G20: A new world order?

The G20 agreement has been hailed by world leaders as a “historic” moment, which will help bring the world out of the recession that has caused so much misery and anxiety for people across the globe.

This may well be the case and of course it may not. Twenty years from now maybe we will see if the decision made on Thursday to pledge one trillion dollars to end the recession was a bold and brilliant move or a colossal collective mistake.

Right now it is very difficult to say if it truly is a “historic” event. We do have, however, every right to hope that it will be in a positive way and perhaps we can celebrate the way that nations came together to work to solve each others problems.

The G20 summit also saw a coming together of a very different kind, however. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest during the summit and by no means all of them were there simply because they had lost their job.

There were also climate change protestors and anti-war protestors as well as violent anarchists who became embroiled in bloody fights with the police and manage to smash up a branch of Royal Bank of Scotland.

This shows us that the world still has many problems besides the economy, problems which cannot be fixed by IMF funding, fiscal stimuli, interest rate cuts or financial regulation.

Some have argued that the current crisis shows that capitalism and free market economics have failed. The anarchists in particular must have felt that this was their moment to prove that they were right all along.

Certainly the current crisis has shown us that the system is not perfect. Capitalism is a man-made system and as such it is vulnerable to the same weaknesses that inherent to man.

On the other side we have anarchism and communism. Most sensible people can see straight away that anarchism is no alternative to what we have now. Indeed the protestors themselves revealed by their actions that their only policy on ending human suffering is to smash the windows of an unpopular bank. One could also say that the trains in the UK run badly enough as it is without making things worse by promoting anarchy.

Communism and heavy socialism too are no solution. Communism has been widely discredited since the end of the cold war (although still an alarming number of students still seem to think there is something to it).

Why did Communism fall? Just as with capitalism it is a man-made ideology and so prone to human weakness. The big weakness of communism, however, was that they tried to build something similar to the Kingdom of God but took God out of it - good ideas in principle which turned out to be not so good in practice.

While both communism and capitalism are flawed, capitalism has the advantage. The reason? Freedom. Communism attempted to change the world by force, by taking away people’s freedom they thought they could make utopia.

Capitalism, or to be precise the democracy which typically accompanies it, promotes freedom. Unfortunately this also has its drawbacks as people (or perhaps bankers) can use that freedom for bad or unwise purposes which can cause suffering to others or themselves.

So both systems have their own weaknesses. Neither of them is capable of creating a utopia. In the 20th century we witnessed the rise and fall of ideologies promising a brave new world. But in every case their brought suffering and death – to the point where most people are probably cynical about anyone who claims to have a bright idea about ending the suffering of the human race.

The solution to this dilemma is in the Bible. God has promised that he will make a “new heaven” and a “new earth” where the “old order of things will be swept away” and every tear will be wiped away from every eye. God will not allow evil and suffering to continue on this earth, whether it is caused by communists, capitalists, anarchists or the much maligned Sir Fred Goodwin.

God has promised us that one day the word of God will cover the earth as water covers the sea. He also invited us in the “Great Commission” to help fulfil that and bring that world about.

As Christians we should go out and make it happen, we should pray for it and work for it. We should show the world that we have a better solution to the world’s problems than smashing windows, or economic regulation, or IMF funding. We have the Gospel and the love of Jesus Christ.