Current Issues: A Christian Response to the Global Financial Crisis

<p>For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ <a href="https://www.douglasjacoby.com/a-christian-response-to-the-current-global-financial-crisis/"><strong>website</strong></a>.</p><p>An out-of-work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide.</p><p>A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years.</p><p>In Massachusetts, a housewife who had hidden her family's mounting financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the mortgage company warning: "By the time you foreclose on my house, I'll be dead." Then Carlene Balderrama shot herself to death, leaving an insurance policy and a suicide note on a table.</p><p><strong>I. What crisis?</strong></p><p>The "bubble" has burst. Whether this is a recession, a depression, or worse, conditions have changed in the global economy. There is a pervasive atmosphere of anxiety.</p><p>During one recent week (in 2008), global stock markets tumbled 7 trillion dollars! This is affecting the entire globe! Everyone is talking. We have felt the crisis, at least indirectly (through our friends who have been hit, and through rising prices).</p><p>Can affect our faith, too.  (Not to mention marriages.)</p><p>This is complex! Involves multiple agencies – hard to nail anyone down.<br />We are not going to solve it in a day! -- but we can get a biblical perspective….</p><p><strong>II. How are people responding to the crisis?</strong></p><p>Angst</p><p>Finger-pointing: <i>Democrats! Republicans! Government! God! The Devil! America! Businessmen! Consumers!</i></p><p>Disengagement, hopelessness</p><p>Refusal to even think about it. Keep head down, keep going…</p><p>In some places, people have no choice but to think about it. Zimbabwe’s inflation rate recently hit 231m%. Imagine having Z$1m yesterday, and today it’s barely worth $1!</p><p>“I believe there is God’s justice in action in what’s going on here and we haven’t seen the end of it… We’re goin