God's Bailout

The photo in this story disgusts me. Cars on the altar of a church as people pray for auto companies to be saved.

I understand that a great many people depend on the car companies to make a living, to feed and clothe and house their families. But to explicitly involve religion in economics in this way, to laud a commercial product, not to mention using a pulpit to advocate Congress take particular action, is troubling.

I suppose there's nothing wrong per se with calling for particular political policies from the pulpit. Calls to end war, protect the environment, care for the poor - these are all political demands made in a religious context.

But to save a particular company? To hold up a product, a car, as a troubled thing in need of God's intervention? Particularly when American car companies have been shortsighted for so very long, chasing quarterly profits so assiduously that they failed to prepare for the future, failing to produce efficient or reliable vehicles. I'm hesitant to support a federal bailout of car companies. But I'm definitely opposed to praying for it.

I pray for the people affected, who lost or are about to lose their jobs. I pray for the hungry, the desperate, who are insecure financially and gastronomically. But I do not pray for a corporation. After 8 years of corporate welfare, I thirst for a little accountability for executives with 7 figure salaries and private jets and company cars.