http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/EconomicElephants 

http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/Rainbows Reported here by: SPMG, 4 August 2009 

The Salvation Army NZ has released a thought-provoking discussion paper exploring consumerism and what we feel is rightly ours. It focuses on the concept of entitlement and the inherent dangers of framing entitlement in terms of our desires and inflated expectations. The Rainbow paper follows on from an earlier paper on Economic Elephants and the theology of enough. 

gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz Reported here by: SPMG, 10 April 2009

These days, much of our foreign aid should be being directed into providing a safety net for the poor. If you count the oil price rise in 2007 and the large hike in world food prices, the current financial meltdown is the third crisis in a row to hit poorer nations in less than 2 years. Logically, that should make it imperative to focus on the grassroots needs of vulnerable communities especially in the South Pacific, right? More»

Reported here by: SPMG, 14 March 2009

Practical church responses include:

- Encourage from the pulpit for people under financial stress to go
to budget advisors sooner than later.
- Highlight that there is not shame/social alienation in a Christian
community to go into bankruptcy.
- Get churches in behind supporting proven budget advisory services
and professional debt counselling services like CAPs (Christians Against
Poverty) which have had a high success rate.
- Make employers aware that if they retain employees with families for
at least 30 hours a week then they will be entitled to the working for
families package.

Good advocacy work already being done by New Zealand Council of Christian Services http://www.nzccss.org.nz/ See their campaign Let us look after each other http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/Common-Life/together-we-can and Together We can including letter to Prime Minister dated 6 March 2009 http://www.nzccss.org.nz/uploads/publications/Together-We-Can_letter&paper.pdf

www.cjd.org Reported here by: SPMG, 22 March 2009

Jim Consedine is the editor of ‘The Common Good,’ the newspaper of Christchurch Catholic Worker in New Zealand. He discusses in this piece a Christian response to the crisis of voluntary poverty.