January 25, 2005

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – Fair treatment in commercial relations is a Biblical principal, but the market distorts it when it offers efficient services only to those who have buying power, warned economist Rogate Mshana.

In his intervention in the forum on Theology and Liberation, which began January 21 as a prelude to the World Social Forum here, Mshana noted that one of the major challenges of the Church is to ensure that this buying power is shared.

At the same time, South Korean theologian and professor from the Methodist University of Sao Paulo, Jung Mo Sung said that capitalism, through the market, took on the ability to satisfy desire, displacing love as a mechanism to realize desire.

Theologian Mo Sung and Rogate Mshana, of Tanzania and executive of the World Council of Church's Justice Peace and Creation program spoke before 200 theologians from around the world, convened by Latin American ecumenical organizations.

Mshana said that the market could be compared to a race between lions, tigers, frogs and turtles. When the rich compete with the poor the poor always lose. For this reason it is necessary to protect the poor.

He warned that in modern society there are many things that should not be commercialized, such as health, education, justice, dignity, respect, love and grace. However, he noted that in the consumer society "we are always clients and not human beings. For this reason, we struggle for commercial contracts and not for social contracts, he said.

Author of the book "El sujeto y la sociedad compleja," Jung Mo Sung said that thoelogy in the modern world is increasingly interested in Social Sciences.

In the Middle Ages, he said, Cathedrals presented the images of saints that the population admired as examples of goodness and wisdom. Currently he said, can we present hegemonic companies as examples capable of orienting human beings?

Currently, no one pays attention to the images of the saints. "Beckham, Gisele Bündchen, Xuxa and Ronaldinho are the symbols that personify desire today," he said.

The great lie of the contemporary world is the affirmation "wanting is power." We want but we cannot and therefore we end up frustrated, he said.

Mo Sung emphasized that the theology of grace proclaims that people are who they are, regardless of what they have. "We are before any social difference. If a poor person is treated badly for being poor, then I am only recognized because I have money and no for who I really am," he said.

In the consumer society "we are what we buy," he said. For this reason, Nike does not only sell its products but a lifestyle and McDonalds is worth $68 billion and Coca Cola more than $40 billion, he said.

Latin American and Caribbean News Agency