The only reason for capital accumulation: creational justice

If the gospel is not about creational justice (social, ecological, political, economic: ultimately, religious (or familial)), then Christ's kingship is not good news.

I think Bono knows this, and I salute him for it. Part of his address to the graduates at the University of Pennsylvania, at which he accepted an honourary Doctorate of Laws (video, fwd to 1:56:00), reads (via Gideon Strauss):

"...my question I suppose is: What's the big idea? What's your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing outside of the walls of the University of Pennsylvania?

...

I went to Ethiopia with my wife, Ali. We were there for a month and an extraordinary thing happened to me. We used to wake up in the morning and the mist would be lifting we'd see thousands and thousands of people who'd been walking all night to our food station were we were working. One man--I was standing outside talking to the translator--had this beautiful boy and he was saying to me in Amharic, I think it was, I said I can't understand what he's saying, and this nurse who spoke English and Amharic said to me, he's saying will you take his son. He's saying please take his son, he would be a great son for you. I was looking puzzled and he said, "You must take my son because if you don't take my son, my son will surely die. If you take him he will go back to Ireland and get an education." Probably like the ones we're talking about today. I had to say no, that was the rules there and I walked away from that man, I've never really walked away from it.

...

Africa makes a mockery of what we say, at least what I say, about equality and questions our pieties and our commitments because there's no way to look at what's happening over there and it's effect on all of us and conclude that we actually consider Africans as our equals before God. There is no chance."

Read Bono's full address.

The stuff I wish I had more time for...

Liberal democracies. Gideon reflects on the deeply liberal nature of Canadian politics, saying it is "a political culture that at its very roots is committed to the greatest possible degree of individual autonomy". He quotes Jonathan Chaplin with approval:

"The presence of constitutional democracy in the world today - however flawed or hypocritical its actual embodiments - is a truly momentous historical achievement. We should never be complacent about its survival..."

I don't know if I want to agree. At the least, I want to investigate all the qualifications that Gideon himself makes. One day...*sigh*