What Do We Worship? The Dollar of Course!

We have an opportunity to recalibrate our national life and do better at aligning ourselves with our “perceived” historical national values as opposed to our “actual” values which are hedonistic. The professing – church has an opportunity to return to the Christ of the Cross and learn the Way of the Cross and stop enabling the worship of money and materialism.

Some of our political leadership is making it clear that our economy trumps virtually all other considerations – this is something we ought to have known, money rules – everything has a price and everyone is for sale…whether we want to be sold or not.

Last night the Lt. Governor of Texas indicated that older people should be willing to die for the greater good of the economy, to preserve “the American way of life”. Yes, let there be no doubt that the “American way of life” is all about the worship of money, affluence, fame – how else could we have a television show titled, “American Idol”?

For the most part the church has not only been mute about this idolatry, it has endorsed it by its failure to preach the Cross of Jesus Christ and by its actions in turning a blind eye to the sufferings and needs of others, both in our own nation and abroad.

Where is the prophetic voice of the church? Isn’t enough, enough? Have we not read the Prophets?

Below is an excerpt from the Lt. Governor’s interview with Tucker Carlson.

But perhaps more important than the interview, here is a piece by Ei Cook, Ph.D., of the University of Haifa, Israel, that recently appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (yes, it’s still published). When I read this piece a few weeks ago, I couldn’t believe how accurately it expressed my own thinking for the past few years – a thinking born of the Prophets and the rest of the Bible. Here’s the link: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2020/02/putting-a-price-tag-on-life/

By Jamie Knodel (NBC News) March 24, 2020

Dan Patrick, Texas’ Republican lieutenant governor, on Monday night suggested that he and other grandparents would be willing to risk their health and even lives in order for the United States to “get back to work” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country,” Patrick said on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

His comments followed President Donald Trump’s statements about the country returning to business in weeks rather than months.

Patrick, who said he will turn 70 next week, said that he did not fear COVID-19, but feared that stay-at-home orders and economic upheaval would destroy the American way of life.

“No one reached out to me and said, 'As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren?' And if that is the exchange, I'm all in,” Patrick said.