The banner photo is of the City of Dreams complex in Macau, China. Abbey and I stayed in the Hard Rock hotel during our visit. Abbey worked at the Venetian across the street from the City of Dreams and lived in the nearby town of San Malo.
Stories of Labor - Thoughts on Capitalism and Christianity
Monetary institutions and systems inhibit our obtaining of the reign of God in the present.
A few of the questions Christianity must answer are:
Does the faith of Jesus, the hope of God, include the possibility for humanity to live (in the present) without these institutions and systems?
Can we learn that we’ve been created to serve one another and that we are not fit to rule over one another?
Can we learn that the assigning of value to any form of digital, paper or coin currency is ruinous to humanity?
Can we begin by learning to hate money ?
Remember, Jesus proclaimed that hating money is essential for serving God.
Stories of Capitalism, Labor, and Christianity
OFWs
My first exposure to the Filipino OFW (overseas foreign worker) was on my fourth trip to the Philippines in 1983. I was traveling to the Philippines to adopt my first wife’s Amerasian son (she passed away in 2017). This trip, I was traveling alone from California and had a brief layover in Japan. To my surprise, the connecting flight was a smaller passenger jet and its passengers were all Filipino men employed as oil field workers in Saudi Arabia. They were in a celebratory mood and on the last leg of their journey home to see their families for a few weeks. The flight passed quickly for me because they were all enjoying my attempts at speaking Tagalog. Of course, many of them were fluent in English, Arabic and two or three Filipino languages.
As time passed, I became acutely aware of the exporting of Filipinos to work abroad fulfilling all types of employment needs in countries all over the world. Filipinos account for about twenty-five percent of the world’s maritime workers. Other industries in Asia employ females (Filipinas) only for their needs. Gigabyte Technologies in Taiwan has employed Filipinas under thirty, who must be right-handed, and are allowed to be employed for two three-year periods. The U.S. needs for OFWs from the Philippines is primarily in the nursing profession. Saudi Arabia employs one-fourth of all Filipino OFWs. The PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority) estimates that there are over 2.3 million Filipinos employed abroad.
I have met many Filipino OFWs over the course of twenty trips and accumulated years of living in the country. All that I have met were honorable people, striving to provide some economic security for their families. According to the PSA the Philippine OFWs account for 11% of the nation’s GDP through the remittance of monies for their family in the Philippines. Nearly 55% of Philippine OFWs are women.
Abbey Garner when she was a
chef at the Venetian Hotel in Macau China
Macau is the gambling capital of the world; it is a luxuriously developed area for the rich and famous of Asia. Abbey was an OFW for seventeen years and has taught me about the OFW experience, she lived and worked in Macau China as a chef at the Venetian Hotel. She supplemented her income in creative ways in order to support her two children and ensure they went to good schools. On her days off, she would work as a tour guide for foreigners on pilgrimage to see the broken church in Santo Antonio, Macau. Over time Abbey leased a large apartment with multiple rooms and sublet the rooms to other girls. Her apartment was near the broken church just below the Portuguese fortress and museum.
I’ve been blessed to share in her moments that express the camaraderie of overseas Filipinos. On multiple occasions, in both Macau and in Cebu City, we have been walking through a shopping mall and I will notice the eyes of a younger Filipina brighten as she sees Abbey, she hastens her pace and greets Abbey with smiles and hugs. Abbey was a mother figure for many younger OFWs in Macau.
One of the more fun ways Abbey earned a little income was to apply for her own membership card at the gambling casino she passed through from her work to catch the bus home. The card; loads usable credits for use through a slot on the gambling machines so that gamblers can lose and still get a little offering. Abbey would approach gamblers and ask if she could insert her card when they were not using one. Since she sent her money home, the card’s points allowed her to eat at restaurants, see shows, and enter tourist attractions. Abbey learned both Mandarin and Cantonese during her years in China and this helped her in many ways. At her first job in Taiwan she was often called upon to translate to her fellow workers.
Mike Garner when he was a plumber
dropping his kids off at school before work.
I grew up in Fillmore California, it is a small town in a citrus valley that is located between two rivers and a creek with surrounding mountains. At 13 years of age I worked during the summer with the Braceros who lived in a labor camp near the local packing houses. ‘Braceros’ was the name of a temporary migrant worker program. Although, the program ran from 1942 to 1964 the remnants of its effort remained in the temporary housing built for the workers as one of the surrounding industries birthed to accommodate their labor force. At 5:00 AM my mother would drop me off at the top of the driveway that descended to the labor camp barracks that were built alongside the railroad tracks. The train tracks ran alongside docking points with the local packing houses for transporting the lemons and oranges harvested from the fields that adorned the Santa Clara river valley.
I was the only white kid picking oranges. Later in life my mother told me that picking oranges was my idea because I wanted to have money to spend. I also worked a paper route that served the blocks near our home and delivered the papers via my bicycle. At Christmas time I would scour the local trees down by the creek to pick mistletoe and go door to door selling it neatly bagged with a red bow; my mom helped me package the mistletoe. I had been knocking on doors since I was a small boy selling Christmas and all occasion cards in order to select the earned gifts; a BB gun, a record player, a bow and arrow set, and other items that boys enjoyed. I had found this opportunity in an add on the back of my comic books.
I was not a big kid, at thirteen I was an inch less than five foot tall. The picking ladders were constructed of wood and the larger trees required a five-foot wooden extension in order to reach the top of the trees. It was a challenge to carry the ladder when we moved from one area to the next. However, I enjoyed working with the Bracero’s they were always kind to me and taught me Spanish phrases and words. The jeffe or mayor (boss) of the crew was a Hispanic man named Fred Ortiz. Fred had ten children and lived in an old house across from the primary school, I remember him being a very kind and happy man.
It was a hot sunny day and we were picking a grove of oranges near the dairy on the other side of the Sespe river on the north west side of our little town. This day marked my first encounter with the powers of the U.S. government to interrupt the life of working people. Immigration agents arrived in force, two helicopters, three vans, and multiple men armed with clubs. It was quite a display of power to chase down poor working men. There were only two illegal workers in our crew. One of them stopped and looked at me with fear in his eyes.
It was the summer when the smaller hand carried wood boxes for handling oranges was replaced with large boxes that were lifted onto the trucks with a forklift. I looked at my box, I had been stacking my oranges to one side. I also had a full bag around my shoulder, so I motioned and simply said ‘here’ in Spanish to the frightened man. He stepped inside the box and rolled up as small as he could, I quickly covered him with oranges. The other man was fleeing, a loudspeaker from the helicopter was directing the agents on the ground in pursuit of the man. The fleeing man was captured that day. At thirteen, my thoughts were overcome by the display of power for capturing only one man seeking to send money home for his family.
The following summer Cesar Chavez would bring his labor rights movement to our little town. Once again I was the only white kid out picking. The organizers had begun a strike and the need to harvest the oranges brought an invitation to our High School for the older boys to come out and pick. We were all sent to a grove located next to the packing house and because it was in town it had a chain link fence surrounding it. The organizers of the strike had arranged for a march up through the area we were working. I stepped aside from where I was working to view the parade of protesting workers with their brightly colored signs.
A man called to me and I walked over to the fence, he offered me twenty dollars to hop the fence and join the workers. I explained to him that I was just a kid trying to make a few dollars and didn’t think my continuing to work would have any impact on his efforts. I told him that I was happy he was helping the workers to be paid well and not taken advantage of by the wealthy landowners. Although I was young, I was quite aware of the economic differences that separated people. The owner of the orchard called me over and asked me if I knew who I was talking with and I replied that I did not. He informed me that I was speaking with ‘the man himself, Cesar Chavez’. I should have hopped the fence.
Over the course of life, I have worked as a farm hand, on oil field worker, a helicopter mechanic, a plumber, a missionary, a pastor, an expert witness, a bible college professor, and now as a writer.
Capitalism
Does the faith of Jesus, the hope of God, include the possibility for humanity to live (in the present) without these institutions and systems?
Capitalism is a natural outcome of our efforts to work and succeed in the world. It is apparent in the stories of Abbey and I’s work experiences in the world. Yet, capitalism is doomed to fail because it serves power rather than people. The assignment of value to a person’s worth in monetary numbers must always be countered by regulations in order to stay the hand of the greedy and limit the power acquired by the proud.
Unregulated capitalism is like a virus that kills the innocent. The rights of workers to unionize and ensure their well-being is essential for a just society and regulating capitalism is as important to Christian faith as preaching the gospel; in point of fact, it is part of the gospel. Corporations are not people, people are sacred to God, corporations are at odds with God when profit is more important than people, and the environment.
My friends - the prophets of scripture - detest the abuse of humanity by the rich. In a monetized world the need for capital, for large amounts of money, is essential for corporations, not so for individuals.[i] Corporations need regulations to ensure their pursuits are consistent with the public trust and do not harm the land, the sea, the waterways, or people.
When we model for our children life in such a way that they view exorbitant wealth as displaying a lack of character, as evidence of an underdeveloped human being, then we will be moving towards a healthier world. When the concept of shame can be associated with excessive wealth we will be moving towards a healthier world.
In the now/not yet reality of the reign of God, it is the people of God, the church, the bride of Christ, who must model for the rest of the world the possibility to advance the human condition toward change. If we are truly salt and light then when Christianity lives up to the fulness of its calling the world is enriched and possibility for a better world is awakened.
Can we learn that we’ve been created to serve one another and that we are not fit to rule over one another?
There are persons who do not look to Jesus as Lord and yet they understand the truth in this question. It is to the shame of those who name Jesus as Lord that we do not live by this truth. The unchanging cycles of history’s violence, the rise and fall of empire, affirm that when we value our own life and the preservation of our own power over the life of others we harm ourselves and others. It is true that without a value worth dying for we are unprepared for living.
Yet, the church model of leadership is one of ecclesial authority given in a title, rather than earned in the blood of suffering for the sake of others. Until we produce people of immovable conviction, and unalterable Christ-like character, we will continue to model the world’s constructs for power and authority.
We have left out the gifts given to us, the apostles known by the suffering they endure in order to teach Christ. We have failed to acknowledge the prophet who refuses to be called a prophet, for prophets are recognized by their indomitable spirit to testify of injustice. We have put forth celebrities and lost the evangelist, that eloquent purveyor of words of beauty that attract people to the light of God and keep life simple. The pastor must be more lover than leader, more human than divine, more kind than firm, and not a lover of money. The teacher is the gift of a pastoral academic who can connect their intellectual life with their experience of God.
Can we learn that the assigning of value to any form of digital, paper or coin currency is ruinous to humanity?
This assigning of value to a valueless object is man’s invention for accumulating power over others. Of course a valueless object cannot be inherently evil, it is the system, the ideology, the injustice it births that makes it an evil desire, loved by weak souls who do not know God and live in fear of tomorrow. Money is a power that can answer every human dilemma; however, it usually does not provide the right answer. Jacques Ellul, suggested that we must rule over this instrument that the world requires we possess in order to live and do so by profaning it; simply be so generous as to appear to be a fool.
Can we begin by learning to hate money ?
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Matthew 6:24
Learning to hate money (mammon) is the teaching of Jesus. How do we hate something we need in order to survive, to live in the world? This is a question we need to meditate upon with all our cognitive powers as the people of God, as the church. Disempowering money is a Christian activity a sign of the presence of the Spirit. The reign of God is an economy of sharing so that there will be no poor among us. Sharing money is an important part of living the faith because money is (for now) a part of our reality. However, sharing money alone is self-destructive and results in missing the many blessings of life available in a community of sharing.
We can share our skills and teach others. We can have community gardens and share in both labor and reward. The health of our physical bodies is indicative of healthy theology directing a community of believers.
Starting schools is a part of Christian practice. Not schools that serve money and seek profit for a few, but schools that serve the community. The disconnect between the academy and the church has resulted in the loss of sharing of our most valuable resource which is the understanding of scripture.
Governing of the body of Christ, the church, must reach into the reality of daily life. Meaning, instead of building cathedrals, we build homes, schools, and prepare our members and others for living in any given society. Ethical building practices produce usable structures that serve the needs of a people. This can mean a workshop for teaching skills so that others can start their own business or find gainful employment.
Remembering the poor is more of a sacred act than a sacramental ceremony performed for the seated.
Remembering the poor is to fulfill the promises of God for lifting up the poor and oppressed. “There shall be no poor among you...” is the constant command for the church in relation to her members. We are not allowed to question how they became poor; note the absence of any explanation for how Lazarus became poor in Jesus’ story. Was his illness brought on by his poverty? The calling for the church is to eradicate poverty in their midst. Let’s not build bigger barns, but bigger people who find their soul fulfilled in lifting up the poor and building the body of Christ.
[i] I have written more extensively on this subject in my book Reflections under the chapter title, Economics in Theological Thought see pg. 50.
