Reformed faith and economic justice

Manila, March 1995

The cry of the people
The prevailing economic situation and its paradoxes
Coming to terms with reality
A need of analysis
Witness of faith
Pathways through the desert to new life
Recommendations

An Asian regional consultation on the theme "Reformed faith and economic justice" was convened by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in preparation for the 23rd general council (Debrecen 1997). Economic, social, political and theological aspects of the theme were studied from an Asian perspective. This working paper is a summary of the Bible studies, lectures, panel discussions and working groups.¹

The cry of the people

Asian nations are living through a dramatic and contradictory moment in their history. A new economic order is emerging in which Asia plays a major role, with intensified trade and financial dealings in most Asian countries. For a few, the new economic order means wealth and prosperity, but for the majority of people in Asia, things are not so good. This tension between the well-off and the have-nots cannot be hidden: it appears clearly in everyday life.

Three elements characterize the new situation.

A new division of labour

Economic growth in most Asian nations means a new division of labour. The big transnational corporations of the newly industrializing countries (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore), Japan and the western nations are penetrating the life of the other Asian countries, taking power in the markets and expanding them, and making highly profitable investments. Measured by the usual indicators, it seems that an expanding economy should create wellbeing for all, but this is not the case. The wealth created benefits only a minority.

People from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and other less developed Asian countries feel obliged to migrate in search of employment opportunities they do not find at home. These migrant workers are mistreated and abused in the countries where they work. Most often they receive no legal or political protection. But they have no alternative, because in their home countries they have no jobs. So they are trapped between exclusion and exploitation. For these people, and for others who are with them at the bottom in the newly industrializing nations, the social costs of the "Asian miracle" are too high.

Finance capital

Money has become the most important thing in Asian economies. The power of the yen (more than the US dollar!) is expanding. There is a lot of speculation in financial markets. It is true that some participate and lose; but others make a lot of profit.

Financial capital, essentially international, is gaining control over the economic life and destiny of Asian peoples. This has the implicit support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other institutions like the World Bank which try to safeguard the financial environment in the interests of financial capital. These institutions shape the economic policies of Asian countries through deregulation and structural adjustment programmes, liberalization of markets, fiscal austerity (which weighs mostly on the less wealthy), privatization and other neoliberal prescriptions.

Lifestyles are also affected. People begin to believe that money can solve everything. Money gives access to the market and allows us to buy most goods. Asian nations feel compelled to generate more foreign exchange, hoping that in this way they may be able to resolve all their problems. The growing influence of money leads to a commodification of life.

Unfortunately, this path is damaging the life of most of the people. Those who have few financial resources - the landless, the disabled, women and children, the unskilled workers, the underemployed and the unemployed - are excluded by the prevailing economic model. Nature also suffers. Forests are denuded and timber exported to generate foreign exchange. Subsistence farming is dismantled in order to give way to agribusiness and cash crops for export.

Media

The media have become a very important instrument of the market and are gaining more and more influence. Consumerism is growing, and changing values and attitudes among Asian peoples. Commercial advertisement is used to create artificial needs. Traditional cultures are suffering from the invasion of egoistic individualism, so characteristic of capitalist societies, and so different from the communal values of traditional Asian cultures. This trend undermines the close-knit family structure of Asian countries.

People are torn: they want to respect the values of their culture, but the economic model leads them to accept the values of the market, which in most cases do not coincide with their original cultural values. Economic injustice generates cultural injustice, because people's cultures are not respected.

The prevailing economic situation and its paradoxes

The many paradoxes experienced by Asian nations include

1. increasing wealth and increasing poverty on the local, national and international levels
2. the strong impact of new technologies which create new social habits, but coexist with poverty (lack of food, shelter and care for the weak), deterioration of the land and agricultural activities of the people, unemployment, growth of joblessness, etc.
3. the affluence of wealthy minorities and growing scarcity for the majority of people
4. less interpersonal communication among human beings, at the same time as mass media invades most of the sectors of social life
5. growth in socioeconomic and political power and growth of ecological disturbances: there is no evidence that those with power want to stop the destruction of the environment
6. democracy without people's participation.

In sum, the rich and powerful are getting more and more power over the poor.

Most often, government policies are not enough to protect the environment from the degradation and destruction caused by this kind of development. Governments make bad decisions because they are coopted by foreign capital. In one of the provinces in the Philippines, for instance, there was a proposal for an electro-generator plant to be installed by a foreign corporation. Objections were raised by the people, who demanded that provision should be made to maintain the watersheds surrounding the lakes where the plant was to be installed. However, after a short period of negotiations, the government granted permission to the foreign corporation, ignoring the appeal made by the people, with the result that the lakes around the plant are drying up. Such "development programmes" underdevelop countries, both socially and environmentally.

In the early stages of development, governments themselves make investments but fails to count the cost of the process. A new economic concept and outlook is necessary. Development must be achieved, but not at any price. It must be sustainable development. It must provide security and support to the most underprivileged people in society.

Another paradox is related to the meaning of economics. In the Chinese and Korean languages, the meaning of economics is very clear: Kyung Je economics indicates the norm of economic life. It concerns both individual and communal life. It is about the good of life that must be characteristic of both human beings and nature. With the new economic trends that are imposed on Asian peoples today, the whole meaning has become distorted because life-giving norms have turned into life-destroying norms.

This is in contradiction to the basic affirmations of the Christian and Reformed faith.

The first affirmation is related to the understanding of creation. In the biblical creation stories there is a continuity of existence in life. No sharp break can be made between human and non-human forms of life. Those who have the awareness and self-awareness of human life must care for the other forms of existence. Care of the environment is an indication of caring for oneself.

The second affirmation is the understanding that we are stewards of creation. It is a privilege that God has given to human beings, and it is a duty of men and women to respond to this privilege.

To take care of life and to be stewards in this world should be the norm of life.

Economics must be shaped by taking into account these basic affirmations. However, human beings are not taking their responsibility seriously. For example, in the economic growth of the "Asian tigers" (including Japan) over the last 30 years there has been an increase in pollution. At one time in these countries, there was clear water. But at present water is unfit for drinking or swimming. The deterioration of the environment also affects the air.

In Taiwan, due to water pollution, drinking water has to be bought. The contracts that the government has made with those who sell drinking water are suspected of corruption. There is a chain of relationships between the prevailing economic model, environmental damage and moral corruption.

We see the same when we examine the relationships between prevailing economic trends in the region with the growth of unemployment in many countries, lack of social security and breakdown of family structure.

In some countries like India, population control is imposed in order to counter conditions which - it is said - negatively affect economic growth. However, these measures harmfully influence the social security provided by large families in India.

As Asian Christians, we are convinced that the realization of economic justice must also conform to the true meaning of economic peace. Both Koreans and Chinese have their own interpretation of the word peace, which happens when grain is provided for human beings on the basis of equality and justice. Peace (Shalom in Hebrew, Shanti in Hindi) means that human life is integrated and whole when every creature of God receives an equal share of sustenance.

Christians, and Alliance churches in particular, should uncouple themselves from mainstream economics. They should resist being swallowed up by an individualistic and acquisitive culture. They should reflect on how their lifestyle can witness to a different orientation than the consumerism that is enchanting Asian peoples today.

Our churches inherit a rich tradition, characterized by people's participation, through which it is possible to reach mutual agreements in decision-making. This Reformed tradition has influenced social, political and economic life in the past, promoting democracy and encouraging peoples of many nations to become responsible for their actions. It brought people to perceive the importance of covenants and contracts.

This fundamental orientation of the Reformed faith can also make great contributions today, helping, for example, to correct economic systems which are dominated by male interests. It is imperative to develop a gender sensitivity, allowing women to participate in economic life on an equal footing with men.

Coming to terms with reality

The economic situation in Asia shows great dynamism. Since the beginning of the 1980s, some Asian nations have experienced a impressive economic growth. However, this process is not homogeneous; it is characterized by much unevenness, both among nations and in each country. The "Asian Tigers" (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) followed the orientation given by Japan, taking advantage of some of the opportunities offered by modernization and globalization. New tigers also followed this path (Indonesia, Thailand), and more recently other tigers have appeared (China, whose performance in economic growth is remarkable in spite of its imbalances, and the Philippines, which began to increase its GNP in 1994). A "new economic policy" has been launched in India.

Asian people live this process in agony and with many expectations.

However, behind the bright spots there are vast zones of shadow. During this consultation, we were exposed to some of them. Peasants not far from Manila live below the poverty line. Young people working in the Export Processing Zone of Cavite are very soon exhausted by hard labour. Thousands struggle to remain alive in the inhuman conditions of the "garbage mountains", very near to places where a few privileged live in affluence. Everywhere women are exploited.

In all of our countries, there is a contradiction between economic growth and poverty that cannot be ignored. Growth brings gains to a handful of men and women, who celebrate globalization and modernization. But these people coexist with others who are poor: 70-80% of the world's poor live in Asia! Poverty is manifested in massive underemployment and unemployment and in the painful exclusion of hundreds of millions of Asians. These people pay the high social cost imposed by the programmes of special economic adjustment required by the IMF and the World Bank. Those who have nothing, except their own impoverished lives, pay for the others. Through their sacrifice they contribute to the payment of the interest on the debts of their countries.

Sacrifice is also imposed on the environment, which is being polluted and damaged.

Human costs, social costs, ecological costs are the other side of the Asian coin: hand in hand go growth and poverty, the insolent wealth of the few and the misery of the many.

What to some seems to be an indisputable natural reality, that is, the market (especially the global modern market), is a result of human engineering. It has been created by men and women, but it is not controlled by them. It has been developed for the sake of growth, but only a minority enjoy its benefits.

This perverse trend turns reality on its head. To have becomes more important than to be. Money (a symbol of exchange value) becomes the highest value, even higher than life itself. This inversion, in which economics is not understood as necessary for life and at the service of life, but which turns the whole world into a means, an instrument for making more money, is incompatible with the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth: nobody can serve two masters (Luke 16.3).

Alliance churches, like other churches and other religions, experience the pressures and effects of this contradictory situation. What to do? How to carry out Christian mission? How to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ in these lands where Christians are so few? How to be the "yeast in the dough" and "the salt of the earth"? How to follow the movement of the Holy Spirit, who is freedom (2 Cor 3.17) and "renews the face of the earth" (Ps 104.30)? How to live in a spirit of solidarity?

Part of the Reformed tradition has been aware of the relativity and limitations of the economic trends that led to the present system. Think of Calvin, Beza, and Knox in the 16th century, and of Karl Barth, Josef L Hromádka and others in our own times. Other Reformed thinkers (theologians, political philosophers, economists, lawyers) contributed decisively to the system. A kind of social Darwinism received some theological support. We need to revisit and reinterpret our tradition. Only then will our churches become more worthy of trust by the Asian people.

A need of analysis

Few among the affluent have any concern for the underprivileged. We thank God for the exceptions who witness to a sense of social responsibility. But most Asian countries, bewitched by globalization and modernization, are disintegrating socially.

Injustice is created by human greed (especially among most of the well-off) and the logic of the market. The wishes of the few have no limits. They become wants which are magically transformed into "needs". Advertising plays a decisive role in this process. Consumption becomes a high imperative, not only for the rich, but also for the poor, motivated by the mimetic wish which follows the example of the powerful and successful. The irrational rationality of the prevailing system generates great socioeconomic imbalances, and disqualifies and denaturalizes traditional people's cultures.

Many people, in Thailand and other countries, mortgage their lands or sell them. They go to towns, they become uprooted, they start to lose their traditions and identities. Little by little, individualism replaces their sense of community life, so pre-eminent for Asian peoples. A culture of violence and resentment takes over their existence.

Their salaries, typically, are low. But they have to pay prices which increase all the time, reaching in some cases the level of developed countries. The land they have sold is appropriated by a few, who speculate on its value.

Lifestyles change. Through the media, the habits, assumptions, values and expectations of the world ruling class (mainly in the nations of the developed north) are presented as a model to be imitated. The acceptable status (which, if people have not yet reached it, appears as a goal to be achieved) is one of conspicuous consumption.

One of the consequences is a low level of savings (except in Japan and South Korea), which motivates governments to open as much as they can the borders of their nations to foreign investments. But money can go out as fast as it comes in. This type of financial capital will move to more secure financial locations as soon as signs of danger or instability appear. This path of economic growth creates dependency and vulnerability.

For those who support the "free global market", however, this seems to be the best of all possible worlds. "The system works," they say. So it is possible to say that we witness a mystification of the market. But the brilliant appearance of the global market cannot hide the other side of reality. The "invisible hand" is not producing equality for all. And the great majority who are poor are condemned by it under the present systemic organization. Certainly the new international commercial order envisaged by the World Trade Organization (WTO) is not designed for the underprivileged.

It is necessary to reform and reformulate the international economic order. It works for the benefit of the few, and is protected by systemic agents who monopolize wealth, power and decision-making. The institutions which safeguard it (the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO) have no interest in resolving the problems of poverty and environmental deterioration. Their aim is to save "the free market". They impose policies on nations and peoples without being accountable to anyone but themselves, which is neither right nor fair.

What transformations are needed? How to achieve them? How to formulate alternatives which make more room for justice than in the present order?

The system and the systemic agents are challenged by anti-systemic movements, which try to introduce greater doses of rationality against the irrationality of the system. Alliance churches can join their efforts with those who are trying to improve justice in these ways. Some of them present interesting alternatives.

Women's movements strive for inclusion and participation (the system is exclusive and selective). Other movements orient their efforts towards the defence of the environment, aiming at sustainable development.

In South Korea and in India small communities have come into being, trying to build up new lifestyles, affirming human rights as the highest value, affirming cultures that manifest care and attention in interpersonal relationships.

The Church of North India has reformulated mission in a holistic vision that is neither exclusive nor repeats the conquering ways of Christian mission in the past: "church and community in search of justice, peace and the integrity of creation".

Witness of faith

Christians in Asia are moved to confess their faith and to live in hope by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. A man who through his words and deeds and self-giving love revealed the life of God. A man who gracefully resisted injustice, who was indignant when he saw life perverted. A man who proclaimed the kingdom of God becoming present among us - a kingdom of justice promised to the poor, to those who are persecuted for the sake of justice, and to those who receive it as children, a kingdom where the excluded have a place, and into which prostitutes and tax collectors go ahead of the pious and the religiously expert.

Jesus is the Christ, the messiah, whose faith we are called to share. In Jesus Christ we see the reality of God, not "as the supreme will-to-power over others, but the supreme will-to-community in which power and life are shared."

The just Jesus redeems and justifies us. We are liberated by his saving work to repent of our complicity with the system and, changing our life, to become coworkers with God in the liberation of our fellow human beings and in safeguarding creation. As the Israelites were liberated from slavery in Egypt and led through the desert to a land where they were commanded to live justly, so we are liberated from the prevailing order and spirit of the world to strive for justice and to enhance the life of all creation.

As Paul said to the Christians in Rome, we should not be conformed to this world, but should be transformed by the renewal of our minds, so that we may see what is God's will, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12.1-2).

There is always a danger that we spiritualize this understanding of Christian discipleship. When Jesus prays for his followers in John 17, he says that they do not belong to the world, but are in the world: he does not ask the Father to take them out of the world. There is no question of our withdrawing from the world. We are called to proclaim the sovereignty of God, the lordship of Jesus Christ and the liberty of the Holy Spirit in the tension of our communities with the powers and principalities, the rulers and authorities of the world (Col 2.15).We are called, not to stand looking up towards heaven (Acts 1.11), but to follow Jesus in the path of history, trying to be faithful to the justice of the kingdom in a world of injustice. We are called, not to run away from historical challenges, but to face them in the power of the Spirit with faith, hope and love.

Faith moves us to act with courage. Hope keeps us from losing vision. Love is not compatible with fear (1 John 4.18). However closed to change the world order may seem to be, we remember God's promise: "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev 21.5).

There are structures in our nations which condition people to submit, which inhibit them from making a firm commitment to justice in thought and action. Competitiveness requires competence and knowledge, but also aggression. It leaves no place for solidarity or communion. "The other" cannot be my neighbour. Highly selective educational structures hinder the poor from developing their capacities. Remnants of feudal structures and mentalities encourage "clientelism". Cases of bribery and corruption multiply and need to be denounced. Services are privatized, social needs are commodified, market mechanisms exploit the poor and leave them unprotected and defenceless.

Our churches can provide

• cultivation of the Christian faith through renewed Bible study; new liturgies; new songs and audiovisual materials.
• witness (martyria) based on "the power of love", as instanced by Chinese Christians during the cultural revolution.
• holistic interpretation of socioeconomic realities, aimed at breaking the insularity of a system which strives to become autonomous and to submit the whole of life to the imperatives of the market.
• creation of cooperatives, as promoted by the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK), for example. not only to defend the economic interests of the people, but also to promote mutual spiritual encouragement, as an expression of fellowship (koinonia).

Pathways through the desert to new life

After the liberating experiences of the struggles for independence from the colonial yoke, hopes were high that it would be possible to build societies in Asia in which poverty would be overcome and economic justice and democratic freedom prevail. Today many of these hopes have vanished. Members of the older generation see their children dismissing their dreams of a new society in favour of an individualist and consumerist lifestyle, ignoring the call for solidarity with those who are excluded. Those who remember the goals of the liberation struggles feel that their peoples have lost their way in the desert. They may even start wondering whether there is a pathway toward a just society at all. Is it worth continuing the search, or are we just chasing a mirage? Should we just adjust our minds to a faulty but unfixable reality, and content ourselves with minor improvements and charitable care for some of the victims?

Our faith does not allow us to bury our hopes. Hearing the cries of the victims, seeing the destruction of the environment and the destitution of people caused by the present system, we realize that we do not want to surrender. We do not want a recolonization of Asian countries, through TNCs and under the remote control of IMF, World Bank and WTO with the cooperation of our local élites. We do not want our desires to be manipulated. We do not want to be hooked up to western lifestyles at the cost of our cultural identity. We want to search for pathways to an alternative, inclusive and participatory society. On this journey we need signs of hope and orientation, stories from others who are on the same quest, and spiritual sources to sustain us.

The builders of today's Babel have illusions about their power, as so many empire-builders before them. The economic order presents itself in religious terms, demanding our loyalty and worship. Mammon behaves like a divine power, but it remains an imitation, able to destroy life, but not to create it or restore it. The attempt at the total commodification of nature and human life goes so much against the purposes of God in creation and redemption that both nature and human beings rebel. Eco-catastrophes and the various forms of human resistance indicate that there are limits to the capacities of the system to bring all life under its control.

Under the impact of climate change, of the poisoning of the food chain, of pollution of water and air, of disappearing species and eroding biodiversity, people realize that their lifeworld is threatened. Eco-movements spring up to prevent the logic of unlimited competition from turning the whole planet into a desert.

People discover the limits of the market when they no longer have the power to buy, and turn to the solidarity of a sharing community as an alternative. In this connection, it becomes important to learn from those who uphold traditional values and practices of sharing, mutual service, and cooperation instead of competition. We find this among indigenous peoples, in rural communities and even springing up in urban neighbourhoods.

We have no illusions about the corrosive power of modern individualism. We know that under today's conditions cooperative efforts are much more vulnerable than in traditional society because individuals can opt out. But we dismiss the idea that such values should be given up as historically obsolete. It is part of our calling as Christians to renew them under new social conditions and to correct those tendencies in the Reformed tradition which have contributed to their neglect. They are in accordance with God's will who has created us, male and female, in the image of God (Gen 1.27) and called us to share the earth and not to compete for its resources at the expense of others.

That these are not just abstract moral ideals, but part of our created existence, becomes visible in the fact that in spite of the dominant role of the logic of capital human beings are still led in many aspects of their life by other motives than the calculation of gain. That is true even for economic activities, many of which are still need-oriented and not profit-oriented. Businessmen and bankers are not the only actors in the economic system. We all are, and many economic activities of provision for material needs may even be unpaid, and motives of love, compassion, justice, environmental concern and simple good sense may influence or even determine many of our economic decisions.

Then we have to reconsider a doctrinal overemphasis on human sinfulness, which has been exploited by capitalist ideology. In the Reformed tradition the law of God is not merely a mirror to show us our sin, but a guide to practising a new life in gratitude for God's gracious gifts in accordance with his will (Calvin's "third use" of the law). In this respect we may still learn from Calvin as a constructive revolutionary.

We find further resources of resistance in certain life-enhancing aspects of the religious and cultural traditions of Asia. We think of the traditions of sharing in tribal and rural communities, supported by popular religion; the Buddhist economy of self-emptying, the Islamic economy of justice, the Hindu (swadeshi) economy of enough, and the Confucian economy of people's security; and secular traditions of solidarity, cultural wisdom, indigenous knowledge, and ecological prudence.

We believe that the biblical message of God's covenant with the earth and all that lives on it and his covenant with the people in need of liberation embraces all that is life-enhancing and liberating in those traditions. We want to correct an exclusively church-centred use of the idea of covenant and reaffirm its civic use, as Reformed Christians in Scotland and elsewhere in the 16th century understood when they accepted responsibility for economic justice and democratic rights. We have to renew this tradition, affirming in our social, economic and political praxis that God allies with his creation and with us humans against the destructive forces that threaten life.

Women's movements, ecological movements, tribal movements, Dalit movements, peasant movements, people-controlled NGOs, people's alliances, networks and coalitions, and citizen's organizations are struggling against many odds and have made their impact.

• The Citizen's Coalition in Mindanao succeeded through timely intervention to thwart the plans of TNCs supported by the local government to establish factories for processing toxic waste to be imported from western countries.
• Peasants in India are fighting the TNC giant Cargill. A coalition of forces has driven out Cargill from a planned project in western India.
• Fish workers in coalition with others have protested nationwide against joint ventures in high-tech deep sea fishing.
• The World Bank had to withdraw its support of the big dam project in the Narmada valley in India. This may inspire people's movements elsewhere in their critique of similar damaging projects.
• In South Korea the Citizen's Coalition for Economic Justice is fighting economic corruption and speculation, environmental destruction and discrimination of migrant workers. It supported the Korean farmers in their opposition to the GATT treaty.

In all these movements we see people refusing to be passive victims and becoming active subjects in defence of their own rights. We also see the importance of links with others on various levels, local, national and global. Access to information, availability of scientific expertise, democratic space and mobilization of support are crucial.

In tracing the footprints of hope, we see a righteous role for government. We need to push our governments to legislate for the rights of the poor, the weak and the workers, against monopoly, and for commutative and distributive justice. We acknowledge that national legislation is not sufficient to achieve economic justice, and that we also need international legislation on the international level. This is a tricky business. Arguments by the developed countries for the Blue Round and the Green Round have a transparently ideological character. If the same labour or environmental standards are imposed on developed and developing countries, the damage to the latter will be devastating. This threat is a challenge to an international solidarity that will seek benefits for the workers in each country and economic stability in the developing countries.

From the biblical message we learn a lifestyle which is guided by concrete ethical criteria: self-sharing, other-regarding, community-forming love. It means living together in harmony and communion with every other creature in the common household of God. We are called to be God's stewards, to keep human life human and to maintain ecological integrity.

If we go back to the Old Testament, we find in Leviticus 25 a proposal for the "year of the jubilee". Land should be respected: after six years of cultivation it should rest. The seventh year was foreseen as a sabbath, a year of solemn rest for the land. But after seven times seven years, that is, after forty-nine years, the fiftieth year was a time for the liberation of slaves. Debts also would be forgiven so that future generations would be free of inherited debts. Both nature and society must be cyclically reformed. Following this vision, churches could and should appeal to those who have amassed economic power to wipe the slate clean unselfishly.

Recommendations

In conclusion we suggest that

1. economists include all economic activities for the provision of material needs in their consideration, so that the production of life, the enhancement of life, the livelihood of people, that present invisible work of women, and the value of the protection of this environment rather than the question of accumulation become the central economic concerns.
2. economists and theologians together explore the necessity and ways of redistribution of wealth as an essential part of economic justice.
3. Reformed Christians participate in the struggles for economic justice by various social movements, and see this as part of their covenantal responsibility towards the earth and to the victims of injustice.
4. Among these, especially scientists and technologists join the search for an alternative viable society in their fields.
5. Reformed churches explore how their economic resources can be uncoupled from the process of accumulation and speculation of finance capital and be made to serve the empowerment of people struggling for survival and striving towards an alternative society.
6. Reformed Christians acknowledge that we are not powerless regarding the change in our lives and lifestyles. We may try to improve on the life-negating asceticism of some Reformed groups in the past by developing a life-affirming, community-centred, non-consumerist and enjoyable lifestyle.
7. Reformed Christians in the overdeveloped countries acknowledge that their profit-centred economies place an unbearable burden on the global economy and on poor people all around the world, in violation of God's covenant with the earth and with people, and join the struggle for an alternative society by opposing the concentration of economic power in their lands, the recolonization of other parts of the world, and the pursuit of a lifestyle which is based on the exploitation of the resources and labour of other peoples.

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