Why Do Christians Worship Greed?

By Peter Laarman, Religion Dispatches. Posted May 21, 2009.

And then there are the unserious theologians (or should I say unserious non-theologians?) who just can't keep themselves from putting a godly gloss on Mammon's ravenings. The latest shallow screed of this kind comes from one Jay W. Richards, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation (formerly of the Discovery Institute) whose just-published Money, Greed, and God has picked up purplish plaudits from the likes of George Gilder and Michael Novak (and just how 1980s is that?).

Richards' association with the Discovery Institute in particular may provide a key insight. Writing in the introduction he paraphrases Forbes' conservative Christian publisher Rich Karlgaard who quipped that listening to a pastor preach on business is like listening to a eunuch lecture on sex: neither has hands-on experience. The failure of the logic is obvious but the next section is revealing for an author who once worked at the world's foremost anti-evolution "think tank," devoted to the replacement of universally-accepted science with Christian beliefs:

No serious Christian writing about natural science would ignore the facts of chemistry or astronomy. But too many Christian leaders feel free to ignore the basic facts of economics.

Indeed. Or the Bible.

Richards uses the old false dichotomy technique to make his case that free-market capitalism is fully consistent with Jesus' teachings and Christian tradition. He wants to save us from believing either that private accumulation is "bad" and causes much of the world's suffering, or that "God wants you to prosper and be rich" -- as though the prosperity gospel is in any way the counterpart or rival or obverse of the Social Gospel. No, Jay: the prosperity gospel may be mildly irritating and really dumb. But it's your neoliberal economic ideology that is the much greater problem and that is, in fact, irreconcilable with the prophets' vision or with Jesus' vision of the Reign of God.

If only for the joy of the spectacle, I would love to see a theologically clueless apparatchik like Richards go up against a genuine heavyweight like Ulrich Duchrow, who has guided the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in developing a thoroughgoing critique of neoliberal doctrine. In his landmark book, Property, Duchrow makes a compelling case that concentrated economic power is, in fact, a form of theft from the world's poor. He does this entirely on scriptural grounds: no warmed-over Marxism necessary for him, danken Sie bitte.

Meanwhile, Jay Richards might also wish to think about that 1980s thing I mentioned. He might allow these words from David Brooks' May 5 column to give him pause:

The Republicans talk more about the market than about society, more about income than quality of life. They celebrate capitalism, which is a means, and are inarticulate about the good life, which is the end. They take things like tax cuts, which are tactics that are good in some circumstances, and elevate them to holy principle, to be pursued in all circumstances.

In Jay Richards' worthless book and elsewhere there does seem to be a new note of desperation about keeping the Reagan Revolution going, long past its time. We heard it in the pitiful corporate bleatings that followed Obama's declaration that he intends to collect taxes on the overseas profits of US companies. Instantly the Business Roundtable folks plunged into sputtering, sky-is-falling hysterics. Their tone dripped with condescension, as in: This upstart president doesn't know the FIRST THING about how the system works! But there was also some element of panic, as in: Uh-oh: the jig could be up for us at last.

As welcome as such signs of incipient panic might be, I would much prefer to hear the definitive death rattle of an anti-human market ideology that serious people of faith should have long since rejected completely; and opposed with all appropriate vigor.

I'm not hearing that death rattle yet. But, like Simeon, I'm not giving up hope.

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