I understand next to nothing about the turmoil on Wall Street, even though it is closer to me than even Russia is to Alaska, and yet the human toll of the crashes and crises and meltdowns is becoming clear, and is spreading. My wife pointed out this morning that AIG, possibly the next giant to fall, actually holds our life insurance policy. Gulp.But I suspect my life insurance policy is the least of it. Like the mortage meltdown, the current falloutis too much and terrible to ignore, even if I want to.Over the years I have written pieces on what the variety of religious traditions say about a rightly-ordered economy, but for every assertion of a principle there is an equal and opposite reaction, or, as is often the case, especially among some Christian communities, the view that economics is not the proper forum forChristian preaching (beyond vague appeals to the Golden Rule). The economy becomes a person, in a sense, afflicted by original sin that will inevitably bringthe cycle of prosperity down again,with the only hope of salvation a true and full liberty to make proper choices. (The differing approaches may be summed up by the McCain and Obama responses, as summed up in a Times article today: McCain pointed to greed on Wall Street, Obama to lax regulation in Washington.)That's actually understandable in the Christian context especially, as Christianity seemed initially like an enterprise built for the short term. Only by the end of the first century did we start selling long-term bonds. But Adam Smith was no mean theologian, and the Catholic bishops wrote what I thought was a truly powerful pastoral letter on the economy in 1986, called "Economic Justice for All." Unfortunately it is hard to find (good luck searching the bishops' web site; the link here is to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul socialjustice office) and amid the debates over who is a good enough Catholic to receive communion, it doesn't look as though the pastoral letter will get much of a hearing. It should. As Dickens might have said, the present crisis is so much like the past that they are almost indistingushable. And as the bishops say up top:

"Our faith calls us to measure this economy, not by what it produces but also by how it touches human life and whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person. Economic decisions have human consequences and moral content; they help or hurt people, strengthen or weaken family life, advance or diminish the quality of justice in our land."

So is there a "Christian-omics," so to speak? And is it one that is applicable to today's crisis and future policies? And can it be made comprehensible to simple believers like moi? There is much talk of the virtue of small-town values these days. But in one of the few pieces I've been able to read, the Times' Joe Nocera points out that the current crisis has a shared dimension from Main Street to Wall Street: Denial.Hard to deny what's happening now. What to do?UPDATE: Of course I should read Commonweal before I post anything, and Mark Sargent's review of Charles Morris' "The Trillion Dollar Meltdown" is avery good and insightful read, as is the book, I'm sure. (Subscribers only, but whatever it costs, you'll save in the long run.)

David Gibson is the director of Fordham’s Center on Religion & Culture.

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