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."
