RYAN BEILER'S Commentary "It's A Start" (July-August 2000) identified the members of the human family that were responsible for the IMF/World Bank protest in Seattle and D.C. Students, union members, and people who love a clean environment made up the bulk of the protesters. But what struck me was the fact that the fundamental opponent of the IMF/World Bank was nowhere to be seen. Nowhere was a Christian presence evident in any of these activities. True, some avowed Christians were present, but no official Christian church was anywhere to be seen.
Today's free market is diametrically opposed to the Christian gospel, as much as sharing is opposed to greed. Yet free marketers have neutralized Christian opposition by successfully identifying their message with the gospel. Financial stability for the clerical church has rendered most church leaders blind and deaf to the real effects of neo-liberalism.
We might ask, as Martin Luther King did when he surveyed the magnificent churches of Mississippi and the rest of the South, "What God do these people worship?"
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