Inspiration for the Site
Harold O.J. Brown wrote a piece in Chronicles "No Graven Images" which was the partial inspiration for this blog. I'm very pleased to see it online.
Today, the Christian Church that survived war and persecution is in an unanticipated danger, the danger of being “surfeited with dainties,” to use Calvin’s colorful expression. Having withstood the lash, She is suffocating under toys and delicacies. Idols of the past were often cruel; today, they are sweet. It has been centuries since those of us in what used to be called Western Christendom have been tempted to worship graven images. Today, however, millions of us have bowed down and served other idols of human making.
And later:
When Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters . . . Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24), that false god had not yet taken on the dimensions that he has today. Nazism and Marxism detested Christianity but failed to destroy it, much less to bury it. Successful free-market capitalism does not detest Christianity, but it is defeating it nonetheless. It is not burning it in the ovens of the Kazetts or burying it in the mass graves of the Gulag. Instead, it smothers believers under the mass of the goods that they cannot resist acquiring. It would be a bizarre turn of world history if the system that produced the dangerous weapons to defeat the aggressive foes of Christianity ends by producing the enticing goods that will smother the surviving Christians.Powerful words. The article should be read by all people serious about "the good life" or a life that is good.
Really, what I've been trying to get at in this blog, every once in a while, is the tension (sometimes outright conflict) between capitalism and traditionalism. The American and European right, for political expediency only, in the face of Communism combined the partisans of free market liberalism with traditionalists and Christian rightists. It's long since time to re-examine this alliance.
There is nothing wrong with prosperity, per se. It is a gift from God. There is nothing wrong even with "dainties" in themselves. Our duty is to honor God and his Church. All these beautiful things we lay up on earth, will one day pass as dust through our cold dead bones. The bounty laid up for those who do not grasp too tightly to these dainties can't even be speculated by the gods of Wall Street.
Posted on 4/11/2005 12:22 AM
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Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Under the Influences
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Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Under the Influences
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1 Comment
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