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Demonic Rapaciousness

December 23rd, 2016 | 1 min read

By Jake Meador

Moore on how capitalism and cultural decadence reinforce each other:

Joined to this cultural confusion about the meaning of humanity is something else: cold, hard cash. The slaveholders’ wicked regime was about trafficking persons for their own economic benefit. Jim Crow likewise was built off of a planter regime that wanted to use persons for economic power. The trafficking of girls and women around the world is motivated by the profits of pornographers and prostitution cartels. Militarism is driven, often, by the profits that can be attained by weapons manufacturers and others. And the abortion culture uses the thoroughly American consumerist language of “choice” and “empowerment,” but what’s at stake are billions of dollars. The culture of death is sustained by more than simply the penumbra and emanations of an old Supreme Court decision.

That’s why, despite their talk of adoption as a “choice,” the abortion industry hardly ever leads women through an adoption process relative to how often they promise them the “fix” of a “terminated pregnancy.” We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. Money and power, abstracted from the kingship of Christ, always lead to violence. Pharaoh ordered the execution of the Hebrew children because they threatened his pyramid-scheme economy in the elite “1 percent” of the ancient world. Herod carried out the same decree because he wanted to protect his kingship, a kingship that carried with it the generous financial support of the Roman Empire. No one, Jesus told us, can serve both God and Mammon. In saying this, Jesus personalized money in a disturbing way. When capital becomes god, it is no longer merely something but someone. The demonic force of rapaciousness so distorts the soul that, when it is threatened, someone is going to be exploited and someone is going to die.

Jake Meador

Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. He is a 2010 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied English and History. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife Joie, their daughter Davy Joy, and sons Wendell, Austin, and Ambrose. Jake's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Fare Forward, the University Bookman, Books & Culture, First Things, National Review, Front Porch Republic, and The Run of Play and he has written or contributed to several books, including "In Search of the Common Good," "What Are Christians For?" (both with InterVarsity Press), "A Protestant Christendom?" (with Davenant Press), and "Telling the Stories Right" (with the Front Porch Republic Press).

Topics:

Economics