Fiscal Fiascos and the Satanic Solution

Here is an aticle that I wrote for NT magazine last year when the Euro crisis was at its height - food for thought!

"Shocked European bankers are taking huge losses on their investments in the Greek economy; whilst European governments reluctantly put their hands deep into their pockets just to keep the Euro dream afloat.

But, if either had paid more attention in history class, this whole fiasco might have been avoided or at least the early warnings recognized.  In the context of taking an investment gamble, the Greek horse had form.

Since independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832, Greece has suffered recurring budget crises, frequent state defaults and long periods during which it's effectively been cut off from the international capital markets.  Despite that, its current membership of the Euro isn’t the first time that an ill-advised attempt has been made to unify it with its neighbours.

Latin Monetary Union (“LMU”) was attempted in 1866 between France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland; not by a new coinage but by pegging each currency at the same fixed rate.  Greece joined two years later.  Britain, true to form, would have nothing to do with it and was proved absolutely correct. The Greek government propped up their ailing economy by gradually decreasing the amount of gold in their coins – that rendered the fixed rate meaningless.  Things got so bad that Greece was formally expelled from the LMU in 1908 and the whole scheme was soon to be wrecked by the upheaval of World War One.

The irony of the historical and current situation isn’t lost on students of ancient history, who point out that the Greeks were pioneers of economic and monetary union.

In 400 B.C., seven Greek states minted coins to the same weight with a common design (of the baby Heracles strangling a snake) and the first three letters of the Greek word for alliance. Like today, each state placed its own particular image on the reverse.  Why it collapsed after 200 years is unknown but the Achaean League had another go in about 280 B.C. using the head of Zeus as the common design.

The historian Polybius noted that there was more than monetary union.  They "had not only formed an allied and friendly community but they have the same laws, weights, measures and coinage, as well as the same officials, council and courts of justice”; enough, perhaps, to make today’s Eurocrats green with envy – but it lasted barely a century due to the crushing defeat by the Romans at the Battle of Corinth in 146 B.C.

History is littered with aborted attempts at economic and monetary union; a track record that led Walter Bagehot, the essayist and editor of The Economist, to write in the late 1860s - "the attempt to found a universal money is not possible now.”  He concluded that the practical difficulties were “simply insurmountable.”

Based simply on current events, that assessment seems to be well supported – what chance of a global system when even a regional one is fragile?  It is not hard to find one of the main causes of these repeated failures.  Paul put his finger on it with his warning to the Church of God in Philippi:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” Phil 2:3-4

In “normal circumstances”, union can only be achieved when we act responsibly, unselfishly and for the greater good – and, by the way, that’s just as true in our churches as it is at inter-governmental level.

That little caveat is necessary, for students of the Bible will be well aware that Bagehot’s view will one day be proved to be incorrect – but it will be unity achieved for the greater evil, not the good.

Revelation 13:16 speaks of a universal regulated trading system, not denoted by the head of Zeus or Heracles, but by the name or number of the beast.   No currency will be usable without it. The carrots of economic and social stability and the sticks of persecution and execution will make it tough to keep out of this diabolical pact - but taking the mark of the Antichrist will have eternal consequences by permanently aligning the taker against the true Christ and in union with Satan. 

The Bible teaches Christians will be spared from these events, enjoying instead the wonderful millennial unity pictured by the wolf lying down with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6).  But we should be alert to the reality that men and women around us are hurtling towards something far worse than mere economic meltdown.  We must trigger the most reliable and timely “early-warning” system – the plan of salvation in God’s Word."

Conflict at Corinth

(I wrote the following piece for a recent issue of NT Christian magazine - see www.neededtruth.info - and http://www.hayespress.org/publications/NeededTruth01-12/#/1/  for the latest flip-through edition.)

If you ever got the idea that the early Churches of God ran like clockwork then you would be absolutely right. Unlike quartz timepieces, they needed a lot of maintenance and attention, were prone to coming to a complete halt and were even at risk of total breakdown!   There’s no better case study of it than the Church of God in Corinth, especially as it shows that the apostle Paul wasn’t shock-proof either.

First century Corinth was a ready-made seed bed for church conflict.  It was even the scene of a mythical territorial dispute between Poseidon, the god of the sea, and Helios, the god of the sun, which was resolved by allocating half of Corinth to one and half to the other.

Cultural conflict was exacerbated by Corinth being both very cosmopolitan and, in relative terms, very modern.  Julius Caesar had only re-formed Corinth as a Roman colony less than a century before the Church was planted and it was populated mainly by indigenous Greeks, “invading” Romans and fleeing Jews (like Priscilla and Aquila) from persecution at home.  Each brought their own religions, languages, traditions and very different ways of thinking to the melting pot. 

An analysis of the membership of the Corinthian church reflects this diversity.  Of the seventeen saints we know of, eight, like Gaius, have Latin names, Apollos and Crispus were Jews while Stephanas and his family were Greek.  It’s not hard to imagine that this would have contributed to conflict at times.

Corinth was a major urban centre on the trade route in Greece and was known for being much more liberal culturally than the old-fashioned villages around it.  Space was at a premium with density estimated to be on a par with shanty towns in Rio or Delhi today – most people lived quite literally on top of each other in apartments above shops.  Riots spread like wildfire more than once.  It had also a reputation for being very expensive – the poet Horace (famous for the phrase “carpe diem”) said that "not everyone is able to go to Corinth". Gaius must have been a wealthy man indeed to own a home large enough for the entire church to meet in. 

Religion was definitely a huge cultural issue.  It was common in worshiping certain Greek gods to invite friends to eat some of the meat sacrificed to the idol at a banquet, often in the god’s temple (think of it as a first century business lunch.)  This situation was reflected in 1 Corinthians 8:10.  Although the saints now knew that idol worship was strictly prohibited, there was a temptation to continue a basic part of the social life that they had enjoyed pre-conversion. Some had no problem with it but others certainly did.  Paul had to advise very carefully on how best to deal with these sensitivities.

And, though we might be shocked to think of a saint being drunk when attending the Lord’s Supper, (see 1 Cor 11:21) this wasn’t unusual.  Drunkenness was sometimes considered a part of a religious rite, especially in the worship of Dionysus, the discoverer of wine.  But this was in direct conflict with their new way of life and, as Paul made clear, it had to be dispensed with.

Each age and society has its distinct culture to be grappled with and if we’re not conscious of a personal struggle then alarm bells should be ringing. Our response to it should be fashioned by the unchanging Word of God and not the other way around.  Even so, what response is appropriate may not always be immediately apparent and so lengthy and prayerful consideration and taking advice from experienced brothers and sisters is always a good approach. 

There are at least three courses of action available to us:

·         Abandon - some cultural baggage may be best left abandoned entirely to better embrace the new culture of Christ or simply to avoid the risk of seriously stumbling a fellow saint.

·         Accept – it would be premature to conclude that everything in the world is automatically bad for us.  God has provided many things for us to enjoy and to rule out harmless activities could hamper our testimony.

·         Adapt – some culture can be adapted or harnessed to make it palatable and it can, with some finesse, even be turned into a witness opportunity.