This was a response to a listserve discussion on the moral elements of enjoying the fruits of exploitation. Ought non-profits to accept donations from sources that have enriched themselves through questionable business dealings? Ought we to celebrate the Great Wall of China when it was constructed with such brutal means? You don’t have to think too far to have these questions multiply. This is part of one of my replies that I wanted to save.
There are always issues. The points raised about influence I thought were all good. I think it is also important to recognize the distinction between contributing to some violation of shalom (giving them an investment to encourage or collaborate in the hopes of benefiting from that violation of shalom) and receiving after the fact from the fruit of their violation.
Part of what strikes me from our current cultural perspective is the self-righteous aspiration to a supposed status of purity. California recently voted (we vote on such things here) to insure that our chickens are “free range” rather than caged. I don’t really have a problem with that. I’m not sure the voters of the state of California were in a position to judge whether chickens prefer to be in their own pen where they’re not subject to the domineering environment of the pecking order or if they prefer to spread their wings. I’m told they lay better in a cage. Perhaps stronger birds prefer to oppress the weaker ones and a more politically correct solution would have been to offer the birds a choice as to whether they want solitary or to be let out in the general poultry population. Maybe the question just gives us a change to anthropomorphize the gospel bird.
What strikes me about our human choices in these matters is the way our choices play in our own hearts. If you dine in certain parts of Sacramento (or the Bay area as well) menus regularly crow the fact that their birds are free range or their cows were better treated or the veggies were locally grown, I suppose to spare them the discomfort of a trip up from Mexico or the indignities of a border crossing. There is usually a “feel good” tax associated with these victuals. The red-state restaurants also have their “feel good” fare. Those restaurants don’t seem to care how their birds were kept but they have little Bible citations on corn sweetened beverages to add a bit of religious zip to the caffeine.
A marvelous syncretistic twist on our culture-religion of choice is that redemption is only a product (or donation) selection (or rejection) away.
What’s funny is that these choices that seem so vital today 100 years ago would be completely different, and 100 years from now will likely change again. Perhaps 100 years from now they won’t care whether we got our oil from Texas or Saudi Arabia or the tar sands of Alberta but will be angry that we foolishly spent this resource to winter away from cold weather. Maybe they’ll wonder why we didn’t convert the invasive feral horse population in the west to food to feed the hungry. Maybe they’ll condemn us for not putting more recyclable things into landfills where they could be cheaply discovered and mined for use in their day. Who knows? What we do know is that when we feel superior to our neighbor because we chose paper rather than plastic we enjoy it.
Leadingchurch.com 
Maybe we ought to work on feeling smug about our righteousness, but we ought not to cynically dismiss any attempt at virtuous behavior because we won’t know the consequences of it.
If all we do is try to righteously consume, we are certainly missing the point. But while these choices may not matter 100 years from now, it’s also possible that these choices will matter very much 100 years from now. We can’t know which choices will matter, and which won’t, so we do what we can with what we know, asking God for wisdom and trusting that He will take our well-intentioned actions and make something of them.
I was a bit snarky wasn’t I. Great point.
At the same time it highlights the difference between goodness motivated by fear (of condemnation, divine or otherwise, of a self or world salvation project) and goodness motivated by gratitude. On one hand we might say “what does it matter as long as we stop irresponsibly trashing the environment.” OK, we certainly want to stop that. But the public agenda to avoid trashing the environment that is fueled by self-righteousness might benefit the environment by trashing human reconciliation, which (via wars and arms races) also fuels environmental devastation. Our self-salvation projects always carry these unintended consequences and collateral damages.
Shalom is re-woven as a whole. We disbelieve the Genesis story that the age of decay could begin with the simple disbelieving of Adam and Eve. How could that cause such calamity? Perhaps it is more believable if we see that the reversing of it also begins with the human heart set right. We’ll make little progress healing the world in competition with each other as agents of self-righteousness.
Thanks for your comment. pvk