Reflections on God and Money: November 2013

Friday 29 November 2013

Leaving the Idolatry of Money: An Invitation

And Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.’

And as for [the seed that] fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

Matthew 19:23-24 & Luke 8:14

It is a year since I started these Reflections on God and Money. When I began, I expected them to run only through Advent 2012 but they proved to be more popular than I had expected and so I continued them at weekends through 2013. As we start another Advent, I will revert to the original daily format from Sunday, 1 December.

Since I began to teach financial capability in 2002, I have wanted to help people develop a right relationship with money as much as to explain the basic skills necessary to handle it well. Very early on, I came across this observation by Professor Glyn Davies in his book, A History of Money: ‘It is ironic that just when physical scientists are seeing the value of a more humanistic approach, economics, and particularly monetary economics, has become less so by attempting to become more “scientific”, mechanistic and measurable.’

It seemed to me that what was true at a macro level was also true at the micro. There is, for example, limited value in teaching someone how credit cards work but not help them to resist the pressure to use one to buy what they cannot afford.

The spiritual aspects of money are still more vital. Jesus of Nazareth said that it is harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to crawl through the eye of a needle and he likened the deceitfulness of riches to thorns that choke spiritual maturity. St Paul warned that the love of money is the root of all evil and ‘those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction’. As the Bible includes many examples of people who allowed the love of money and the deceitfulness of riches to ruin their lives, we living in a consumer society should not be complacent about their ability to resist the same pressures. For this reason, during Advent I will explore the Bible's guidance on how to make lifestyle choices.

This series is not just for Christians but for anyone who desires to live free from the idolatry of money. Please forward this e-mail to your friends and acquaintances and invite them to subscribe.

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Monday 25 November 2013

Correction to 'Sooner or Later (7)'

Readers will have noticed the significant error in Friday's Reflection, for which I apologise.

I wrote, 'Usury was widely banned across the ancient world because it is the systematic transfer of wealth from rich to poor...' but I hope that it was clear from the context that I meant the opposite. I meant to write that usury systematically transfers wealth from the poor to rich!

I have corrected the online version.

Sunday 24 November 2013

Sooner or Later (9)

‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.’

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities…’

Revelation 18:2-5

My third reason for expecting an economic catastrophe is the description in Revelation 17 & 18 of the fall of Babylon, a global economic system – the ultimate consumer society. We looked at this in detail in the series, Babylon and the Beast, earlier this year and I will not repeat it here.

Ancient Babylon is looked on by many as the first capitalist society and the Babylon in Revelation, referred to in the passage at the start of today’s Reflection, is the culmination of generations of money-love, a system that is a ‘haunt for every evil spirit’ and trades ‘the bodies and souls of men’.

Whatever your view of Revelation, Babylon is symbolic of a financial system so corrupt that faithful Christians should separate themselves from it. That is why God calls on his people to leave it. The danger is clear: whenever Christians have remained part of an corrupt, wicked system, they have suffered along with everyone else when it has collapsed.

Our capitalist, consumer society is ultimately unsustainable; our debt economy must, at some stage, reach a point where the collective imagination of people needed to create still more debt is bound to falter and fail. Moreover, I cannot see God - the God who makes his concern for the poor clear in the Bible - ignoring the evil it accommodates and the injustice it creates for ever. So it must fall, sooner or later.

Everyone content to live as consumers in a consumer society, whatever their religious belief, will be caught in the collapse. God may have blessed them, they may have enough for their needs and for most of their wants and they may be generous with the rest. They may tithe and give to good causes. But if, for the most part, their attitudes, aspirations and activities follow the consumer society’s pattern, their situation is precarious.

Starting next weekend, and continuing each day through Advent, I plan to explore how to escape Babylon's influence, using St Paul's guidance about how we should make lifestyle choices. His teaching builds on what Jesus of Nazareth taught about a lifestyle based on love for people. Paul wrote for Christians living in the Roman Empire, where idolatry was commonplace, and I think in capitalist, consumer societies today we face the same challenges living in the shadow of the great idol that money has become.

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Handling money and dealing with debt can be complicated and neither the author nor anyone else involved in the production of these Reflections is responsible for any action you take, or fail to take, based on what is written here. You are invited to put a link on your website to these Reflections. You are welcome to copy these Reflections for personal study or for circulation to family and friends on a non-profit basis. For any other purpose, whether or not for profit, you will require written permission in advance from the author before copying, reproducing or transmitting extracts in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or using any information storage and retrieval system.