Does Inequality Really Matter?

Abstract

There is a great temptation to deal with the issues of inequality either in terms of economics alone or in a polemical style that simply dwells on the bad effects of inequality-as if that solves the problem. Instead, I want to start by seeking to address this issue more theologically, thus my question, Does inequality really matter?So what if there's inequality? There has always been inequality and there most certainly always will be inequality. This is not just a quick lapse into an approach much influenced by Darwin, that affirms the solutions for our society are about survival of the fittest and devil take the hindmost, if you'll excuse the mix of disciplines in that sentence. Rather, it's a genuine question in terms of a world that is deeply caught up in diversity, and seemingly to the world's great benefit.To put it another way: are the extremely wealthy merely the latest or possibly the last minority, a persecuted group to be identified, whom we need to defend, not attack? Should there be marches, or possibly processions of limos or Rolls Royces (necessarily chauffeurdriven), down Wall Street or Lombard Street with elegantly crafted placards produced by top-end designers saying, Justice to the ultrarich, Billionaires are people too? Why does inequality matter?I want to go back to two originating stories, turning first to the Genesis story and the development of diversity within humanity in its earliest forms.In the great west window of Canterbury Cathedral, in the center of the bottom row of stained glass, there is an image of Adam digging in the Garden of Eden. The cathedral, for those who do not know it, progresses from west to east upwards, like this church. As you go further east you go further up, except in Canterbury it's pretty steep: it goes up about thirty-five feet. At the east end, just near where the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury would have been until the Reformation, there is the throne of St. Augustine, into which one is rather firmly put when you start this job. Archbishop Robert Runcie used to say that he was constantly reminded that when he sat on the throne of St. Augustine, he was level with Adam digging at the other end of the cathedral.Underlying that comment is a wealth of thoughtfulness about the relative importance of offices to which others ascribe importance, but also the significance of Adam digging in the garden. One can meditate for days on those particular stories in the early chapters of Genesis. But one of the aspects to note is that at the beginning we are all equal. In the days of the English revolution in the seventeenth century, the gentry who were overthrowing the tyrannical rule, as they saw it, of Charles I were not in the slightest bit interested in equality with the peasantry. They wanted a decent hierarchy, only with those who were slightly more important taken down a peg or two, or taken off a head or two. Cromwell took strongly against the levelers and the diggers, quasi-communist groups who went back to Adam and Eve and proclaimed there should be no social distinctions. Hierarchy is deeply embedded, but the Adam and Eve story, the story of the Garden, has constantly come back to capture the imagination of those who see that in the creation of God there is equality.And at the heart of the Genesis story of the creation of human beings is the essential nature of the human being, both male and female, existing to know God intimately and to walk intimately with God. There is an equality of worship, in adoration of the presence of God; there is an equality of reveling and feasting, in fellowship with God in the Garden. Equality is a gift in creation, it is the foundation of equality before the law, equality of voice in the public square, equality in righteousness.Walter Brueggemann makes a similar point in his commentary on Isaiah, concerning chapter fifty-nine. The postexilic community in Israel is deeply flawed: not by its lack of worship, of which there is plenty, but by its inequalities injustice, in voice, in inclusion of all who accept Torah, regardless of wealth and status. …