[Anglican Diocese of Melbourne] There is a great danger that the economy has become an idol and Christians must ask questions about where we place our confidence, the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne Dr Philip Leslie Freier told The Justice Conference on 18 April.

More than 500 people attended the Melbourne conference, which was being held for the first time in Australia. The Justice Conference was founded in the USA in 2010, and has grown to become one of the largest international gatherings on social and biblical justice, with events previously held in Hong Kong.

Dr Freier, who contributed to the conference as part of Anglican Overseas Aid’s partnership with the event, sounded a warning that our culture tells us that we are supposed to be subservient to the economy, and even make sacrifices for it, seeing it as transcendent and superior to the way that God has called us to exist in relationships.

In this way, “there is a great danger that the economy has become an idol”, he said.

“Idols are not founded in reality, but founded in a corrupted imagination. We are deceived when we give life to an idol, when we construct an idol with our own hands.”

Christ calls us to be people who love one another and care for our neighbour - things that are tangible, he said, as he encouraged those present to put their confidence in the lasting things that come from God.

The emphasis on economics continued later in the afternoon when Dr Freier replicated his regular ‘Conversations with the Archbishop’ format as part of the elective stream.

He was joined by the Revd Dr Bob Mitchell, CEO of Anglican Overseas Aid, and Dr Jonathan Cornford, founder of Manna Gum, for a discussion on the topic ‘What can Christian faith contribute to international development?’

Dr Cornford explored the idea that since the middle of last century, efforts to eradicate poverty have usually focused on economic growth, which has often been at the expense of justice.

“The predominant conception of what development means is to stimulate economic growth,” he said. “The tragic history of the second half of the 20th century is that a lot of economic development has created poverty.”

He pointed to the example of Laos and Cambodia, countries with growing economies that are hailed as an ongoing development success. By the statistics, poverty has decreased dramatically. But, he said, if you visit communities and ask about the difference between life now and life 20 years ago, “again and again, for many people, especially for those who are minority groups or were already on the fringes, the story is that life has got harder.”

Dr Mitchell agreed, arguing that it is essential to consider inequality alongside economic definitions of poverty.

Dr Cornford said that part of the problem was that Christians in general have “lost a clear biblical insight into what fullness of life means, or what it means to be human, and what it means to think about money and economics.”

The result, he said, is that we have generally accepted the world’s approach to economics, which has big implications for development.

“It became possible to be enthusiastic about alleviating poverty, and completely lose sight of the need of maintaining justice. So, vast injustice could be done in the name of poverty alleviation,” he said. “We lost sight of the importance of justice at a fundamental level and at a human relational level.”

Dr Mitchell said that while there were strengths and weaknesses to faith and church-based development work, the positives outweighed the negatives, and that the church could embody the Biblical call to justice as a broader framework for addressing poverty.

He said that in many communities, the church is often the only functional member of civil society, it has a wide reach, and that the local church is usually more trusted than other organisations. He added that economic-based responses to poverty that increase injustice were often large-scale, while the church was often smaller and embedded in communities, which enables it to tailor effective responses to the local context.

Dr Cornford agreed, and said that many Christian agencies are prepared to work at a much smaller scale, and it’s only at a smaller scale that you can work on sensitive issues. “You can only negotiate those complex contours at a small scale,” he said.