The AIG Bailout and the Egyptian Famine: Lessons from Genesis

I’m not a sensationalist by nature, or a prophet of doom.  I’m generally a hopeful and positive person.  But if we are looking for Answers In Genesis about what this AIG bailout might tell us today, it is to beware.  At what price-to our nation, to our poor, to our souls-do we continue to throw good money after bad?

The recent news of the United States government’s plan to spend $30 billion on a further bailout for AIG demands a response by our faith communities.  As I pondered rejoining the discussion at FaithfulDemocrats.com after a short hiatus, I went looking for a bit more information on AIG.  So I did a Google search-my generation’s version of reaching for the World Book Encyclopedia-and the seventh result for “AIG” caught my attention.  It’s the only entry on that particular search that doesn’t have to do with the insurance giant, and what does it stand for?  Answers In Genesis, a conservative evangelical web site that rejects the theory of evolution and proclaims the gospel of Creationism.  (To give you an idea, their current feature is “200 Lost Years,” an anti-celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of Darwin, who brought in the era of rejecting God.)

Answers In Genesis and the AIG bailout aren’t natural partners for a dialogue between faith and politics, but something struck me about the coincidence.  When I think of what answers we might find in the book of Genesis about the current economic crisis and the bailout of the world’s 18^th largest public corporation, I don’t think of creation or the fall from Eden or the story of the Tower of Babel (though insightful things could be said in each of those cases).  No, my mind goes to the story of Joseph and Pharaoh, and the famine in Egypt.  You can find the original telling in Genesis 41:41-57, but as put by lyricist Tim Rice in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the story goes like this:

Seven summers on the trot

Were perfect just as Joseph said.

Joseph saw that food was gathered,

Ready for the years ahead.

Seven years of famine followed,

Egypt didn’t mind a bit.

The first recorded rationing

In history was a hit.

Egypt is both the corporation and the nation here, and Joseph’s rationing system is the bailout plan.  And there are three lessons to be taken from the biblical story that are relevant today:

1. Sacrifice is required.  All of the people are forced to do without when the famine comes, because no one is left untouched by it and, ultimately, everyone is in it together.  The leaders of the nation require sacrifice by the people, and the nation becomes more unified by its shared struggle.

2. The hardest workers suffer.  While Joseph and Pharaoh manage the famine in Egypt, Joseph’s family members are near starvation in Egypt.  The keepers of sheep, the field hands-the ancient equivalent of the factory workers, the union members, the undocumented laborers-are most at risk of losing everything because of the harsh conditions.  Joseph, for all his ingenuity, keeps his pension and his place in the palace, while outside the palace walls “the least of these” are hit harder by the famine.

3. In the end, the people become slaves.  This is the parallel that frightens me the most.  Whether we are thinking of the happily-ever-after ending of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat or Genesis’ hopeful closing note of fraternal reconciliation, it is easy to forget that in the midst of the famine, Joseph drives all the people of Egypt into servitude to Pharaoh (Genesis 47:13-26).  First the people give their money and livestock to Pharaoh to buy food.  Then they hand over all of their land to Pharaoh in exchange for food.  And finally, they agree to live in bondage to Pharaoh-they give their very lives-so that they can eat.  This bondage eventually leads to deep resentment of the Israelites, who come as royal guests into Egypt, and from there into the story of the exodus.

I’m not a sensationalist by nature, or a prophet of doom.  I’m generally a hopeful and positive person.  But if we are looking for Answers In Genesis about what this AIG bailout might tell us today, it is to beware.  At what price-to our nation, to our poor, to our souls-do we continue to throw good money after bad?  Economists and politicians know much more than I about the necessity and realistic effect of the bailout of AIG.  I can only suggest what our response as progressive Christians might be.  In this time of financial upheaval and economic crisis-still, somehow, lined with the hope that a Barack Obama presidency and administration manages to give us-let’s remember two things: first, that the Egyptian famine ended in a painful (even if divine) bailout plan that led the Israelites out of Egypt at profound cost to Egyptian society, culture and life.  And second, that we have no guarantee that we represent Israel in that story-our major corporations and CEOs resemble grand (if crumbling) pyramids and powerful Pharaohs more and more each day.