Serpent in the Sacristy

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Avarice and Wealth

by Serpent

Avarice and Wealth
Photo by Shane / Unsplash

There were a lot of passages about money in the lectionary this week. It highlights the ways in which Christianity and Satanism differ in their view of finances, but also highlights the way in which Christianity has a diversity of views. (Almost like different people believing in a made-up God will find that their "God" always agrees with their respective views.)

When I was a Christian, I listened to sermons on wealth and humility with a bit of discomfort. After all, I make quite a bit of money – perhaps more than I actually deserve, if the truth be told. I live in a house and drive a car that are not cheap, because I enjoy them. I also give quite a bit of money away to various charitable causes, but I can't claim that I "give until it hurts." As a Christian, money was always tied up with a strange mix of pride and shame and secrecy.

The stories of Jesus reflect a divided view on wealth, as does much of the rest of the Bible. There's much critique: The rich man who stored up wealth for himself, but then died and didn't get to enjoy it. The rich man who ignored poor Lazarus at his gates. Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven. But also, God is often reflected as a wealthy landowner in parables. In Amos 6, this week's Old Testament reading, the wealthy are critiqued not merely for their lives of leisure, but that in that leisure...

...you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. 7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.
-Amos 6:6b-7

It's not wealth itself the prophet attacked, but wealth that disregards the needs of the less-fortunate. Likewise, Paul counsels Timothy not to pursue riches:

But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 11 But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.
- 1 Timothy 6:8-11

The rich young ruler whom Jesus told to "Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Mark 10:21, Luke 18:22) wasn't willing to cross that hurdle. It's up to interpretation whether the point here was that he actually should do this, or merely to make him confront the fact that he prized his wealth over his claimed devotion to God. Either way, it seems clear that the Bible isn't universally opposed to people having money, but places more emphasis on priorities: better poor and generous than wealthy and stingy.

And yet, even in the same church, this isn't the only view on wealth we see. There's the modern nonsense of the Prosperity Gospel – a certain pastor quite famous for telling people how God will bless them with riches simultaneously bragged about evading court judgements against him by setting up a non-profit which would pay him minimum wage, while shifting all assets into his wife's name alone to protect them from attempts to collect the debt.

But it goes back much further. We recently sang the hymn "Christ is Made the Sure Foundation," an English translation of the 6th-7th century monastic hymn "Urbs beata Jerusalem." As you get into the later verses, that hymn makes this startling demand of God:

Here vouchsafe to all thy servants
what they ask of thee to gain!
What they gain from thee for ever
with the blessèd to retain.

In other words, "Give us all whatever we ask for, and let us keep it eternally." Prosperity Gospel might be a modern heresy, but the roots of it run deep through the ages. One doesn't have to look further than the richly appointed cathedrals and megachurches the world across to know that the church's abhorrence for wealth only runs so deep.

But writ more broadly, one might look cynically at the catalogue of sins and see prohibitions on the exact sorts of things that upset the balance of power in society. Don't be proud – so you won't know your worth and demand it be recognized. Don't be greedy – so you won't want more than the pittance your master affords you. Don't get angry – so you won't stand up for your rights.

Satanists reject that viewpoint. You should absolutely know your worth and demand to be compensated appropriately. The desire for more and better things for ourselves and our families is typically the driving force in capitalist societies. There is nothing un-Satanic about wealth, even if the Seven Tenets don't directly mention wealth at all.

My Satanism still motivates me to give generously, because finances are one means of furthering the goals expressed in the Tenets – treating others with compassion and empathy, pursuing justice, and making amends for the mistakes of our society. Money is a tool, and the Tenets can give us direction on how to use that tool. Money itself is neither good nor bad.

And those, I think, are also uses of wealth that resonate with many of the stories in the Bible. After all, it's not "money" but "love of money" that is said to be the "root of all kinds of evil."

Perhaps here, it's not that Satanism and Christianity are so far apart, but that Christianity and so many Christians are.

Hail Satan! Amen.