Chasing After Money

The false religion of money

Our economy is driven by consumption – that is consuming goods and buying more. Companies are willing to make no profit on printers and medical clinical analyzers because selling ink and diagnostic tests is where the money is – selling consumables.

Chasing after money — Chasing After Money Image by Mohamed Hassan on Pixabay

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” – Matthew 6:24 NASB

“… for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
– Matthew 6:21 NASB

Social media companies design their content to keep you there, not because they want you to see content but because they want you to see advertisements.

People chase after the next new thing because advertisers give the illusion of pride and desire fulfillment. To get that next new thing they have to chase after money. The difficulty for most of us is that we don’t have much choice. We have to keep making more money every year.

Church focus on money

Some churches focus on the money the Santa Claus God will give people for thinking and praying like they suggest. Is this effective? Well, compare to the lottery: Adults spend on average $300.00 a year on the lottery despite the odds of winning being around 1 in 175 million or more. The poor spend even more. It’s wishful thinking that is boosted by simply surviving.

Churches are very adversely affected by the emphasis on money. With more and more people having limited income, especially those filled with the aging population on Social Security, giving isn’t keeping up with expenses. Around 4,500 churches closed in 2019, while about 3,000 new congregations were started.

This loss of adequate funds to operate the church also coincides with the overall decline in attendance. As the older generation dies, the younger generations are not replacing them.

Bishop: ‘Money has become a false God. Peter Selby, former Bishop of Worcester, says in a new book that “money is now worshipped like the pagan gods of old as it has moved from being a means of exchange to becoming an end of itself.”

This is a sickness that will destroy us. “Speaking about the book to Christian Today, Bishop Selby said that unless the problem of how society relates to money is corrected, repeats of the financial crisis of 2008 are inevitable.”

Life focus on money

Everything about our lives tends to focus on money – either getting more of it or spending it to get things. Nothing is made to last in our world. Most products have built in mechanisms of obsolescence. They deteriorate so we have to buy more. And the profits for these items are going less and less to workers and more to investors who simply remove it from the economy and put it in stock or other investments. This keeps us running faster and faster after money.

Even the Federal Reserve tries to keep inflation in the so called “healthy” three to four percent range. So every year we have to make three to four percent more just to keep up.

How to take the focus off money

I have nothing against money, wealth, or the wealthy. As the Apostle Paul said, it’s the love of money that is the root of problems.

“For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
– 1 Timothy 6:10 (NASB)

Jesus made plain that if you’re wealthy it’s very difficult to tear yourself away from that focus and put it on more important things. It’s a cautionary tale.

“And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:23-26 (NASB)

Systemic problem

Capitalism is a system with a single mission – earning money as fast as possible. It has no other mission. Many investors preach that greed is good and set their sights on making as much money as possible. They want completely unrestricted capitalism. But capitalism was designed by people, not nature. If it isn’t regulated or employed for everyone, it’s destructive.

Reflecting investor greed is the trading of 6.43 billion shares each day on the stock markets, mostly through electronic transactions driven automatically by computers that analyze the most profitable time to trade. A few pennies (2¢) added to the cost of each transaction on all stock exchanges would solve a lot of problems among the needy, raising $47 billion each year at no significant cost to investors.

There are a huge number of problems we can conquer if we stop allowing the financial oligarchs who run politics to convince us greed is good. Then we can stop running the hamster wheel faster and faster and watching many drop off of it, exhausted or dead.

Take Home points

The world we live in keeps us on an endless pursuit of money. Money isn’t bad, but loving money or having to chase endlessly after it is destructive for us and our institutions.

We can change this if we have the will to do it.

For one thing, we have to stop thinking of people as just a way to make money. We have to start treating them as people, not machines.

Father James Martin, a former manager at GE: Ethics, compassion, and the vital role of people in the age of smart machines

Money as Minted Spirituality by Frederick Schmidt on Patheos.

Why Chasing Money Is Worse Than Dogs Chasing Cars.

The value system Springtide Research found in young adults may seem idealistic to some but the youth are the ones most likely to change the world. Those eight values are: accountable, inclusive, authentic, welcoming, impactful, relational, growthful, and meaningful.

These are the same values I put into the nonprofit I’m starting for them, plus educational and spiritual. Values that Drive Gen Z.

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Our answer is God. God’s answer is us. Together we make the world better.

Dorian

I will use some book references for this series, which I recommended reading:

Tabernacle of Hate by Kerry Nobles – true story of a group that isolated for peaceful living but ended up in cults that advocated violence.
C Street by Jeff Sharlet – a true cult that thought Jesus was wrong, and influences politicians around the world
When Religion Becomes Evil by Charles Kimball (5 warning signs)