The God of Money

It's no secret that American Evangelicals have inceased their collective affluence since WWII (thanks mostly to the evil, socialist GI Bill) and have gained power in politics, Wall Street and U.S. board rooms. Nor is it a secret that groups like Campus Crusade for Christ and the Christian Union are now targeting the Ivies in order to increase their influence at the highest levels in the future.

Yet, I still found today's NYT article on the subject --part of their recent series on class-- interesting. Included in On a Christian Mission to the Top is a profile of Tim Havens, a recent graduate of Brown who now ministers on campus there. This section, in particular, fueled my "irony meter" this morning:

"God owns the cattle on a thousand hills," he often told himself. "God has plenty of money."

Thanks to the Christian Union, Mr. Haven's present quarters as a ministry intern at Brown are actually more upscale than his home in St. Louis. On Friday nights, he is a host for a Bible-study and dinner party for 70 or 80 Christian students, who serve themselves heaping plates of pasta before breaking into study groups. Afterward, they regroup in the living room for board games and goofy improvisation contests, all free of profanity and even double entendre.

Lately, though, Mr. Havens has been contemplating steps that would take him away from Brown and campus ministry. After a chaste romance - "I didn't kiss her until I asked her to marry me," he said - he recently became engaged to a missionary colleague, Liz Chalmers. He has been thinking about how to support the children they hope to have.

And he has been considering the example of his future father-in-law, Daniel Chalmers, a Baptist missionary to the Philippines who ended up building power plants there and making a small fortune. Mr. Chalmers has been a steady donor to Christian causes, and he bought a plot of land in Oregon, where he plans to build a retreat center.

"God has always used wealthy people to help the church," Mr. Havens said. He pointed out that in the Bible, rich believers helped support the apostles, just as donors to the Christian Union are investing strategically in the Ivy League today.

With those examples and his own father in mind, Mr. Havens chose medicine over campus ministry. He scored well on his medical school entrance exams and, after another year at Brown, he will head to St. Louis University School of Medicine. At the Christian Union conference in April, he was pleased to hear doctors talk about praying with their patients and traveling as medical missionaries.

He is looking forward to having the money a medical degree can bring, and especially to putting his children through college without the scholarships and part-time jobs he needed. But whether he becomes rich, he said, "will depend on how much I keep."

The phrase "will depend on how much I keep" really had me rolling. Look for this guy in 15 years and he'll be more interested in cutting taxes than in helping the meek and poor.

According to Wikipedia, Evangelicalsim "...in the US refers to a more conservative version of Protestantism focused on witnessing and conversion ..." Is witnessing and conversion really still one the Evangelical goals? Is their message selling? Or have they shifted strategies and tactics to accomplish something else?

Comments

[doghouse riley]

Interesting, innit, that you can spend so much time in Bible study and never come across Jesus telling the rich young man to sell all he had, or the resultant discussion of camels and needles, or the possibility of serving both God and Money, or that the rich have already received their consolation, or the parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus? Or for that matter, praying in secret rather than on the front page of the Times?

[Douglas]

It seems to me the unspoken question of the article is "Will success spoil evangelicals?" We shall see.

[Rox]

It is sad that our current American society is so posessed by the Evil of Greed/Power and Money over belief and output towards humanity and being better persons or citizens. I ask is God...Money?? How proposterous!! How could a piece of paper have anything of benifit? What is even worth the stock in that stock market now? People build their lives around it...Paper, but when you ask about God they wave their baptismal papers as a testiment, or the last paper check they wrote out to benefit the poor, the last will and testiment. The last thing they talk about is Salvation. Surely Evil and Greed/Power and Money are Terminal Cancers of this Earth...each uncurable. The value of a soul is precious, but it seems this is the last thing people talk about...how precious could it be...what is a Soul worth? Will sucess spoil evangelicals...we shall see! God has already provided for our success!!! Right there in salvation! But if success means paper, greed, power and money...well if this or that evangelical cannot see through the spoof that has been pulled over his eyes in the word of success, he had better be doin som prayin'. At least we should all pray for this world, being as deluded as it is...Profit is not Profit, and neither is our world going to do any better by our selfishness. I just am almost done with that word Success since that word means...Helping your neighboor ( if you can ) or just by a kind word. But the pathway to heaven is never papered with success since our wings of heaven are given to us by our compassion towards others and not with Greed and Tyranny or love of money, success, power, glory..or whatzit...that stays right here with us, five feet under in the Dust that has no name, terminal with the Earth. The rest is a heavenly story!