The Body Economic

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http://www.livescience.com/images/i/000/049/875/i02/human-body.jpg

Over the last two years, society has been obsessed with the body politic. Elections, voting, fairness, equality. The body politic in the modern, democratic era is built around two main principles: that one person has one vote, and that people can find compromise to solve their problems. But this system has broken down. People do not vote, and people do not seem to be able to get along. In the meanwhile, real suffering occurs. Homelessness. Poverty. Sickness. I believe the solution is to switch our focus from the body politic to the body economic.

In the body economic each person does not have one vote but instead has some amount of money. With this money, they can purchase their needs and wants. Parts of the body economic are diseased, however, for one simple reason. They do not have enough money. They do not have enough blood/money flow. This is disease. Poverty is a disease. We see it in crime. We see it in the homeless. We watch it day in and out on the news. We do not seem to have the political will to care for the body economic, whether in our local communities or in the world. We need a new path to organize and care for ourselves. The job of the church, and the fellowship of citizens generally, is to use their money to care for the body economic. This is a civic duty, akin to and as important as voting and serving on a jury.

We do not need to agree via government about the best ways to help only that we need to. The church exists to help people, to care for their needs spiritual and physical. We, through the church, must find ways to heal the body economic. Imagine the world where children never grow up hungry or cold or without. Imagine the things they might build and do. We must dream big. We must reach out. We must give and find the way to heal the body economic.