combined on military matters…such funding, more than any other single item, has led to the brink of financial ruin.”

Sometimes moments of loss and catastrophe offer rare opportunities to reorder our priorities, enact sweeping change, and transform lives. Imagine! Out of the wreckage of this economic storm we might turn from a culture of debt, greed, and excess toward a culture of generosity, shared responsibility, and care for the most vulnerable. Imagine! We might build an economy strengthened by green collar jobs and energy independence, rather than one that is mercilessly tethered to the military industrial complex. We are at a defining crossroads in our nation, and the best part is that each of us has an opportunity to make our diversity of voices heard in the public square by exercising the hard-won right to vote.

Why wait? I think I’ll vote early this year.

Amanda Hendler-Voss Faith Communities Organizer Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss is the Faith Based Coordinator for the Women’s Action for New Directions Educational Fund and the Minister of Christian Education at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheville, NC. She is a graduate of the master of divinity program at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, where she received certificates in the Black Church Studies and Church and Community programs. Her studies have taken her to London, England and Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Amanda serves as a member of the Wellspring Clergywomen’s Alliance of the Black Church and Domestic Violence Institute. She has a background in case management and experience working with people with HIV/AIDS and single parent families. Amanda is ordained in the United Church of Christ.