Economics

The Rescue of Moonbase Asimov – The Real Story

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If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, the story of Christian ethicist and professor Tom Killian and his presidential meeting to decide the fate of Moonbase Asimov, read it first and then come back to this post.

So, what did Tom Killian tell the president’s advisory committee? As a Christian, his worldview gave him a good reply. You may have your own ideas, but I’ll tell you what I think his reply would have been.

Clearly, the economics involved in maintaining the moonbase made for problems, the biggest of which was that the moonbase could not sustain itself without a series of expensive transports routinely bringing in food. The price spike in food that resulted led to rioting at the moonbase that had to be quelled through military intervention.

From a strictly rational viewpoint, sustainability is the 800-lb. gorilla in the room. In truth, sustainability is ALWAYS a primary consideration for any human endeavor. Want to climb Mount Everest? You can’t do it dressed for the beach, with only a handful of granola bars in your pocket. Want to have a moonbase that houses multiple thousands of people? Then you must find a way to address the very simple requirements of food and water. If you can’t, then you either watch the denizens of the moonbase die or you keep shoveling good money after bad to support an enterprise that has no future.

Many spiritually sensitive people would employ the tactic of Dahlia Winters, the leader of the Phos cult. While it is a laudable idea to minister to the needs of the people at the moonbase, adding more people only decreases sustainability further. Such thinking runs counter to common sense, only accelerating the moonbase’s problems.

Sending counselors to the moonbase is especially ill advised when other options exist. Evacuating large portions of the moonbase’s population until it reaches some level of sustainability makes the most sense. If at that point a religious group should desire to minister to the remnant, then fine. The religious group would have just as many options to minister to the evacuees, too. Better to meet their needs in a sustainable environment than in a nonviable one.

Does this make sense? It should. Yet many Christian leaders aren’t tracking with that kind of sense.

Moonbase Asimov is not that far-fetched actually. In many ways, we on planet Earth have our own unsustainable “moonbases.” We call them cities. And some well-known Christian leaders are telling us we can’t be good Christians unless we consider the plight of the city.

In truth, they are absolutely correct. We must consider the plight of our cities. And we should have a Christian response to that plight. Unfortunately, the most Christian response bears little resemblance to the one being advocated by those Christian leaders.

Our cities today are like Moonbase Asimov because they cannot sustain themselves. They are bastions of consumption that fail to produce the most basic element necessary for human survival: food. Is it any surprise then that major cities across the world are seeing riots over the unavailability of food? You can’t bring millions of people into an area and eliminate all its food-producing acreage then expect people to have access to food. That’s insanity. Yet that is what we have done in large cities around the globe.

Our entire world is changing. No longer will people be able to afford food trucked into a region from vast distances. Prices of food are skyrocketing. Much of that skyrocketing comes from our dependence on factory farms displaced into regions far outside population centers. Those industrialized farms rely on massive amounts of costly energy to raise their crops and even more to ship them to distant cities.

While some would claim this to have been a successful model for years (though I would argue against that notion), we cannot sustain that model. The model of the modern city is failing and its failure will be epic.

To send Christians into the heart of an unsustainable model is akin to asking them to board a sinking ship, comfort the occupants, and then go down with the ship. Only a madman would endorse such a plan.

The wiser plan of action would see the Christians board the foundering vessel and get as many people off that ship as possible before it sinks beneath the waves. During the rescue and its aftermath, they can still provide succor, but the end goal is different because it is sustainable. Thousands of survivors beats thousand of people serving as chum for sharks.

One reality we must all face is that our food must be locally grown. In an age of skyrocketing energy costs, we can no longer afford to truck in our food. It must come from nearby sources. Unfortunately, the modern city has all but destroyed farming within or near its borders.

In Bible times and for long afterwards, civilization’s answer was to build walled cities for protection while ensuring the area immediately outside the wall stayed farmland. That made sieges hell as you were cut off from your food supply, but in normal times the food was right outside the wall. A farmer might live inside the city during the perilous nighttimes when robbers and raiders were about, but he could still walk outside the gate of the city and step onto his pasture land. While that kind of city was not perfect, it could still function.

However, today’s cities have no nearby ring of farmland and none inside its incorporation zones. Productive acreage has largely been relegated to far-off outposts hundreds or thousands of miles away from the cities. You simply can’t walk to the gate of the city and step outside it into farmland. And that’s a serious problem. A Moonbase Asimov kind of problem.

I firmly believe the answer to the unsustainability of the modern city is for us to rethink the small family farm. I also think that rather than sending Christians into the city to live, Christians should be helping city-dwellers get out of our unsustainable cities. It only makes for further stress on the system if Christians add to the unsustainability of the city model by moving into it rather than living elsewhere and helping others get out of the cities.

Helping people transition out of our cities rather than moving Christians into them has no negative effect on our ability as Christians to minister to those people’s souls and to share the Gospel with them. If anything, it helps: We show the foresight and desire to “rescue those being led away to death” by offering a radical response to a very real and quite terrifying problem. As many people ministering to those in the city know, city-dwellers are facing enormous pressure on their incomes when it comes to food. Again, riots are breaking out in major cities all over the globe due to this issue. And the problem of food prices and availability will get far worse before it gets better (and that’s IF it gets better).

I believe it is possible to find ways to improve the sustainability of cities, but the entire concept of the city and how it is laid-out for food production will have to be rethought. And that will take decades, time many in the city may not have if the course of our world continues as it is. Sadly, wise urban planners of the past who attempted to build-in food production greenspace were often shouted-down. In this case, though, no one wins when those insightful planners are vindicated.

One famous Christian leader (who shares his initials with Tom Killian) has repeatedly bashed those who believe that a return to agrarianism is our best solution. I would contend that it’s not only our best solution, it may be our only solution in short order. In fact, it’s the only solution that epitomizes the Gospel’s desire to lift people up out of their dilemma into a life of abundance.

Because it’s very hard to be spiritually-minded when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.

The Rescue of Moonbase Asimov

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The early morning sun already baking the pavement, Tom Killian trudged past the White House guards, a swipe at his dripping forehead misinterpreted as a salute by one young Marine.

“Hot day, ” Killian said to Steve Bishop, President Park’s press secretary.

Bishop stood at the entrance, his face like wax, jowls drooping in the heat. “They’re all hot.

“This one seems hotter  than most.”

“Yeah,” Bishop said. “You could say that.”

Killian caught the distance in Bishop’s eyes, the steeling for “what next?” that set firm the jaws of the wise in Washington. A dozen years ago he’d known that feeling himself as he watched his flock dwindle. First went the artists. The intelligentsia followed, then the families. Most threw their allegiance to Phos, the rising new religion of those who classified themselves as seekers. Phos found a way to blend the world’s ancient faiths and make believing easy. This truth Tom Killian knew: In demanding times, people were dying for easy.

He also knew the route to the meeting, having traced it a dozen times before. Park didn’t call him as much as in the early days of the administration, so he knew to expect something big. An ethics question, certainly. As one of the only Christian ethicists left on the East Coast, Killian got the nod time and again. Now out of the pastorate, he attempted to support the faith at Georgetown, but not only had Christianity taken a blow, so had ethics. In the last four years, he’d noted the erosion: a pandemic of empty seats in his classroom.

“Sir,” said a page. “Not here.” The young woman wore the classic navy blazer, the uniform color broken by a small pin. Killian knew the tiny jeweled torch wrapped by twin snakes. She was a Light, an adherent of Phos.  Directing him to toward the elevator, she added, “The lower level.”

Killian attempted a brow raise, but she anticipated.  “The media. They train UV lasers on the windows and track everything said from the vibrations on the glass, you know. It’s a precaution.”

Killian ran a hand through his once-full, gray hair. The page could’ve been his own granddaughter. Smiled like Keisha, too. That gold medal, trophy smile. All Phos followers sported that plastic, defiant look, like something out of Deutschland 1938, complete with a soul-in-a-coma stare.

He complied with the outstretched hand, then turned to glimpse the page as the elevator’s doors sealed him inside. One ping later, his temporary imprisonment concluded, he stepped out on the royal blue carpet, where he picked up a military escort.

“This way, sir,” said the lantern-jawed Marine. The soldier directed Killian down a white-walled hall devoid of art and into a meeting room the size of his classroom. An ebony table twenty feet long hunkered in the middle, angry clawed feet tearing into the floor. Only two chairs remained open. He took the one at the foot of the table. He knew who took the one at the head.

Killian recognized most of the players. Thirteen souls sat erect, waiting for Lee Park to arrive. Dahlia Winters, dressed as if speaking at a Mary Kay convention, thrust out a manicured hand and said, “Thomas, how good to see you again.”

Killian loathed to take it. Wrapping the regional leader of the Phos cult’s hand in his was like shaking hands with Mephistopheles. He told himself to remember the Golden Rule.

“Yes, Dahlia, it’s been—”

“Since the chimera meeting,” she finished. “And we’ve already seen the fruit of that medical research, haven’t we? That the president saw the necessity of our position and elected to push his executive order through… well, now millions have taken advantage of replacement organs harvested from chimeras.”

“Animals with human genes, you mean,” Killian said. He tightened his muscles, preparing for her retaliatory strike, but a shuffle of feet and the military bolting erect cut everyone off. In mid-sit, Killian overcorrected to get back to his feet and felt his lumbar muscles spasm.

President Park arrived in a flurry, sprinting to his chair. Known for his go-get-’em style, one that enamored him to the voters, the president’s every movement cried action. The first Asian president, he’d been one of the first born an American citizen to parents who’d fled the fall of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. His was the Horatio Alger story, but with an intriguing twist that appealed to the pastor turned professor. Park once confided in Killian that 25 years ago he’d soaked the altar at a backwoods Pentecostal church in tearful repentance.

It’s why Park’s Phos tie clip bothered Killian so much. May have been nothing more than a gift from Winters worn in appreciation, but who could tell. No matter the case, play with fire, get burned.

Bishop said a few words and everyone sat.

Park spoke, “Kimball, what’s the situation.”

Kimball Johnson adjusted his girth in his chair, but did not stand. Radish-faced and prone to arrhythmias no pacemaker could correct, the head of NASA stayed in place and said, “We’ve got a situation on Moonbase Asimov.”

Killian checked himself. With the past year’s media leaks, he’d received no briefing, so he didn’t know the topic except to guess at an ethical question. But now he knew: more intersections of science and ethics. It seemed the only battle he fought anymore. Except here he had to fight it from within the subterranean bowels of the White House rather than in a press conference. At least out there a few friends rallied behind him. Here, it was sure to be a hostile crowd.

“As you all know,” Johnson continued, “we’ve had the base in place for two decades. Nearly 10,000 Americans call it home, not to mention another 22,000 from other nations. For years, the population at the station has been expanding—”

“Ever done it in reduced gravity, Kimball?” asked Michael Maloney, FAA chief. “Helluva lot of fun.”

The group chortled and nodded, Winters adding the most volume. Killian stayed mum.

Johnson rolled his head and continued.

“—the station’s population has risen sharply and we find ourselves in that nightmare scenario: consumption outweighs production. Studies show population outstripping the food supply.”

“But how is that possible with the lunafarming techniques the Department of Agriculture established?” asked Lillian Stephenson, head of the FDA. “We had assurances that we could scale back supply flights in light of expenses. Are you now asking for more?”

Scarlet rose in Johnson’s face. “Options are limited. Food production never attained projections. It’s not exceeded 30 percent for the last five years.”

“Thirty percent?” Stephenson said with more fervor. “I have the statistics right here, Kimball, and you’ve been tossing out nearly 90 percent for what, three years now? Are you revising your figures?”

“Revising is the polite term,” Maloney said with a huff.

Park raised a finger. “Past statistics or not, the real problem is that we have more than 30,000 citizens of this planet who are facing insufficient food supplies in the near term.”

Defense Secretary Fisher Morgan inserted, “We sent up a battalion ten days ago to quell rioting, and—”

“I’ve heard none of this,” said Roger Biggs, head of the Department of Homeland Security.

“Not your jurisdiction, Roger,” Morgan replied into his steepled fingers.

“It is mine, though.” A slim reed of a man rose to his feet and caught the attention of everyone. His face was lined beyond his age, Killian thought, though on reflection he had no idea what age Rafael Rotar might be. The Treasury chief moved toward the president, each step filled with gravitas. He paused at Park’s side, blinked twice, and said, “Economic conditions at Asimov have been deteriorating in light of commodity price inflation. It’s essentially unlinked from economic issues here, which have been challenging enough, and has crashed the lunar marketplace. The curtailing of supply flights continues due to stress on this country’s financial infrastructure, exacerbating the problem. In short, we need a solution.”

The president nodded, shortly followed by everyone at the table save for Lillian Stephenson. She instead rose up as high as her five feet of height would take her and said, “I see no other option than to remove as many people from Asimov as it takes to get the moonbase to sustainable levels. If the food production’s not there, then we simply can’t house a population on the base that consumes more than it produces.”

“Replenishment,” Maloney began, “what are we talking about cost-wise?”

The color in Johnson’s face darkened. “We peg food transport costs at just under $805 billion dollars.”

“What’s the time frame on that amount?” Maloney asked.

The hue change continued in Johnson. Like a deflating red balloon, he said, “Over the next eighteen months.”

Silence.

“I know it’s a great deal of money, but costs are up,” Johnson continued. “High-grade sources of plutonium are tougher to come by. Fusion reactors are on the drawing boards for all lunar fleet vehicles, but we have to make do for the next few years.”

“With no support from the Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Senegalese or anyone else, I’m sure,” Stephenson said leaning into the table on her knuckles. “Do we have a difficult decision here? With all due respect to Mr. Johnson, that figure’s ludicrous in light of the nation’s current economic crisis. We either send up a half-dozen transport ships and get the majority of inhabitants out of there or we let things stay as they are and watch Lord of the Flies play out a quarter million miles away.”

At that moment, Dahlia Winters got to her feet. All heads craned her way.

“Have we considered the spiritual ramifications here? Whether production levels are or are not meeting the needs of people on the moon, riots point to a far deeper spiritual issue. These are empty people who need guidance and direction in difficult times. Phos has an answer, which is why I propose that we Lights put together an expedition of all available counselors and ship them to Moonbase Asimov. The answers to all Man’s difficulties are found in spiritual truth. I’m sure if we approach this problem with truth in mind, we Lights and those sympathetic to our cause,” she glanced around the room at those assembled, carefully avoiding Killian’s face, “can bring lasting solutions to the good men, women, and children on the moonbase.”

“Is that a joke?” Stephenson asked. “If it is, no one’s laughing, Miss Winters. Your expertise in this area is questionable at best”—she said this while casting a glance at Park—”and to suggest that we find metaphysical solutions to what is clearly a problem of stark material lacks borders on the inane.”

At this, everyone froze except for Rotar, who left the president’s side and returned to his seat. Park began to speak, then caught the eyes of Killian. He paused, leaned back in his chair, and finally said, “Tom, what are your thoughts on this?”

Killian gazed at the tiled ceiling of the room, out past the famous house overhead, to some distant place, searching for words. The room still, with only the occasional creak of a chair, he sought a better answer. A silent prayer later, he found it.

The former pastor stood to his feet and said, “This is what I believe we must do….”

***

What do you believe Tom Killian told the assembled cabinet members as they debated the future of Moonbase Asimov?

Stay tuned for the conclusion.

Banking on God: Crisis, Part 1

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Woe unto the grasshopper!That I’m still under the weather makes today’s post all the more apt. Feeling lousy may be a state many of us will better understand in the days ahead.

The fifth largest investment bank in the United States collapsed Monday. Please read that again.

Now read this: 60,000 homes in my state of Ohio are in the process of foreclosure as of last quarter. That’s the worst in the nation.

When I first read a nondescript, well-hidden article in The Wall Street Journal last May concerning problems in the sub-prime mortgage industry, I told my wife, “This is it. The ripples are going to be devastating.”

Long-time readers of Cerulean Sanctum know that this is one of the few Christian blogs out of thousands that talks about economic issues facing the Church in America. I’m no prophet, but it didn’t take a seer to read the handwriting on the last recession’s wall. My church’s number one prayer request was for meaningful work. Number one. Sadly, many of those who lost jobs in the last recession could not find jobs that paid as well as the ones they lost. This is a serious concern that many people, including economists, ignored.

The chance that we would suffer another economic meltdown worse than the one that hurt us for nearly five years seemed lost on all the stampeding bulls when the US economy supposedly turned the corner sometime in 2004-2005. Sadly, though, that corner turn didn’t trickle down to many people. Every economic survey known to man showed that real wages only improved during the last “rebound” for those in the top one or two percent of wage-earners. The rest of us could not keep pace with inflation. But those dour, yet real, numbers got lost in the giddiness over the fact that the ultra-rich got ultra-richer, and their continued ultra-richness drove up all the positive economic figures disproportionately.

Now the greed of many of those ultra-rich, particularly those who drove ludicrous speculation in investment sectors, is threatening the entire world economy.

Once again, the question must be asked: How has the Church prepared for any of this?

Perhaps this poll figure will show us:

[poll=35]

Answer? Not at all, it seems. Once again, we’ve been caught napping.

And this is patently sad, as I see it. One can’t read the Bible and not note that God blesses people who are prepared. Imagine a world where Noah failed to build the ark. Think on Joseph ignoring God’s counsel, leading to an Egypt ill-equipped to handle seven years of famine. Scratch those and there is no story of salvation, folks. The world grinds to a wet, watery end. Or it starves to death.

So which of our churches stored up for seven years of famine during the few years of “plenty” we supposedly just experienced? Just two percent by the poll responses. As far as I see it, every “unknown” response might as well be a “false,” because if it’s not obvious we’re preparing (and our preachers aren’t talking about it), then we haven’t been.

[poll=39]

Half of us said we could help a family in need up to a month’s worth of groceries. I figure that’s good for a one-time gift of $200-$300.

My concern here, though, is whether this will be enough when the need moves from being a lone family in your church and mine to dozens. Or in the case of some megachurches, hundreds.

[poll=38]

While it looks as if this poll shows a drop in what respondents thought would be the largess of their church versus what they would give themselves, it balances out because some believed their churches would handle more expensive needs. That’s a positive answer. Let’s all pray that it reflects reality.

[poll=37]

The last recession lasted three to five years, depending on which economists you read. The news for this poll question, though, deals with the increasing length of time it takes job searchers to find decent jobs lost during an economic downturn.

On average, the last recession saw the unemployed enduring ten months of nada before finding replacement work. Considering that most unemployment payments end after six months, it’s a four month shortfall on income. That’s all that half the respondents had set aside. God help us if things should be worse this recession.

About five years ago, I sat in a church amid 2,500 or so people and raised my hand when the pastor asked how many had at least six months income set aside. I looked around that massive auditorium filled with people and a grand total of six hands were raised. My wife and I counted for two of those hands.

This was not a throwaway poll by that pastor, either. He beseeched people to be honest. What was most scary was I would deem the majority of people sitting in that church that night to be middle to upper-middle class. These weren’t poor people already scraping by, but the ones who should know better.

How is it that we are not better savers? Why is the savings rate in this country in the negative numbers? I was playing a trivia game a couple weeks ago and a question asked, “What percentage of Americans spend more in a year than they earn in wages?” I guessed around 30 percent. The answer? Closer to 75.

Yeah, you read that right.

Folks, we Christians need to be better prepared than that and far more serious about money than we appear to be.

[poll=41]

If this answer were truly the case, then why are our churches unprepared to take care of people, both members and outsiders, if and when the economy tanks?

[poll=42]

A CNN poll today said that three out of four people believe we’re in a recession. I wonder what the poll above would show today versus three weeks ago if I re-ran it.

[poll=40]

In the church finances poll, most respondents said that staff salaries comprised the largest chunk of financial outlay for their churches. Fortunately, clergy positions are exempt from payroll taxes. Same for property taxes for churches.

Now imagine if those were removed on a church on thirty acres of land that had a dozen exempt-clergy positions. That’s a mighty big resulting ouch.

I would not be surprised if in my lifetime churches lost their tax exemption. Increasingly, city governments are fighting harder to keep churches out of any area deemed business-worthy. Why? Because the locality can’t draw taxes from that church, and the church keeps one more business from locating on prime, taxable turf. You can bet that sooner or later someone, somewhere, is going to run the numbers on all that uncollected tax money and somebody’s not going to be happy with failing to get a cut.

This issue becomes even scarier when we realize that the Fed position on church tax exemption considers it a privilege rather than a right. A series of court rulings in the 1970s formalized that “privilege, not right” position legally. And what is labeled a privilege is typically taken away when it seems most expedient to do so. Like in a deep, protracted recession. Just the kind that economic experts at the University of Michigan claim we now face.

Wouldn’t it be dispiritingly ironic if the American Church lost its tax exemption in order for the government to fund social services the Church should’ve been handling anyway?

[poll=43]

Pascal’s Wager is a famous apologetic that states it is far wiser to believe that God exists than to bet that He does not and be forced to pay the consequences of His existing. In other words, if God doesn’t exist, then it doesn’t matter who believes in Him or not, the end of all humans is the same. But if He does exist (and particularly if the Bible establishes His rules for living), then those who don’t believe in Him are in one world of hurt when they die. Better then to believe in Him.

Describing the Church’s position on the End of All Things poses the same problem, except for Christians. It’s nearly impossible to gather a room of noted theologians and get them to agree on issues like the Rapture, the millennial reign of Christ, and the meaning of the symbols and events of Revelation. Eschatology divides more Christians than just about any other issue.

In that case, would it not behoove Christians to prepare for the worst possible end times scenario rather than the least? If so, the worst would be that the Church goes through the entire Great Tribulation. If the Church gets raptured out of here at the first sign of trouble, then great! We avoid the Great Tribulation altogether. But what if that’s not the way it works? (And no one thought it worked that way until the late 19th century, so what does that tell us?)

Where then is our preparation? How will our churches handle persecution? What alternative economic systems are church leaders developing so Christians can exist outside the corrupted world economic system? Have we identified people in our churches with specialized skills? Are we doing anything at all to weather even a few months of the storm? Anything?

We simply are not ready and have no excuse for our lack of preparedness.

[poll=44]

Almost a third of poll respondents said they believed that Jesus would return in the next 5 to 25 years. That’s a pretty astounding number, though not unusual. I believe that most Christians throughout history have believed that the Lord’s Second Advent would come in their lifetimes.

Still, if one person out of three believes this, where is the evidence of our preparation for His return? One out of ten of you believe Christ will not only return soon, but that the Church will persist through the Great Tribulation. Where then is the evidence that one church in ten is prepping for that reality?

What we say we believe and how we live that belief MUST align or else we deceive ourselves.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record here, but it’s hard not to see today’s Church in America as the grasshopper in Aesop’s tale. We need to be more like the ant—or should I say that we needed to be more like the ant. Because if winter is indeed already upon us, it’s going to be a brutal and savage cold like we’ve never experienced before.

***

Banking On God: Series Compendium