Epiphanomics

by

For a week very year, in the early fall, a city of 70,000 people is built in the Nevada desert and then dismantled and dispersed.  Burning Man is a gigantic festival of communal art and expression, drawing people from all over the world.  It was founded by the late Larry Harvey, a quirky character from San Francisco who organized a happening on the beach which culminated in the construction and burning of a large humanoid structure.  Years ago, I got to know him and we did a couple of speaking gigs together – one at my church in Sausalito and another at the University of Southern California.  I admired his ten principles of the Burning Man festival, by which it runs still to this day, because it reminded me very much of what the church, at its best, is all about. 

Burning Man is an exercise in epiphanomics.  A word I invented last week.  Epiphany is the time on our Christian calendar when we celebrate the arrival – rather late – of the three wise men bearing gifts for the Christ child.  Epiphanomics is a gift economy.  I give, you give, you receive, I receive, no accounts kept, no tit for tat, this for that.  At Burning Man, people give stuff away freely, and receive freely what is offered.  It’s about 100% participation.  There are no paid performers. Everybody is a performer.  Everybody is an audience member, too. 

Pretty much how the Christian church functioned in its earliest days, as described by the book of Acts: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” 

Epiphanomics was counter-cultural in the first century, and it’s wildly counter-cultural today.  In churches and temples and mosques, we joyfully practice it.  And not just for a few days like the “burners” at Burning Man.  We do epiphanomics 365 days a year.  That makes us churchy folks a whole lot cooler than the coolest "burners" broiling in the desert heat at Burning Man. 

Epiphanomics at Burning Man, and church, is a reminder that the economic system that prevails in the world today is optional.  There is a cabal of folks with unlimited resources spreading potent propaganda to the contrary – to get everybody to assume that capitalism is inevitable, the only realistic way of organizing economic relationships in the world.  TINA - There Is No Alternative:  that's their dogma.

I want to pause here to clarify some stuff.  I’m not against money, or credit, or stocks, or capital itself.  But I am not a capitalist.  Nor am I some kind of socialist, either.  I’m not even an epiphanomist.  I am not into “isms” or “ists” of any kind.  I just want a world in which the consequences of economic and political and social relationships result in something that looks a lot like Burning Man, a lot like churches and temples and mosques and families and closely-knit neighborhoods.  I'm serving as the pastor of a church, because this is what I believe in – this kind of community, this kind of economy.

Flawed and funky as we may be, our churches model of what the world ought to look like.  What economics ought to look like.  Feeding each other, visiting each other in times of need, edifying and entertaining and encouraging each other, trusting that when our hour of need comes, we’ll be there for each other.  One for all and all for one.

We should use whatever means practical and ethical to achieve this goal of epiphanomics at every scale of society.  We’ve had a couple of centuries of experimentation with different economic systems.  The ones that are described as “isms” have been uniformly disastrous.  Capitalism has raped the ecosystem and reduced human beings to underpaid cogs in a machine.  Communism has trampled on human rights.  Fascism and nationalism and racism have become the three horsemen of apocalypse. 

We need to get real about what works, and go with it.  Government has its role, and so does private enterprise.  And so do other forms of economic organization – worker-owned cooperatives, for example.   They should each do what they are good at doing, harmoniously functioning together.  And not do what they are not good at doing.  While we don’t want nor need the government to produce cars or shoes or clothes, we do need it to make sure nobody goes bankrupt because they had a heart attack.  And likewise, poverty is not something that the private sector can fix alone.  If you want to feed the hungry and house the homeless, you have to vote, in every election, for candidates who are serious about solving the poverty problem.  And we have to stop externalizing the consequences of our present economic order.  Capitalism considers its environmental damage irrelevant, and does not take into account its negative effects on families and friendships, which in fact are essential components of the real economy.

One might imagine that epiphanomics is a sort of libertarian philosophy… that the magic hand of free giving and receiving will solve all problems and meet all needs.  But let’s go back to the manger for a moment.  The three wise men showed up with gifts which they freely gave and which Mary and Joseph freely received.  However, one must ask what Mary and Joseph did with these wonderful gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  They couldn’t feed or clothe Jesus with them.  If they had tried to sell these rare and expensive items in order to get things they actually needed, they would have been suspected of theft and probably gotten themselves into serious trouble.   What worked at the manger, what works at Burning Man, what works at our church points at how we want things to turn out everywhere – but in order to get there at the macro level, things do get more complicated.  Carefully we have to construct effective systems of production and distribution that are humane and fair and efficient and protective of the ecosystem.  Public policy may seem frustrating and boring, but it’s the Lord’s work!  Let’s take it seriously and be informed citizens and engaged voters, participating in creating the best system we can.

At the macro scale, to mimic the micro result of epiphanomics, we need a hybrid system of regulated private markets and of government services paid for by taxes.  We need a system that does not fit into any neat dogma nor constitute any kind of “ism”.  A system in which we’re just as willing to pay our taxes as we are to pay for a night out at a restaurant – because we believe in what we are paying for, for our own and everyone else’s well-being.

Adam Smith in the 18th century wrote The Wealth of Nations – still assumed to be the Bible of capitalism.  He wrote about the “magic hand” of the market to set prices and stimulate production.  But what folks miss is the fact that the same Adam Smith wrote another book – The Theory of Moral Sentiments – in which he warned that free markets alone could not meet all the needs of people.  He was, in his time, a progressive Christian.  His “magic hand” was not capitalism – it was God, and for him, God’s providential hand took the form both of healthy markets and of good government. 

So right here, let us continue to enjoy our practice of epiphanomics – showing the world a viable alternative to greed and jealousy and excess accumulation and inequality and inhumanity and waste and destruction.  Showing the world around us a harmonious, sharing, compassionate way of life that lifts up a goal worthy for the economy at large to emulate.  Burn on, sisters and brothers!

The Rev. Jim Burklo serves as pastor of the United Church of Christ of Simi Valley.  This post is republished from his blog Musings on the Progressive Christianity website. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author.