In these times many people feel that their cherished religious values are held hostage by the forces of secularization and that, as a consequence, society is morally bankrupt.  While acknowledging this problem, John Cobb overturns the prevailing expectations by drawing a distinction between secularization and secularism.  Secularization, as Cobb uses the term, has a prophetic function. It is a process by which religion is cleansed and refocused on mission and ministry rather than on other-worldly myths and concerns. The uncritical understanding of religion that focuses on religion for its own sake is what Cobb calls secularism. In Cobb’s view, secularization has led to secularism or a culture of consumerism that threatens those very religious convictions many hold dear.  After teasing the concepts of secularization and secularism apart, Cobb proposes an alternate path for secularization that will help us reevaluate our relation to our world and each other. John B. Cobb Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Theology at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California, and author of many books, including Becoming a Thinking Christian, also published by Abingdon Press. Spiritual Bankruptcy A Prophetic Call to Action By John B. Cobb Jr Abingdon Press Copyright © 2010 The United Methodist Publishing House All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4267-0295-2 Chapter One In Confronting Catastrophe, Who Can Help? I. Collective Insanity In the summer of 1969, I awakened to the fact that humanity faces a crisis of unprecedented proportions. My son, Cliff, had persuaded me to read Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb . The book was wrong about a lot of things, but it was right about one extremely important matter. The growth of population and of per capita consumption was on a collision course with the limited capacity of the Earth to support human activity. Most of our supposed intelligence and rationality was directed to "improving" activities, leading us to self-destruction in the sense of making them more efficient. For a few years it seemed that we might, collectively, begin to behave rationally. Earth Day 1970 got a lot of press. There was widespread public concern. There were articles, books, and conferences. Some significant legislation made its way through Congress and was signed by Richard Nixon. The United Nations held a major conference at Oslo and established helpful programs. If this momentum had continued during the past forty years, the world would be in a very different place. But that was not what happened. With the United States in the forefront, world opinion, or at least that of its controlling leadership, decided we had had enough of that issue; we needed to get back to "serious business." Serious business was, of course, making money. From that point of view, it was regrettable that in the brief period when world attention had turned to the fate of the Earth, a few laws had been passed that interfered with the real business of the world, but they could be worked around. By economic globalization, industrial production could be moved from countries that had enacted laws to protect their environment to others that had not. The proper goal of humanity was to increase global product, especially in a way that would further enrich the wealthy. The public accepted this reversal, and the burst of ecological concern was viewed as one fad among others. As a result of these developments, I had another awakening by the end of the 1970s. This time I saw that collectively we are insane. After it had become clear that economic growth was leading to disaster, efforts to attain faster rates of economic growth were redoubled. The call was not for meeting certain human needs, even if that required some amount of growth. That could be quite rational. The goal was growth as measured by gross world product, a measure that has very little to do with the well-being of humanity. Perhaps an imaginary story will provide a way of understanding why I charge humanity collectively with insanity. Suppose that there is a small city-state, something like Luxembourg, built on a large floodplain. Suppose that the city has grown up in the past hundred years or so after a large dam was built to control flooding. Suppose that the dam has been quite successful. It also provides electricity and water for the city and for the countryside, especially for irrigation of farms. The lake behind the dam is the center of recreation for the entire country. The citizens have become accustomed to attending to the ordinary affairs of life with a sense of full security about floods. They are proud of their steady economic growth and general prosperity. The river and its tributaries rise in a large hilly area that was once heavily forested and still supplies the city with wood. The economy of the city at the time the dam was built was largely based on furniture making using the fine woods from the forest. Of course, the f