Either/Or

Twice in the gospel narrative Jesus declares the ultimate either/or of his life and teaching:

You cannot serve God and wealth.

The saying occurs in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:24) and in Luke after the parable of the rich man and his manager (Luke 16:13). This either/or of Jesus is not inflected or qualified. It cuts to the heart of the choice required by the gospel. It is, moreover, an echo of the radical either/or of Moses concerning covenantal fidelity and obedience:

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity (Deuteronomy 30:15).

The either /or in both cases constitutes an insistence that the gospel summons pertains to real life in the real world, and not to any privatized otherworldliness.

This declaration of Jesus is the subject of the shrewd discerning discussion of Eugene McCarraher in his book, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism became the Religion of Modernity (2019). The subtitle indicates his subject, one that is surely obvious and correct, that capitalism is “the religion of modernity” concerning the aggressive state, the ultimacy of the market, and the unfettered predatory freedom of unencumbered individuals. And because the either/or of Jesus has been settled among us as the “or” of mammon, the claim of the “religion of modernity” must receive close and continuing attention from the community clustered around  Jesus.

McCarraher traces the way in which the social gospel of Puritan rootage morphed into predatory capitalism that has produced what he terms the “fundamental dilemma of the elect” (117). His phrasing is of immense importance:

Their quest for a beloved community built on the foundations of capitalist enterprise (117).

His phrase “beloved community” refers to the deeply rooted Puritan claim to be “God’s chosen people,” as subsequent Americans have preferred to treasure the tradition, while committed at the same time to the extremes of capitalism. 

An Elemental Contradiction

Thus at the heart of the modern economic enterprise is the most elemental contradiction, because the “beloved community” with its summons to justice, righteousness, compassion, and generosity cannot and must not be allied with aggressive acquisitiveness. And yet, as can be seen everywhere, our modern economic practice is exactly an embrace of that elemental contradiction. 

Indeed, on the day I began working on this commentary (January 7, 2023), The New York Times had a telling op-ed piece by James S. Russell, “At Columbia’s $600 Million Business School, Time to Rethink Capitalism.” The article concerns the new, dazzling architecture of the Business School of Columbia University. The subtext for Russell, however, is that the new architecture suggests (requires?) rethinking the long-running commitment of the school to unrestrained, unchecked capitalism with the singular interest of making money. Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, avers that “climate change, issues of social justice and what globalism means for societies—all of these are raising profound questions about the nature of what the future can be.” And Dean Hubbard of the Business School asserts, “We are trying to come up with a framework that can be more about flourishing, and not just profit.” This may seem obvious, but as critic of the project, Steven Conn, concludes, “As a historian I’ve heard this before, and it didn’t amount to much. Institutions are very hard to change.” Bollinger proposes that the Business School prepares to “ask questions people did not ask about 20 or 50 years ago.” Of course such a view is myopic, because many concerned people have been asking these questions for a very long time, at last since the either/or of Moses or the either/or of Jesus. Too bad the questions had not penetrated the administration of the university until now!

McCarraher goes so far as to label the Puritan,

covenant theology of capitalism a creed whose doctrinal elements included the affirmation of wealth as a divine anointment; territorial conquest to enlarge the parameters of God’s rich and faithful metropolis; a conception of the natural world as a providential storehouse of vendable wonders; and a jeremiad tradition to chastise moral failing and obscure the intractable persistence of the dilemma (117).

He says of this creed:

Under the aegis of their halfway covenant with capitalism, the Puritan errand into the wilderness became an errand into the marketplace, and American life became an experiment in Christian friendship with unrighteous Mammon (117).

The label “creed” is of most importance. The term means a bottom line certitude that is beyond question that is the operating assumption for what follows derivatively. Thus the creed is a mandate for greed, whether private individual greed, the predatory practice of corporations including banks, or the insatiable appetite of aggressive states for more territory. It is all of a piece, and it is all sanctioned by the creed. It makes a nice reiteration: “creed…greed.”

A Different Creed

It is obvious that a Christian creed or confession radically contradicts the creed of Mammon:

• Instead of wealth as divine anointing, we confess that abundance is a gift from the creator God and is to be shared with all of our fellow creatures.

• Instead of territorial expansion through conquest, debt foreclosure, or the right of eminent domain, we confess that the territory of the vulnerable is to be respected as a restraint against predatory seizure. The wisdom teachers echo the tenth commandment against “coveting”:

Do not remove the ancient landmark

that your ancestors set up (Proverbs 22:28).

Do not remove an ancient landmark

or encroach on the fields of orphans,

for their redeemer is strong;

he will plead their cause against you (Proverbs 23:10-11).

• Instead of the created world as “vendable wonders,” we confess that creation is a living, breathing organism. For that reason we know that the vendable disposal of any part of creation has important impact upon every other part of creation and should be done only with care and caution.

• Instead of a jeremiad tradition that distracts and obscures, we confess that there is real sin against the neighbor, that real grace is offered to genuine repentance, and there is real forgiveness that we may live “a new and righteous life.”

To this we may add a fifth element that belongs tacitly to McCarraher’s inventory:

• Instead of enslaving debt that aims to reduce the vulnerable to debt in order to maintain a pliable work force, we confess that our debts are forgiven “as we forgive our debtors.”

Thus it is evident with a bit of reflection that the two creeds are in contradiction to each other. It follows, as McCarraher has seen, that we have learned well the trick of both/and that covers over the severity of either/or. That both/and of beloved community and capitalist foundation is everywhere evident among us, in our institutions, in our practices, and no doubt deep in our hearts. I suspect, moreover, that the more affluent and the more sophisticated we become, the more agile we are at managing and concealing (from ourselves) the contradiction.

But such a contradiction leaves us weary and on edge. In some ways we yearn for its resolution. But while we yearn for its resolution, we also fear its exposure to light and honesty. Thus I want to reflect on Christian worship as a regular, reliable, and available venue where this most elemental contradiction can be processed with some honesty, called by name, and seen for what it is when it is seen clearly free of ideological palaver.

Worship as a means to confront the contradiction

The Christian creed, in its various articulations, is the subject and pervasive theme of Christian worship. That creed/confession, as we have seen, touches all the facets of that contradiction with its selfish wealth, territorial ambitions, vendable wonders, and jeremiads, plus ruthless indebtedness. The force of the creed of capitalism is present every time we meet. And the counterpoints and antidotes of the gospel are also present every time we meet: prayer, singing, generous sharing, offers of God’s grace, honest sin and forgiveness of debts, exposition, and proclamation. All of that is operative every time we meet. The meeting is first of all about the claim and structure of creed and confession. We do that in our praise and in our prayers when we are together. We sing of the wonder of the abundance by the grace of God. In prayer we present ourselves as glad recipients of this alternative world that is, in a glimpse, beyond our fatiguing domestication. And then in scripture and sermon, there is a chance to consider the contradiction that surges among us. Attention to scripture and brave exposition in sermon together present to us both the force of the contradiction and the wonder of the God of grace to override that contradiction.

While the articulation of the claim of our confession or creed is urgent, the true work of ministry is in the processing of the contradiction. Almost none of us is open to radical abrupt change or transformation. Better the work is slow nurture. But imagine the reality! Liberal Christians and conservative Christians all together in a meeting where we acknowledge together the contradiction that besets us all. With patience and perseverance, through this regular meeting (as almost nowhere else) we have opportunity to “grow in grace” to relinquish the dominant creed of capitalism, and to regard our money, our lives, and our neighbors very differently.

I am convinced that it does little good in the congregation to harp on stewardship. The work is to invite down into the hidden contradiction that immobilizes and assaults us, and to be in a posture for change, gratitude, renewal, and forgiveness. We are not meant to be beset by creeds that are not in sync with our true selves. We are meant, rather, to be forgiven, emancipated selves in a community of the forgiven and emancipated, freed to live a life that decisively rejects, defies, and refuses the dominant creed of our society.

We are cast, among many other roles, as the well-known “rich young ruler” who turned away from Jesus because “he had great possessions” (Mark 10:22). But the sad departure of the rich man isn’t the end of the story. The confrontation with the rich young ruler and his departure is, for Jesus and his disciples, an opportunity for critical reflection and teaching. Jesus draws the conclusion from the departure of the rich man that our defining contradiction is very difficult (vv. 23-25). His disciples get the point; they know that they are caught in the same dilemma; they are hopeless and lost. But then this from the master:

For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible (v. 27).

It is impossible to extricate ourselves from this defining contradiction. But Jesus, to the contrary, declares the possibility for God. It is the God of the gospel who extricates us from such a powerful dilemma.

So focus yet again on the gospel possibility of worship. Our work in ministry is to process the contradiction and to embrace what we judge to be impossible. That impossibility from God does happen. It happens by song and prayer and proclamation and study. When it happens, it is a gift to be lived out in gladness. It is, to be sure, very upstream and against all odds for all of us, but it is possible. It is our work, and the work of God who is in and through and among us!

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13).

Walter Brueggemann

February 18, 2023