$10 billion a month… to bin Laden’s buddies?
“While I was looking at these destroyed towers [by a US-aided Israeli bombardment] in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women. … If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we don’t attack Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have dignified souls.” (BBC, “Exerpts: Bin Laden Video,” October 29, 2003, as quoted in Jesus for President, 280.)
One of the ideas Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw emphasize in their book Jesus for President is the fact that when you respond to violence and hate with an illogical demonstration with love, you throw your enemy off. It’s hard to predict what exactly will happen next–but rest assured, it’s unlikely to be the same as if we were both playing the retaliation game. Given our inexperience with such nontraditional methods, it might be worth testing out.
So what are the craziest almost-not-but-maybe-barely-feasible ideas you can come up with to surprise bin Laden with radical love toward the Islamic world? (Right now we’re supposedly spending about $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan…)
Here’s a mere half year in of possibilities:
$10 billion in January: Providing 90.9% of the aid needed annually to achieve universal primary education by 2015 earns an A.
$10 billion in February: Giving $500 to 20 million entrepreneurs lacking access to credit. (I messed up my math on this one, so at first I thought this would be helping out 10-20% of the 1 to 1.9 billion Muslims in the world… but if we made it $100 each, I guess we could help 5-10% of the poorest people?)
$10 billion in March: Provide 100% of the funds needed annually to have clean water and sanitation for everyone in the world by 2015.
$10 billion in April: Or if you’re someone that likes the idea of money going directly into people’s pockets rather than the government, we could always give an additional $313.58 to the 31,889,923 residents of Afghanistan this year. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it would nearly double the per capita GDP (from $350, or $733 PPP).
$10 billion in May: We could also give $5-10 to each of the 1-1.9 billion Muslims in the world. Hmm… maybe we could buy them each a T-shirt or cake or pretty tea cup (tea is popular in Northern Africa, I know– I’m not sure where else). Or among a small collection of goodies we could send them each an olive branch or a dove or something… hmm…
$10 billion in June: To get an inside view of Islamic countries throughout the world, we could spend $45,000 (well over a necessary salary, travel expenses, etc.) to send 222,222 representatives to various locales to hang out and get to know Iraqi, Afghan, etc. people as people. Alternately, we could always fund programs like, oh, say, maybe study abroad for college students?
What other ideas can you come up with? How do you think bin Laden would react?
Explore posts in the same categories: UncategorizedTags: $10 billion, Afghanistan, Bin Laden, calendar, Chris Haw, clean water, education, hate, Iraq, Islam, Jesus for President, love, microfinance, Muslims, Shane Claiborne, violence, war
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Evangelical Political Analysis 
October 28, 2008 at 2:19 am
A truly inspiring post! Well done on putting these stats together.
It is a wonderful point that you have raised. In Shane’s earlier book, Irresistible Revolution, the question is raised, “What if we took the bible at its word and simply followed it?” What kind of change would that make in the world? I think you have illuminated that very well.
It is a travesty that we have lost sight of our task. But, to take this issue out of the government’s hands and place it in our own…how much money do you think we, as individuals, spend on unnecessary things every month? On new jeans, or Starbucks, or dining out? What if we, the church, placed the blame on ourselves instead of the government (who is not responsible to God in the same way that we are)?
Recently, I’ve been convicted of placing blame for the world’s problems on other people. But, what’s the benefit of pointing fingers if we’re not doing anything to help solve the problem?
October 28, 2008 at 3:58 am
Ha, I didn’t have enough stats for a whole year… which is why I did half. 😛 The MDGs were definitely the best place to find some of this, but I wish I could have found more specific stats about the Islamic world.
In any case, I think that as you are saying, it’s important for individuals to take responsibility, and important for the church to take responsibility corporately…
But I don’t think asking the government to do something as well is pointing fingers. In a democracy, it’s essentially saying that we, the people, don’t value this highly enough. As Kos would say, to get something done about it, we’re going to have to change the common wisdom. To me, that’s not blaming–that’s saying we, all of us, we the people of the United States have failed.
I think that the problems our world faces are so large that we can’t afford to say “I don’t need your help” to any person or system willing to contribute. So if we can get the government to give, great. If we also increase our personal giving, so much the better. I think a commitment to the poor, our enemies, etc. is something we need to be living out at all levels of our lives.
I would also note that when writing this, I wasn’t necessarily meaning that same $10 billion had to come from the government. It could definitely come from the church. Wikipedia says there’s between 1.5 and 2 billion “Christians” in the world. Granted, not all of them has $5-10 dollars to give, but we’re talking no more than that from all of them to make $10 billion.
Or in the U.S., I think I read recently that in the last election “24%” of the population identified as “evangelical” (whatever the heck that means…). Even if we assume out of about 300 million people, only 5 million (about 1.7%) of them are Christian, that’s only $2000 per person to reach $10 billion.
Let’s pretend there are 15 million Christians in the U.S. (5% of the population). If people gave an average of $2000 (a tithe for those making about $20K), we’d have $30 billion.
It also means that if even relatively small bands of Americans and/or Christians banded together, we could do some pretty darn amazing things. What if we just started organizing and sent the money to the UN to go toward the MDGs?
October 28, 2008 at 4:07 am
(Oh, and if the U.S. really were 25% evangelical or some other kind of Christian and all of them gave $2000? $150 billion.)
(Of course none of this considers the fact that some of these people are children without an income…)
October 28, 2008 at 6:07 am
Bono, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative, said of the Wall Street bailout:
I’m inclined to wonder at our priorities as well, sometimes. If so many Americans were angry that we were bailing out Wall Street, would they be more or less angry if we were to use $25 billion (3.6% of the bailout) to save kids dying on another continent? I’m honestly not sure.
October 28, 2008 at 6:10 am
And another interesting blog to read.
October 29, 2008 at 9:43 pm
sadly, i think our nation would uproar if we spent all of that money on foreign aid without taking care of our own first or improving domestic programs. and yet, we seem to be fine with diverting all that money to bombing and retaliation and “defense.”
i wonder how the church might be able to model these sorts of surprising behaviors for our government and the world to see???
October 30, 2008 at 4:39 am
I felt a bit guilty for commenting and then skipping out on the ensuing conversation, so here I am. 😉
In response to fullerstudent’s question, I think that the perfect start to modeling this behavior in the church is to do the obvious…take a look at a church’s budget and get serious about what’s important. In a country where materialism abounds, it’s no wonder that we, the church, are so blindly wrapped up in. Now, sadly, that may mean passing on the new coffee shop/smoothie bar that we’re wanting to add to the killer basketball courts. But isn’t okay for us to sacrifice a bit of our comfort (I LOVE coffee) so that we have more money to buy a loaf of bread for a starving family down the street?
I think until the church gets serious about its financial priorities, the state certainly won’t be following suit.
October 30, 2008 at 7:18 am
Ok, so here’s a question:
In my experience people know very little about what costs what and how far their small sacrifice can actually go. Do you think this is a we-should-all-be more-disciplined issue? Or do you think that churches should essentially begin some serious awareness campaigns in their congregations and communities? And should they then band with other churches in official alliances over these sorts of things? Essentially build a grassroots movement for change similar to a political campaign… but with these goals in mind. Would that be a waste of time? Or is that the only way to help people understand that they CAN make a difference and that it’s worth it?
I ask because more than anything, sometimes I feel we lack cohesion and momentum when it comes to addressing these issues–either as Christians or as activists or as whatever else. We may care but we at most change our own little lives in a few ways. It’s hard to take that isolated change and make it grow.
How do you think we do that?
October 30, 2008 at 9:21 pm
This is the best thing I have read all day!!
I love it!!
If only we could do this…
November 1, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Gosh…this is where the rubber meets the road. When it comes to making this kind of thing happen I get overwhelmed real quick.
I think it could happen in a couple of different ways.
First, personally, this is something I should be doing better at. If I’m not doing something, how can I expect others to hop on board, right?
Second, I think this has to be a grassroots movement. People get really defensive about their money. If this were just another giving campaign coming from church leadership, it would lose its potency. Instead, either it starts from amongst the laity, or church leadership reveals the necessity for this and allows the church to respond it turn.
Third, we need to go burn down church coffee shops. 😉 That’s a joke.
Any other ideas?
November 1, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I think being led by laity wouldn’t have to mean it’s unorganized, though, or that it couldn’t have some pastoral partners. But I agree that something this big would need to come from within. I do think people would be somewhat less defensive if the church were asking them to give to the poor rather than give to the building fund. I also think that churches should being involved by “tithing” some of what they bring in–I knew a church once that gave away 10% of what was given for their building, and I thought that was amazing. Really respect that.
I think Barack Obama’s campaign shows that something with some structure and authority that emphasizes the grassroots can really work–I mean, look at how much money they raised! lol. (That’s not to say we would model this on that… just saying).
I think we should spare the shops selling fair-trade coffee.
November 3, 2008 at 12:29 am
Oh man, modeling church practices on political campaigns…I don’t know about that. 😉
It sounds like you’d better read my latest post.