Fall 2024
The Christian tradition has had much to say about money. And this makes sense: Christ spoke more about the topic of money in the New Testament than any other subject. Christ both relativized its worth (i.e., “render undo Caesar what is Caesar’s) and implied in his exchange with the rich young ruler that the status of one’s salvation is somehow bound up with their relation to their wealth (or lack thereof). And the theological tradition has followed suit, speaking of money in spiritual, ethical, and theological terms.
Recent decades have witnessed Christian theologians wrestling with and responding to the evolving state(s) of capitalism in creative and challenging ways. In his infamous God the Economist, Douglas Meeks developed the notion of “God as economist” to critique the corrupted logic of the modern market. Even if the market assumes the absence of God, Meeks argued, it functions according to certain God-concepts, which justify domination in the economic sphere. More recently, in her 2015 Gifford Lectures, Kathryn Tanner explored the ways the cultural forms animating the latest iteration of finance-dominated capitalism shape human lives and points to the ways in which those ever-pervasive forces might be contested and countered by Christian belief and practice. Taking a significantly different approach in his fascinating book Divine Currency, Devin Singh interrogated the relationship between economic ideas and religious thought, arguing that monetary thought has come to be infused in the very conception and practice of Christian doctrine. Whereas money has led its logic to the structuring of doctrinal thought, theology has offered its prestige and mystique to monetary exchange. So the question of Christianity’s relation to and treatment of money is complex, contested, and ongoing.
And the import of that conversation has only recently intensified in light of the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the world’s richest 10 men doubled their wealth. Wealth inequality continues climbing at exhausting rates, and the broad structures that enable such distribution don’t seem to be slowing down. And while money has no inherent value, it does make a concrete and profound impact on every human person in ways both seen and unseen. Money can make the difference between flourishing and suffering, freedom and constraint, and ultimately between life and death.
In October 2017, in the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in US history, Bishop Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut took part in a panel interview as a member of Bishops Against Gun Violence. There, Douglas spoke frankly of the troubling financial connections between the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and the arms […]
For everything the Bible says about money and possessions, its message can be ambivalent. As Walter Brueggemann puts it, “One can find in Scripture almost anything on the topic one wants to find,” and the Bible’s discussions of wealth and possessions are “complex and diverse in a way that refuses any systematic summary.”[1] On the […]
The theological case that the gospel makes a claim upon our money and our shared economic life has already been convincingly made, for anyone with ears to hear. From Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to Cornel West and Delores Williams, Black theological voices in the United States have clearly shown the connection between anti-Black racism […]
Churches don’t close because they lose their vision (or fulfill it), and they don’t close when they get too small. Churches close their doors when they run out of money. Often the demise of a congregation is dressed up in other language, but the cold hard fact is that churches close when they run out […]
“Urban Dilemma” by Diane G. Casey Getting a grip on what money is and on the place of money in our lives is intellectually, ethically, and spiritually difficult. Of course, we can be tempted to overstate this difficulty and thereby to miss a rather obvious fact: money is particularly confusingfor people with money. People without […]
“Carousel” (2014), acrylic and marker on paper (photo by Orestes Gonzalez) The myth that wealth is always the result of hard work was recently exposed in an article that pointed out that fifteen billionaires under age thirty inherited their wealth. It is projected that within the next two decades, over $5.2 trillion will be inherited […]
I must admit, I have recently become a political and theological realist. Like many Americans, I feel exhausted by the effects of the pandemic, the specter of another Trump presidency, the ongoing state violence against innocent civilians. I feel like I am wandering in the wild, waiting for God to answer injustice. Quite frankly, I […]
Jesus was likely a victim of sexual assault. This may seem an outrageous or surprising claim, yet as I will show, it’s one that is consistent with the biblical text and historical context. But more importantly, it is a claim that opens up possibilities for healing. Acknowledging that Jesus was likely a victim of sexual […]
My brother Bill’s standard response to my “How are you doing?” was a bitter, “Oh, you know, living the dream.” Years ago, he’d owned a Texaco gas station. Then a freeway upgrade closed the offramp to his station, putting him into bankruptcy and back to working for others. Bill spent the last twelve years of […]
I. Canopy: Muj/ throne: q’alib’aj/ flute-bone: su’ b’aq Isaac fell sick on New Year’s Day. Behind jaguar, hyena, and conquistador masks, neighbors danced like marionettes and shook chinchines to the marimba. I knew what would follow like I knew the weight of my son’s body. The first volador climbed four wooden ladders and wound rope […]
Man, money ain’t got no owners, only spenders. Omar Little, The Wire When my mother moved from her apartment to a retirement community, she wanted to thank the building staff who’d made her life easier. Among them were two Filipino men, Manny and Jerry, who worked the parking garage below her building. When she went […]
For it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul. ―Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises You might approach the Jerusalem of the heart. —Scott Cairns, “Hidden City” This is my Church. —John Anderson, Mohawk, overlooking Sequatchie Valley Still, the opossum climbs the gnarled tree at my […]
Each dilapidated in a different way— half-patched roof, porch sagging, two sideboards painted five different shades of purple to test out for a season a choice that may cause any number of arguments— or not, nothing in this town requiring permanence or beauty except for what already is: red-breasted blackbird, deep-diving loons, a lake that […]
We want him gone— pretty boy fat with feasts and wine. Now he’s poor. Desert him! He chose his lot. As aging swine, we dare not share one crumb, least of all with him, whom we want gone. Split our scraps? God Almighty, it’s our home and up to us who joins this raucous feast. […]
In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men […]
The most jarring pages in The Black Reparations Project are filled almost exclusively with numbers.A table is headed with the dry title “Annual Total Debt Estimates and Cumulative Debt Estimates at 3% Interest, 1776–1860” and dull column labels like “Hourly Wage,” “Person-hours per year,” “Annual total debt,” and “Cumulative debt at 3% interest.” The rest […]
Picture longing for an inaccessible, distant place. Call that longing farsickness. It is in form the same as homesickness, but it lacks the emphasis on memory. The homesick are exiles who remember somewhere they once were and would like to return to. They include Ovid at the Black Sea, Genji in Suma, and Vladimir Nabokov […]
The bold claim of 1 Timothy 6:10 that “the love of money is a root of all evils” is the embarrassing relative in a family of famous biblical passages. Many ministers and theologians either pretend this passage does not exist or find innovative ways of explaining it away. Some force the awkward translation “all sorts […]
