David Brooks—The Gospel of Wealth

Posted by Kendall Harmon

The tension between good and plenty, God and mammon, became the central tension in American life, propelling ferocious energies and explaining why the U.S. is at once so religious and so materialist. Americans are moral materialists, spiritualists working on matter.

[Baptish minister David] Platt is in the tradition of those who don’t believe these two spheres can be reconciled. The material world is too soul-destroying. “The American dream radically differs from the call of Jesus and the essence of the Gospel,” he argues. The American dream emphasizes self-development and personal growth. Our own abilities are our greatest assets.

But the Gospel rejects the focus on self: “God actually delights in exalting our inability.” The American dream emphasizes upward mobility, but “success in the kingdom of God involves moving down, not up.”

Platt calls on readers to cap their lifestyle. Live as if you made $50,000 a year, he suggests, and give everything else away. Take a year to surrender yourself. Move to Africa or some poverty-stricken part of the world. Evangelize.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

3 Comments
Posted September 7, 2010 at 4:28 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Larry Morse wrote:

I would gladly live as if I were making $50,000 if he will only show me how. If there were any more evidence needed, this little squib shows how many Americans simply make too much money when suggesting $50G’s is sinking into a genteel penury. Give3 me a break.  Larry

September 7, 6:03 pm | [comment link]
2. bettcee wrote:

There are quite a few of us who would be drowning in debt if we lived as if we made $50,000 a year.

September 7, 11:53 pm | [comment link]
3. Teatime2 wrote:

Indeed, bettcee. Despite having two degrees, I never earned even $40,000. Teaching in the South doesn’t pay very well. However, I have always been satisfied with a modest home, a small car, and a simple life.

Good article. My favorite punk rock band, Green Day, sings about this very thing on their “American Idiot” album—worshiping the “Jesus of Suburbia,” in cities of the dead where “hearts are recycled but never saved.” It’s brutally honest stuff.

I do disagree with the minister’s advice to go to Africa and evangelize, though. One doesn’t need to do that. American Christianity has lost its soul and the Gospel needs to come alive right here. Even those who don’t buy into the “Prosperity Gospel” tend to behave as though there’s something inherently unclean about the poor, the sick/disabled, and the struggling, as if being an American and a Christian means it’s your duty to be a vision of health, wealth, and success.

September 8, 1:21 am | [comment link]
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