Paul Raushenbush Interviews Elaine Pagels on "Revelations"

April 03, 2012

Combining visions, religion and politics in an apocalyptic drama, the Book of Revelation still captures our imagination 2,000 years after it was written by John of Patmos, a Jewish prophet and follower of Jesus.

[Ed. note: Originally published as "From Anxiety and Greed to Milk and Honey," in the February 2009 issues of Sojourners magazine, (800) 714-7474, www.sojo.net. Reprinted with permission.]

So far as I know, the Bible says nothing explicit about subprime loans and the financial implications of such risky economic practice. There is a great deal, nonetheless, that the Bible has to say about such a crisis as we now face. I will comment in turn on a biblical perspective of an analysis of the crisis and a biblical perspective for an alternative economic practice.

While the specifics of the current market collapse are peculiarly modern, biblical perspectives are pertinent because the fundamental issues of economics are constant from ancient to contemporary time, constants such as credit and debt, loans and interest, and the endless tension between haves and have-nots.
We may identify three dimensions of the theological-moral foundations of the current economic crisis: