The evangelists of mammon

If there were ever any doubt that mammon worship is a religion, just see what happens when a wayward soul begins to question its catechism and stray from the holy path to profit. Friends and family come rushing in, hoping to save the wayward soul from his errant ways and restore his righteous reverence for lucre.

In the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus begins to attract a following with his heretical preaching, his mother and brothers come rushing to save him, saying, “He must be out of his mind” (3:21). But Jesus refuses to go with them. “Whoever does the will of God,” he says, “is my brother and sister and mother” (3:35).

Unfortunately Jesus’ mother never did get him to return to the righteous path of humble servitude to emperor and empire. He continued on his imprudent path, and—as we all know—the empire didn’t much like it.

When I see souls that might have been working for their freedom instead scurrying around doing their bit parts to organize the logistics of American empire, I think of bureaucrats in first century Rome. They too imagined they were serving God and man by serving a violent and brutal regime.

Today’s rulers are glorified by their noble dedication to conform to the will of the majority. They can’t aspire to be too good, too noble, too pious—this would place them in opposition to the majority, which, after all, is far too busy to cultivate any difficult virtues. The majority is so sacred, in fact, it becomes impious even to mention its vices.

The majority wants bigger houses and nicer cars. It doesn’t much care if teenage girls in China suffer as a result. It doesn’t much care if future generations inherit an uninhabitable planet. It doesn’t much mind that its rulers must assassinate those who dissent from the rule of its empire. It, like Caesar, wants to expand its little empire, and is not at all ashamed of the brutality it employs. And, just as Christians in the first century were compelled to worship Caesar and transform his brutality into a virtue, so we today are compelled to worship the majority and transform its greed into a virtue. If we refuse, we transgress the sacredness of majority rule.

My soul comes into this world only once. It gets one and only one chance to perfect itself. I know for certain that its role models will always be those souls who have exerted heroic efforts to perfect themselves. The majority, with its petty concern for power and wealth, with its utter indifference to the cultivation of the intellect, is beneath my consideration.

I’m grateful to friends and family who generously try to rescue me from my imprudent heresy, and bring me back into the loving fold of our mammon worshiping society. But I am content, not only to be poor, but even to die on the cross, if that’s what it takes to free my soul from servitude and return it to its path toward perfection.