Financial crisis, a fresh breath of air coming
from spiritual values : Catholicism, Protestantism
Bruno Colmant, 5 February 2009
From Max Weber to ... EBay
« I’m not here to talk about the crisis! »
The main dish of the day was Bruno Colmant’s lecture titled “Financial crisis: a fresh breath of air coming from spirituality: Catholicism and Protestantism”. The venue was sold-out to ear and discuss what Euronext Brussels’ CEO would share that night. A lot came thanks to the long lasting appetizer, served by the whole national media coverage, with what they simply call: « the crisis ».
So, when the guest speaker arrived (after leaving the King-to-be on the site of his previous speech to honour his presence by our side), the first sentence was a little bit “surprising”:
« I’m not here to talk about the crisis! » …and we, at Food For Thought, do love the surprises!
Colmant’s latest book, « Economie Européenne: L’influence des religions » published in 2008, was the main ingredient of the night.
The speech was going to be about the starting point of religious impact on our modern world, and throughout his passionate lecture, the audience was kept captivated by continuous parallels made on today’s situation. By reading the invitation, who could have guessed that the lecture would include as wide aspects as Weber, Marx, Luther and … EBay?
From “Bruno…who?” to … ‘my third and friendliest conference”
Some visitors told us that they did not know who exactly the guest speaker was, while others were attending their second conference … of the day with the same speaker ! What a wide range of guests! And that is exactly what we were looking for when we organized this conference: mixing people together, proposing a great guest speaker and creating networking in a cosy place.
That’s what happened: some old friends had chosen Food For Thought to meet again, and with people coming from Brussels to Huy, via Eupen, it seemed that guests did not fear the kilometres to attend this unique session.
A funny but speaking anecdote happened when a couple from Namur arrived to the wrong place: they came thinking that they will attend a technical conference held by Bruno Colmant (the one he left a few minutes earlier). We found them, convinced, after the session, and they are waiting for only one thing: come back for the next Food For Thought’s session.
From technical to practical
To talk a little bit about the speech itself, we can remember that the orator presented the World as a continuous amount of changes, creating oppositions. The first opposition that Bruno Colmant observed was the difference made within the religious aspect: Catholicism on one hand, Protestantism on the other. And, as a short cut, we could say that in the same order, it was almost creating the actual cleavage between the traditional European and the progressive Anglo-Saxon worlds, and the way those two Worlds do react to the Capitalism.
Speaking about it, another opposition made, during the Q&A with the audience, was the one opposing the Moral and the Capitalism…but again, the talented orator brought a brand new view, when he explained that the two do not have to be opposed: as an amount of contracts, Capitalism isn’t meant to be moral or immoral, but simply…amoral!
That was definitely a huge point for the orator that night: as Murielle Lona mentioned in her introduction, as an expert and CEO of Euronext Brussels, our guest speaker is used to speak in a very technical way. But what he showed us that night was another part of his personality and capacities: in a friendly, and enthusiast way, be able to speak with simple words, without loosing any content on a very interesting lecture. And we are very thankful to him.
Finally, we could say that, in this painting of a world dictated by religious watermarks, and made of oppositions, the only thing that won a unilateral blessing and wasn’t engaged in any contradiction was … this session and Food For Thought’s precept: bringing a fresh view on events!