N.T. Wright on the economic crisis

I've been meaning to post something about third-world debt relief for some time, ever since I read N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope earlier this year, and was struck by the way he highlights debt relief as an issue that those who hope for and work for the Kingdom of God should be focused on. I'm not sure I have much to say about it right now ... but here are a few of the good bishop's words in the House of Lords yesterday, courtesy of Empire Remixed (HT Beth and Mike):

Now, my Lords, whenever I, and others, have spoken about these things in the past, we have faced a chorus of excuses telling us that we don’t understand how the world works, that people who borrow money must learn that they have to pay it back, that the borrowers were wicked or irresponsible or incompetent, and that any debt relief will only be siphoned off to fund yet more extravagance on the part of the few. But recent events have blown this excuse clean out of the water. Governments, including our own, are bailing out banks, and at least one bank is being refloated in such a way as to continue unchecked with large bonuses and shareholder payouts. ... The very rich are doing for the very rich what they have refused to do for the very poor....

My Lords, we should not try to return to ‘business as usual’. It is business as usual which has got us into the mess. What we need is a paradigm shift. ... Behind the sudden new squeals for help from the very rich we must listen to the long-term cries from the very poor.

I like his parting shot:

My Lords, I hope in years to come we will look back to this moment not as a disaster followed by a muddle, but as a time of fresh vision and bold action which made a real, lasting difference both globally and locally.

I'm not sure how much confidence I have in governments not to follow the disaster with a muddle, but I do think having the failures of the economic doctrines pursued over the past few decade splashed across the headlines day after day offers the opportunity to rethink some of our basic assumptions about money, wealth and how we manage that business of living "in the world but not of the world."