Is the Financial Crisis of the U.S. Divine Retribution?: Providence in a Global Economy PDF Print E-mail
Written by Michael R. Walker   
Friday, 10 October 2008 20:49
In the U.S., investors are panicking, polls say the average working person believes we may be headed for another Great Depression, and those close to or in retirement are scrambling to stabilize the future of their fixed income in order to continue making ends meet.  Yet the woes of the U.S. economy appear to be good news to some of the "enemies" of the U.S.  In the Middle East, many appear to view the troubles of the U.S. economy as the latest in a series of events they describe as divine retribution.  According to the Financial Times, "Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, an influential hardline figure in Iran, has described the crisis as a punishment. 'As Americans are happy to see problems in Iran we are happy to see the US economy disturbed and problems extended to Europe,' he said recently. 'They see the results of their vicious acts and God is punishing them.'"

If financial crisis is a sign of divine retribution, however, God may be out to punish more than just the western nations, given that the rest of the world is hardly sheltered from the consequences of the problems in the U.S. and Europe, and this includes the Middle East.  After citing Abdullah Dardari, who guides Syria's economic policies as deputy prime minister and who links the current crisis in the U.S. with the cost of the war in Iraq, the Financial Times article continues:

"Overall, the assumption in Syria and elsewhere in the region is that the Middle East is relatively insulated from a US-led downturn.

"But most stock markets in the Middle East have suffered heavily in recent weeks with the exception of Iran, where the market, which has attracted little foreign investment, is up 20 per cent this year.

"Even if banking systems in the isolated states like Iran and Syria have escaped the financial turmoil, their economies will suffer from a recession in world markets.

"Tehran is already reeling from the fall in oil prices. In Syria, the economy could be affected by a drop in remittances from workers in Gulf Arab states and a decline in petrodollar investments."

It would appear, then, that it might be difficult even for God to use the financial markets to punish one nation's economy without punishing everyone else in the process.  If turning from sin is the proper response to God's judgment, perhaps the Ayatollah will consider joining us in repentance.
 

The Notebook

"Weight which listeners felt": Chadwick on Calvin's Preaching
"Calvin lay back on his bed thinking out what to say, but he could preach or lecture without notes and usually took with him only the Greek or Hebrew text of the Bible to expound. The words went flowing out of him. Every other week he preached every weekday and every Sunday he preached twice, that is 260 sermons in a year, with very numerous lectures in addition. Anyone who tries to speak knows that in a far lower frequency of utterance no one can talk sense all the time because no one, not even a person who takes so short a time for sleep as Calvin, has time to suck in enough to make good what goes out; not at least without an excess of repetition. But audiences were not bored. They were supposed to go to church but did not need to go to Calvin’s church and most preferred it. His sermons were not amusing nor anecdotal. They were not decked with the devices of eloquence; they did not come over with passion, though sometimes interesting through vehemence of denunciation; they had none of Luther’s fun and fewer flashes of original insight; but they thumped away, like a battery of hits that landed on target, with clarity of thought, style, and arrangement, reinforced by the manifest conviction of truth in the speaker. No witness said that he had a musical voice. It was weight which listeners felt." Owen Chadwick, The Early Reformation on the Continent. Oxford, 2001, pp. 195-6.