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Modern Oxen
November 25, 2005 - 12:31 p.m.

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So now I'm finished with my application for ordination...and I'm turning to the pile of papers I have to write.

My first will be for ethics, and the question is - "Can a Christian live in the world?" If you really try to follow everything Our Lord (not to mention the prophets and Torah) tells us to do, you'd have to live well outside of western society.

We have an ugly fact to face - our entire system is built on oppression of the poor and exploitation of other cultures. For instance, look down...your shoes were probably made in a South-East Asian sweat shop. You can afford to get a new pair every couple years only because someone is working for peanuts on the other side of the world, and working for a company whose profits are not invested or spent in the community in which the shoes are made.

Is this your fault? Should you be buying those shoes, and can you afford not to? These are questions of responsibility that a lot of Christians don't like to ponder. We like the spreading the Word part, and we sure do like going to church (well...some of us) and boy do we like it when the Bible says something that we can turn into hatred and prejudice...there's nothing a self-righteous Christian likes better than to be "right" at someone else's expense. But actually living as Our Lord would have us live? Not so easy.

My initial precis...


"When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. If the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but not restrained it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner shall also be put to death."

Exodus 21:28-29

The Old Testament, Exodus in particular, has a great deal to say about the behaviour and control of oxen. While livestock might not be an obvious jumping off point for a discussion of ethics, it is when placed in critical context. The ox was, for ancient Israelites, a repository of wealth and a generator of income (not to mention a symbol of status). A reasonable modern financial comparison, for the average person, would be a stock portfolio or RRSP. These financial tools, like the ox, are ways of both storing wealth and making wealth generate income.

The law quoted above reflects the reality of life lived among livestock � they can be dangerous, even deadly, when allowed to roam freely. The same can be said of modern investments, or rather of the companies which make up a stock portfolio or retirement plan. Many of the corporations in which we invest work internationally, well beyond our control and even our knowledge. Most North Americans were shocked to hear the dismal conditions in which clothing manufacturers work, or the miniscule profits paid to most coffee growers, yet many of us hold investments in corporations that profit by such practices. We are like the owner of the oxen, who has not paid adequate attention and has let his animal stray into harming his neighbour.

The average investor can hardly be blamed. Personally, I haven't the time or financial acumen to calculate how many shares of what are included in my IRA (even with my meagre little portion) let alone track down information about business practices and economic impact. I have invested with a company that claims to avoid irresponsible and abusive businesses, but here I am trusting both the integrity and ability of a fund manager I've never met. Certainly Nike doesn't send its shareholders letters boasting that their shoes are made by children working in lousy conditions for a pittance of pay, yet that turns out to be the case. That said, we are now more aware of the potential for abuse (both abroad and at home) that is part of the very nature of corporations. Could we now be owners of an ox that is accustomed to gore? Should we be held responsible as owners of an acknowledged dangerous animal?

The question is brought into intense focus by the creation narrative and an assumption that underlies the entirety of Torah, including the above quoted passage. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." If we are created in God's image, then to abuse a fellow human is to abuse the image of God. To exploit a fellow human is to exploit the image of God. Any disregard we show for the welfare of other people in favour of our own financial well-being is disregard for God.
As Christians we appropriate Torah as our own and interpret it through the person of Jesus. It serves as the bedrock for many of our moral choices. Given that, can a Christian invest in the capitalist system, or even live in its context, without fundamentally compromising his or her relationship both with God and creation?

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