{"id":33640,"date":"2023-10-26T14:39:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T21:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=33640"},"modified":"2023-10-26T14:39:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T21:39:06","slug":"the-gospel-of-srm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-gospel-of-srm\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gospel of SRM"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Gospel itself is a disembedding from social and collective memberships into a new social reality.\u201d<\/span>[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Before identifying the central theme from Karl Polanyi\u2019s paradigm of exchange, <\/span>The Great Transformation<\/span><\/em>,<\/em> I found it helpful to remember and recall the story of Ruth from the Old Testament to offer a framework for how I understand Weber\u2019s,<\/span>[2]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Polanyi’s<\/span>[3]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0and Clark\u2019s<\/span>[4]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0work, which if not read carefully, can only feel like abstract constructs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The story of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz offers insight into social constructs of the poorest of the poor. Ruth and Naomi are two women who have seemingly lost everything after a series of catastrophic events. Because of Ruth\u2019s love for Yahweh, we see a story of her living outside the box or in other terms, living and depending on her social relationships, not a system. She refused to place identity and belonging in the \u201cmarket\u201d.<\/span>[5]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 Naomi, Ruth\u2019s mother-in-law, supports her to break the rules of social and religious convention. \u00a0Perhaps we normally read this story as Naomi the bitter, complaining widow and Ruth as the devoted daughter-in-law who defers to Boaz. \u00a0Yet, because of their relationship and initiative, Boaz, who is a wealthy landowner, is caught off guard; he then chooses to partner with Ruth modeling for us a kind of male\/female relationship the Creator intended us to have. \u00a0This story is filled with counter-cultural patterns and passions that break the rules\u2013eerily similar to the way Jesus would want us to live.<\/span>[6]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Author Carolyn Custis James observes,\u201cAt the micro level, the story centers on urgent family issues and Ruth\u2019s reinterpretation of three Mosaic laws: gleaning, levirate, and kinsman-redeemer. \u00a0Ruth lives on the hungry side of the law, so her perspective differs dramatically from Boaz. His willingness to listen to her (which is one of the jaw-dropping aspects of this story) moves him from the letter to the spirit of the law. As a result, a hungry widow is fed, and a dying family is rescued.\u201d<\/span>[7]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 The book of Ruth is a story about land, labor and money. But it\u2019s also a story about redemption, human kindness and God\u2019s Hesed Love.<\/span><\/p>\n

In our readings this week, my eyes were opened to the self-regulating markets and the impact of capitalism I hadn\u2019t fully realized. \u00a0Although I\u2019ve sensed the tension, I didn\u2019t have the words to reflect as Dr. Clark writes, \u00a0. . . \u201cFor Christians, social life should not be subordinate to the market.\u201d<\/span>[8]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 I now see how the deepest flaw in the self-regulating markets is how it subordinates human purposes to an impersonal market system just like a machine. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In his impressive work, <\/span>The Great Transformation<\/span><\/em>, Polanyi explained the emergence of the market economy which arrived in England at the beginning of the 19th century, then spread to the industrialized world. \u00a0He describes how the economy disconnected from social relationships or as Roger Nam writes, \u201cThe industrial economy streamlined economic processes to the standard of money and set distributive decisions in terms of supply and demand.\u201d<\/span>[9]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 Polanyi saw this as disastrous because of homo economics where people are selfishly motivated as opposed to homo reciprocans where people are socially motivated. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the story of Ruth, it was God\u2019s intent to allocate the land based on Kinship ties and the community. \u00a0Might we take God\u2019s intents as a challenge to us as leaders to pay closer attention to how the self-regulating markets in which we are working, living and having our beings is impoverishing the very human beings we are called to serve? \u00a0Where can each of us speak up where the markets are reducing human beings to relationships built on selfishness and gain?<\/span><\/p>\n

Three Takeaways for Leaders:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n