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Maybe I’ve been living under a rock the past several years (or, more likely, I’ve not been in the market for a diamond since I purchased an engagement ring back in 1988), but in the past 3 to 4 weeks, I have heard multiple stories about ‘blood diamonds’, or ‘conflict diamonds’. These stones are mined in war zones in Africa, primarily Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola, and are used to fund the purchase of weapons (primarily old Soviet, Chinese, North Korean and French weapons, though some US-manufactured weapons also seem to make it there) to further the wars. There are also legitimate reports that these diamonds have been used to fund al Quaeda.
What makes these diamonds even worse are the huge number of African people still being sold into slavery, killed and maimed in the mining and trade of these diamonds – in addition to the hundreds of thousands killed in the wars these stones fund.
First off, I am not a big supporter of boycotts or Leo DeCaprio, but there’s a movie, called Blood Diamond (check out the trailer here), coming out in December that has diamond sellers worried that people may stop buying diamonds, so says the LA Times. While there is an international “process”, called the Kimberley Process, which restricts the sale of these diamonds, it is imperfect, and a number of these diamonds still make it into international markets (or may be bought up and then held to keep the market price high until they can be released into the market at a later, more profitable and less political, time).
I realize that there are many practicing Christians who buy and/or sell diamonds, but with the poverty within our own country, and now, oppression of people through slavery, degradation and death for blood diamonds, isn’t it about time we stopped spending so much money on precious stones and metals, and instead using the abundance we have been blessed with to stop poverty, to stop oppression, to stop slavery in this world and to help bring about the kingdom?
If you’re dead-set on buying a diamond, here is a guide to making sure it isn’t a blood diamond.
If you’re not set on buying diamonds for your loved one(s), how about spending some of what you would pay for precious gems and (even more importantly) giving your time to those less fortunate – to be salt and light to a dark world?
Comments
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Arts & Culture, Moral Dilemmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
“but with the poverty within our own country, and now, oppression of people through slavery, degradation and death for blood diamonds, isn’t it about time we stopped spending so much money on precious stones and metals, and instead using the abundance we have been blessed with to stop poverty, to stop oppression, to stop slavery in this world and to help bring about the kingdom?”
I do not know about the “bring about the kingdom” reference, but I agree with abandoning the hedonistic lifestyle of the Babylonian culture to seek after the pearl of great price.
Here’s a little comedy, Chris.
Fishing the Abyss
Standing far enough from the edge to gain solid footing!
(couldn’t resist)
Henry,
That is where some people belong – far from the edge. Others were called to be fishermen, which means they actually had to go out onto the water (the abyss) to catch anything…
A number of studies from Israel indicate that fishing was not very common, and that it is very odd that Jesus chose 5 fishermen of his 12 to be disciples. In fact, it would be like me choosing 12 disciples today, and 5 of them would be nuclear physicists (and I don’t know any, personally). He chose them for a reason, and one of those reasons was because they weren’t too afraid of the abyss to fish it…
Choosing fishermen is a remez of Gen 1:26&27
26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,…
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
He is beginning the work of making man in his image… Col 1:15 & Heb 1:3 are the drash of 1:27.
Many missionaries have set up ministry three steps outside the gates of hell. Nothing wrong with your imagery of fishing the abyss.
The sod comes from the imagery of clean animals in Leviticus. The reason a lobster is an abomination is because it captures clean fish, those who are “swimming” above the bottom (earthly) with fins and scales and drags them back to earth. But the fisherman drags them from the water (natural) to the surface into the air (heavenly).
This is the work of Christ and his disciples.