Tuesday 18 August
Judges 6:11-24; Ps. 85; Matthew 19: 23-30
Consider others
It can be difficult, these days, with global businesses and advantageous international trade deals offering consumers wonderful opportunities to buy goods at knock-down prices, to remember the human faces behind these products. While their masters are living the high life in a more comfortable part of the world and we are enjoying the goods, these people are often living and working in unacceptable conditions. Do we care? We should.
Let us pray for the discernment to avoid contributing to the misery of people who are being enslaved by global greed and for ways to relieve their suffering.
Entries(RSS)
I really enjoy your reflection most of the time because it is honest and straight and very perceptive. I am often amazed at your perception.
However this morning I beg to differ with you.
When Jesus said "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods" he was make a very deep point. The commercial world is a complex place which is not well characterised in your reflection today. It sounds like the anti-trade group slogans we are hearing at present and they are biased. The complexity arises because there are two (fairness) sides to every issue you raise.
Let me take just one portion of your thought piece. People (overseas) often working and living in unacceptable conditions.Quite correct. So you are recommending that New Zealand consumers take action that means these people will lose their jobs! How does that help. These people are often in the best working conditions presently open to them and the alternative is even more dire poverty.
Developing countries do need to be developed to make them more just. For example, China has done a marvelous job of taking hundreds of millions of people our of dire poverty over the last 40 years. That has been real social justice in action. New Zealand consumers helped them in a small way by buying the goods they made.