Christians, the global financial crisis and the New World Order

A Christian perspective on the global financial crisis - 18 March 2009 (John)

Will the financial crisis become a category five storm? What will the new world order look like? How will the coming changes affect the lives of Christians?

About July last year a friend came back from overseas with a fascinating story to tell. He’d met a guy in an airport transfer lounge and they’d discovered they were both on speaking tours. When he asked the other guy what he was speaking about my friend received this unexpected reply. “The end of the world”. Thinking it might be some reference to bible prophecy, he asked the fellow if he was a Christian. “No, I’m a Wall Street banker”, he replied, and proceeded to tell my friend about the coming collapse of the global economy. (At that stage the sub-prime mortgage crisis was in full swing, but the broader financial crisis had yet to get seriously underway). Interesting enough, but the part of their conversation that really astonished me was what this guy went on to say. You see, he was completely clear in explaining that the blueprints for the new global economy were already one hundred percent complete and ready to roll out. So it seems this banker not only knew that a major crisis was coming, but had inside knowledge that this whole chaotic period was both expected and planned for within the upper echelons of global finance. What’s more, his comments suggest that the whole crisis is being used to generate sufficient political capital to make major pre-planned structural changes to the world economic system.

Now, despite knowing this since July I have been reluctant so far to suggest how deep or otherwise this crisis will become. But something of a tipping point in the buildup of information occurred after reading More Debt Won’t Rescue The Great American Ponzi. The key point this article makes is that the underlying economic problem behind all the surface issues was the preceding massive over expansion of credit. And therefore, since the problem is excessive debt the answer to it cannot possibly be more debt. Governments borrowing money to throw at the financial crisis will undoubtedly slow the rate of destruction, but it seems that doing so will probably deepen the eventual collapse and quite possibly bankrupt many national governments in the process. Am I being overly dramatic in saying such things? Even I don’t know the answer to that question, but it’s worth considering that even at this point 45% of the worlds monetary wealth has already been wiped out. (See: 45 Percent Of World's Wealth Destroyed)

Where does this leave us? My friend at the airport asked the Wall Street banker he met how to be prepared, and received one simple answer. “Get out of debt”. This makes total sense because if a great de-leveraging occurs where asset prices continue to slide as overstretched debt contracts, then the one thing you really don’t want is to end up with assets worth less than your debts (or to be in a position where servicing the debts becomes untenable). Although they don’t have debtor’s prisons anymore, bankruptcy is still not a pleasant thought. I suspect many will undergo severe anxiety as a great shaking down occurs. Unfortunately many Christians may also find themselves bogged down in fear and anxiety, but I hope that most Christians under pressure will not crumble with fear, but put on the Lion of the tribe of Judah and look instead for the harvest of souls that could come out of these times. (Right click on following link and choose 'Save Target As...' or 'Save Link As...' to download mp3 podcast on Christians overcoming fear).

Beyond the personal aspects, what I’ve also been considering is what the wider impacts are likely to be. In Proverbs it says:

The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower is servant to the lender (Proverbs 22:7)

We all know who the borrowers are (pretty much everybody including governments), but who are the lenders? In a global market it’s often hard to figure that out. Even our local banks appear to largely just resell money obtained through interbank lending on the global credit market. Who is at the top of the food chain? Plenty of people have their specific devils to point to, but in essence the lenders are of course the world’s tiny oligarchy of the super rich. Decades of massive corporate, banking, arms and oil profits have not evaporated; they have been reinvested and loaned out to us. I suspect that the biblical statement could ultimately prove only too true. We may find ourselves in a debt peonage society where the indebted masses work to pay endless interest to their ultra-wealthy masters (both directly and via taxes to service government debt). Of course, this is hardly a radical prediction since it’s only a small extension of how things are now. So far though the world has maintained a reasonable sized middle class; the change may turn out to be a dramatic shrinking of that. (See: The Coming Collapse Of The Middle Class).

What would a collapse of the middle class bring? Social unrest? A police state? Wars? It’s really hard to know, but I doubt it would be pretty. If you’re middle class and reading this, also spare some thought and prayers for the third world. For us the financial crisis may mean financial loss and a reduced standard of living, but for the third world it literally may mean the death of millions. As we already saw with the 2008 food crisis, what strains our household budget can push millions in the third world below the poverty line. This is a highly likely and a terribly tragic outcome of what’s happening now. Well does the bible speak of the wickedness of those whose riches are based on systematic exploitation the poor:

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver are corrupted, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts (James 5:1-4)

Coming back to the structural changes ahead, there is also the question of whether they will be confined to economic change, or whether the stage is being set for a new political world order as well. (E.g. The New Age, New World Order). No doubt the exact depth of the crisis, and whether or not wars¹ are added to the mix, will factor greatly in determining the degree of change the world goes through. Green and energy issues are also likely to play a role (E.g. see Green New Deal). Prophetically speaking, the Earth just prior to the return of the Lord will come under some form of world government, so we know that’s the general direction. In The Beast Now I talked about living in an age rapidly accelerating towards End Times, so it’s natural for me to also wonder if this crisis will bring a final burst of ultra-rapid change leading into that period. We certainly live in exponential times (see Youtube clip), where men run to and fro and knowledge is vastly increased. In the end though we must be content simply to wait and see; staying alert and working while it is yet day, before the night comes when no man can work²

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