THE LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION

Interfaith Dialogue Engaging Structural Greed Today

2011 SEPTEMBER 25-30 | SABAH, MALAYSIA

CONFERENCE FINDINGS

Muslims and Christians Engaging Structural Greed Today

Introduction

Meeting and sharing in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, a city rich in cultural and religious diversity, from 25-30 September 2011, we, forty-three Muslims and Christians from various traditions and ten countries, have journeyed together in dialogue on the theme of “Engaging Structural Greed Today.” Through this invaluable process of listening, critical self-discernment and the building of trust, we, Muslims and Christians, have come to affirm our common humanity. We are all servants of God and recognize in one another our common vulnerability in the face of unprecedented threats to human and ecological well-being and survival. The conference was held under the auspices of the Lutheran World Federation and hosted by Sabah Theological Seminary.

We have rediscovered and reclaimed common values in the quranic and biblical traditions to strive toward a common understanding, and deepened our faiths together in order to challenge structural greed today.

Today, greed has become normalized and institutionalized in the neoliberal structures of money and property and in the very ways in which we organize our economies for consumption, production and distribution. Many areas of life, including the ecological commons, have been captured by a market system that excludes the poor and concentrates wealth in the hands of a few. Amid numerous crises since the global financial and economic implosion of 2008, many people around the world feel that they live in a world of escalating scarcity, further fomenting insecurity, distrust and fear, which divides brothers and sisters, Muslims and Christians.

We confess our entanglement and complicity in the structures of greed. At the same time, as people of faith who believe in a just and compassionate God, and through harnessing our abundant ethical, religious and spiritual resources, we, Muslims and Christians, who together constitute more than two-thirds of humanity, have an urgent and mutual task to reflect on, namely to resist clear aspects of the prevailing economic system that are corrupting Muslim and Christian worldviews. Such corruption is destroying the personal, social, communal and ecological fabric of life.

The Economy

Both Muslims and Christians agree that the mainstream definition and concept of the economy do not explain the basic relationship between human labor and creativity and the abundant natural and cultural resources given by God. Muslims and Christians view the economy as a system of organizing and providing for human well-being and livelihood. Following this definition, we envision an economy that:

• Promotes justice and equity in the personal, social, communal and ecological spheres and rejects the idea of the excessive accumulation of wealth or unfair production with the mere purpose of accumulation
• Promotes the idea of organizing common goods as part of the stewardship of humankind
• Is circulative and redistributive rather than accumulative
• Reembeds the market within society, taking into account the larger perspective of organizing human livelihood in connection to society, community and nature.

Scarcity, Abundance and Stewardship

In Islam, a debilitating form of scarcity transpires within the human subject whenever the fear of scarcity and destitution harm the fundamental trust in a merciful God who draws us to an abundant creation. For Christianity, a scarcity of faith in divine activity hampers one’s awareness of a graceful and loving God who desires abundance in a broken world. Whenever economics is interpreted as the work of managing scarcity, then the core Muslim and Christian value of understanding the world as a site of potential and actual abundance is compromised. In this way, the essential question of internal faith, namely whether Muslims and Christians trust a just and loving God where both are called as stewards of the world, is congruent with the external universe.

True to both Islam and Christianity—from the root of their creation accounts to the fundamental relationships between God and one another—human beings are to be responsible stewards of a loving and just God. Stewardship (Khilafah) is the compassionate duty of promoting the just allocation of abundant resources through generous giving. Surplus is a blessing from God and a reward for work, and is the product of generosity (Genesis 1:27; Ibrahim 34). True of faith or action: If we sow generously then we reap generously. The distinction between personal interest and the common good is relational.

Greed as a form of structural impoverishment and social depravity is an impediment to the generous giving that should define human economic activity. Greed is a form of debilitation whenever it ruptures the common good in favor of personal interest. Systemic structures of greed are grounded in this rupture, so that greed is understood to be a virtue, and generosity a naïve value of the lesser equipped. But this rupture and reversion is contrary to the shared core of the Muslim and Christian value of the human being in relation to God and society.

The Commons

Muslims and Christians share the belief that God the creator has lovingly provided for everything that is needed for all human beings to live in dignity: the social, ecological and cultural commons. In particular, both Muslim and Christian teachings view land, water and fire [energy] and other forms of natural resources as gifts from God that cannot be privatized, commodified nor used for accumulation. Today, greed within economic structures and egoism in economic relationships have resulted in the widespread degradation of forests, bodies of water and the atmosphere—the bases for sustenance—as well as the withholding of natural and cultural (e.g., knowledge) resources especially from people living in poverty.

Our sacred scriptures teach us that all human beings ought to benefit equitably from the use of the commons. The commons may be defined as referring to the underlying backdrop of God- given natural and cultural wealth, which we all share and depend on, in order to ensure the sustainability and flourishing of our livelihoods. At the same time, all human beings, as stewards of creation and persons-in-community, have a responsibility for protecting and participating in the management of the commons for the shared good. Now, more than ever, there is a need to return to a symbiotic relationship between culture and nature in the way we organize our livelihoods.

On Trust

In the current climate of suspicion, there is an urgent need to build trust between East and West, between Muslims and Christians, based on our shared humanity and our shared values. In order to build trust, our financial, economic, legal and political mechanisms must be made objectively trustworthy. This implies that they guarantee human dignity above all and, in a spirit of accountability and responsibility, are geared toward the common good. Building trust requires relational transparency as well as clear procedures and mechanisms to promote transparency in institutions and structures. It also requires ongoing dialogue to promote mutual respect and conviviality between individuals and communities. If we, Christians and Muslims, trust one another, then we can work together on tackling issues of “common-life” concern.

On Resistance and Transformation

As Muslims and Christians, we recognize the grave challenges that neoliberal economic structures pose to us as people and communities of faith. Muslims and Christians must resist and reverse the privatization of the commons. It follows that our collective response to these challenges must be interreligious in nature, drawing strength from the rich heritage of each religion as much as from the shared values of both religions. In other words, since the problem of structural greed does not distinguish between different religions, our resistance must transcend and rise above religious differences.

For our resistance to be genuine, resilient and sustainable, it must take place both at the personal as well as at the communal, societal, national and global levels. Our resistance must take into account local specificities and needs, and subsequently offer creative responses to local grievances and problems.

With this framework in mind, we recommend that Muslims and Christians take the following action:

• Religious leaders should be aware of and become actively involved in socioeconomic matters affecting their communities, so that they may respond wisely and collaboratively to the social and economic challenges confronting society today.
• Form workshops in local communities for the purpose of ongoing dialogue on the challenges of structural greed today.
• Design and develop alternative curricula that include: (i) a critical examination of key terms and concepts that underpin mainstream economics, for instance “money, wealth, property, work, market, growth etc.” and, (ii) a comparative study of alternative streams of economic thought, that includes close readings of key economic texts available in the Islamic, Christian and Eastern intellectual traditions.
• Intentionally develop a shared understanding of the “commons” in their communities through community forums, workshops, youth development programs and interfaith dialogue.
• Build a broad alliance between Muslims and Christians in their communities for joint advocacy efforts that address major social ills arising from structural greed (homelessness, hunger, unemployment, etc).
• Set up local initiatives to build a solidarity economy that encompasses three distinct aspects: (a) the common goods (land, mineral resources, forest, etc.), (b) collective goods (local markets, cooperatives/mutual guarantee associations, manufactured products of community enterprises, local currency, microfinance), and (c) private goods and services (household products, professional services).
• Establish a socially responsible system of financial intermediation that encourages the flow of savings and investments from households and institutions to socially responsible enterprises or social enterprises.
• Form a self-reliant community through alternative energy generation e.g., wind, solar, bio-mass, etc.
• Develop an integrated local economy, which has a social integration of all households within the community in their capacities as producers, investors, distributors and consumers in a circulatory and redistributive economy.
• Provide life-long learning opportunities or continuing education for Muslims and Christians working together toward the common good.

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
30 September 2011

Printable copy (PDF) of statement may be downloaded from the LWF website:
http://www.lutheranworld.org/lwf/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/DTS-KotaKinabalu2011_FinalDoc.pdf

Related pages:

• NEWS: “Muslims and Christians face challenge of structural greed”, 20 October 2011
• Chandra Muzaffar. “God or greed? A Muslim view.” 27 September 2011.
• “A Buddhist-Christian Common Word on Structural Greed”. 17 September 2010.

See also:

• Ulrich Duchrow, “Why Capitalism is Death-bound and How People Can Opt for Life: A Theological Proposal to Economists”, 25 March 2011