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The Role and Response of the Presbyterian Church (USA)
A while back I was poking about online and came across a calculator that purported to reveal where my income stacks up compared to everyone else. I had done something similar a couple of times and I accept that the vast majority of people in the world do not do as well as I. So, with some confidence I plugged in an approximate of my annual income. Then came the words “Your income places you in the top 0.01 % of the worlds population. YOU ARE PART OF THE 1%. No, no I must have misunderstood. I plugged in an approximation of my monthly income – maybe this is what they mean. Now I am told “Your income is lower than 99% of the world’s population. YOU ARE AMONG THE POOREST OF THE POOR. Now I was totally confused. I know that I am far from the poorest. But I want to identify with the 99%, not the 1%. What a dilemma.
Today in our plenary session Hunter Farrell, Director of Mission for the Presbyterian Church (USA) told us that the denomination is the richest Christian denomination per capita in the world. Here are those words again– THIS MAKES US THE CHURCH OF THE 1%.
Hunter went on to say that when Presbyterian Missionaries first went to the Congo more that 100 years ago, within a few months they were advocating against the rubber trade. The impact of rubber plantations in the Congo upon the people and the environment motivated them to try to get Christians to withdraw their support for such enterprises. Today we are still engaged in such advocacy, calling for sustainable practices, an end to the exploitation of the environment and end to the exploitation of people.
But, here is the uncomfortable truth. Many of the executives of offending corporations attend Presbyterian Churches. What does this imply about how we live out the call of faith? How do we walk in faith with both the poor and the billionaire CEO?