Introduction

"Isn't this capitalism?" Jennifer Riria-Ouko was asked at the Limuru consultation,¹ when she delivered the paper we include here."No," she retorted, "this is empowering women."

This Reformed World is a bit of a mosaic (but so, scholars tell us, is the Pentateuch). We planned an issue reviewing the major areas of work which have been on the agenda of the World Alliance since the 22nd general council (Seoul 1989): Julio de Santa Ana's article was one of only two which have so far arrived. Even earlier, we planned an issue of voices from Africa: three articles appear here, the last is still, as we say,"in the post". And Jennifer's article comes from Limuru.

But it seems to me that the mosaic is more than a coincidental manifold. It makes a coherent picture. Julio reminds us that Christian faith, by itself, does not give us economic answers: we need to understand how the world works - or fails to work. But it does give us criteria for judging economic orders - or disorders. Do they liberate? Do they empower? Do they provide for life, promote liberty, and permit the pursuit of happiness? Or do they leave too many people in the valley of the shadow of death? And the African articles, in their different ways, underline the importance of our involvement in the discussion. The story of Chitalu Mwape and her baby Chaba is, as Priscilla Jere-Mwiindilila says, not unique. By African standards, it is not even specially horrific. And that is why it gets to me.

We Murder Men Everywhere is the title of a pamphlet on world poverty written by a friend of mine in the 'sixties, in those innocent days before sexist language became an object of scorn. Nowadays we speak inclusively, of people rather than men, but we carry on killing them anyway. Christians have no specifically Christian answers to the technicalities of economic debate. But we are driven to involve ourselves in that debate with an urgency which springs from the commandment to love.

Páraic Réamonn

Notes