Ever heard of Fair Trade? It is a solution to try to bring equity back into the Prosperity System.  The economic world that a devilish mixture of capitalism, greed, technology, and fancy finances has created is out of whack.  The rich get richer off the poor who get poorer.  We need several modern day Robin Hoods, such as Fair Trade, to rise up and return the Prosperity System to a sustainable level.

The world has taken the American dream hook, line, and sinker.  We think that all of our problems can be solved by economic growth.  Perfect example: Our current president said after 9/11 happened that we should go shopping.  The war in Iraq is going bad: “go shopping.” The economy tanks: “go shopping” (with stimulus checks!).  If someone else was president, the same thing would be happening.  An infamous Democrat once coined the phrase: “it’s the economy, stupid.”  We have taught the world that the American dream is obtainable, and more and more people are trying to obtain it.  That is why gas is at an all time high right now.  China and India are burgeoning with a middle class that wants to drive, eat, and waste resources just like we do, while getting richer at the same time.  The world can limp along with one super power gobbling up resources, but when two, three, four, five powers all start doing the same thing, start making more and more while the poor make less and less the only solution is rampant wage disparity until the only possible solution is economic slavery. 

The stimulus checks are out.  We are being told to shop so that America earns more, and that money will trickle down into more jobs, more pay, more yard, more square feet, more cars, more private schools, and more travel soccer teams.  We must be prosperous at all costs, and it is beginning to cost us our lives.  I am sure all of you know someone who works so much his or her family has fallen apart.  Prosperity is our God. 

Jesus said a similar thing once: You cannot serve two masters, both God and Money.  Our world has chosen money, a limited resource, and almost everyone is fighting over it.  Fortunately there is another god, God Almighty, who sent his son so that the whole world might be saved: that is an unlimited resource, open to everyone.  No one needs to fight over the deliverance and salvation that comes when one begins to live like Jesus.  The way of Christ has its own Prosperity System, built into the Kingdom of God.  It’s called storing up treasures in heaven.

We need to start thinking more about our eternal 401k and less about our mortal ones.

Go back in time and read part one, part two, or part three.