« Jubilee — an Economic Model, Not Just Happier Ethics »

Just what was it that changed my mind from thinking, “No, there is no such thing as God’s Economy,” to “maybe.” Foremost was the group of people in Chicago with whom Juanita and I had met around Ross and Gloria Kinsler’s book, The Biblical Jubilee and the Struggle for Life. It challenged my ideas that the bible was hands-off on economic models. They showed how the “biblical jubilee” is a model that got expressed through specific lifestyle choices then and still does. I was convinced and readily joined others in the group to form the nonprofit, Jubilee Economics Ministries, dedicated to explicating this economic model, not just as theory, but as a practical alternative to the prevailing economic system. 

By fall of 1999, after Juanita and I had both retired early from our careers, we moved into an intentional community in Chicago with three other households. We named our house and community “Peaceweavings.” There, Juanita and I devoted ourselves to living more fully this new economic model and to the new nonprofit. Though Juanita stopped working with Jubilee Economics after a year, we continued our efforts to live lives shaped by its economics. I continued as the organization’s director even when we moved to San Diego early in 2002.

Challenged repeatedly by the question, “What is a jubilee economy?” I have gradually come to answer, “It is an economy that shows us how to live interdependent with all species while using the resources of only one planet.” The name “jubilee” comes from the version of this economy that the Hebrew people adapted to fit their social structures and cycle of religious holidays. But the model’s origins lie with the First Peoples worldwide. Both First Peoples and Hebrew people held that their economic choices were spiritual choices. The same holds true for me today. I believe that my economic choices show whether I practice the spirituality of Multi Earth or One Earth ways.