thesis paper - the worship of mammon, final draft
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The Worship of Mammon: The Fetishism of Capital in the Theological Thoughts of Creflo Dollar
and Michael Novak
Jack Stephens
Religious Studies 696
Professor Hood
Dec., 2006
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As a stake is driven firmly into a fissure between stones, so sin is wedged in between selling and
buying.
-Sirach 27:21
Over the years the concept of Prosperity Theology, in where God shows his blessings to
His people by showering them with riches, has obviously attracted many followers, and seems to be
gaining more momentum by the day. The poster child of this movement, in all of his excessive and
over the top glory, is the Rev. Creflo Dollar of Creflo Dollar Ministries and who is the reverend of
the World Changers International World Dome church in southwest Atlanta. Dollar preaches all
over the United States about how God wants to shower all of his faithful with money (of course,
Dollar is quick to point out that he also means spiritual wealth) and one of his biggest selling points
is the fact that he flaunts his own wealth to prove God is blessing him. He unabashedly shows his
congregants, and anyone else for that matter, his custom-tailored suits and alligator shoes, his
Rolls-Royces, his private airplanes and has no problems demanding from his congregation 10% of
their income for tithes, and if they decide to give less they might as well not even bother and instead,
Go buy a Happy Meal. The concept of Prosperity Theology arose out of the capitalist system2
and indeed is the religious byproduct of the capitalist system. Withou t the unrestrained capitalist
system and its forms of perversion there would more than likely be no Prosperity Theology to be
preached upon. Prosperity Theology, as preached by Creflo Dollar, is the religious justification of
capitalism and of capitalisms systems. While Creflo Dollar speaks on a more simplistic level,
stating that people who follow the Bible and follow God will soon become rich, or at least
financially comfortable, neo-conservative Catholic Theologian Michael Novak takes a more
nuanced approached to capitalism and the building of capital (wealth). Novaks belief is that
because everyone is affected by original sin and is in nature sinful and imperfect, the capitalist
system is the most logical choice for human kind, in fact, he sees the capitalist system as practically
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ordained by God. For Novak, the capitalist market system is the best vehicle for making sure that3
the common good of humanity is meet. Novaks fetishistic trust in the free market I argue is just
as flawed as Dollars fetishistic trust in Gods love through the form of money and that both are
inherently wrong in their interpretation of the Bible on their views of money and capitalism. To
show how their relationship between the Bible and the free market is inherently incorrect I will be
using liberation theologian Franz J. Hinkelammerts theological critique of capitalism and his use of
Marxs theory of fetishism in order to critique the microeconomic fallacies of Dollar and the
macroeconomic fallacies of Novak and how their trust and Biblical justification in the free market
and the capitalist system undermines their Biblical message.
In order to understand the theological perversities of Dollars preachings on money and the
luxurious commodities people can acquire with money we must first look at Marxs theory of the
fetish which first comes to us in the form of the commodity fetish since the commodity fetish is
[t]he basis of the whole analysis of [Marxs theory of] fetishism. Hinkelammert describes the4
capitalistic world as a world that is bewitched and that the analysis of the commodity fetish is a
way to unveil this world of enchanted commodities. Marx states, quite rightly, that wealth in5
societies that have a capitalist mode of production...appears as an immense collection of
commodities. In order to begin his investigation of political economy Marx begins his6
investigation with this mass of commodities. Marx states that [a] commodity appears at first sight7
an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing,
abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. Its these subtleties and niceties that8
end up tak ing metaphysical and theological guises because capitalist industry obscures and
hides the fact that commodities are created by human labor. This is do to the fact of capitalist9
production which separates the manufacturing process through the division of labor; which happens
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quite naturally under capitalism and nearly all forms of trade and commerce. Because people dont
see commodities for what they are, that is, products of human labor (all though they do sense what
they are to a point, as Marx states ), instead they ascribe to them human like traits. Commodities10
appear to come from nowhere and materialize themselves onto the market scene and act on their
own. It is the commodity that is talked about, not the producers of the commodity, by market
analysts. Hinkelammert states, Commodities now set up social relationships among themselves.
For example, artificial nitrate battles natural nitrate [on the market] and defeats it. Oil fights with
coal, and wood with plastic. Coffee dances on world markets while iron and steel get married. The
producer of the commodity becomes controlled and dominated by the commodity itself, not the other
way around. Depending on the fluctuations of the stock market during a day steel, silicone, and
plastics will either become more valuable or less, and thus creating cheaper commodities or more
expensive commodities, which in turn affects workers who will either keep their jobs or lose them
depending on costs and expenditures. In essence, the workers life depends on the commodity.
Today, there is much talk of oil prices and their continued rise in the marketplace, there seems to be
little control over the price of oil by human beings, instead it is controlled by the supply and demand
of it, which are not concrete sciences but rather philosophical and economical guesses based on
either rational or irrational human behavior and the process of production. For Hinkelammert11
[t]he decision to continue to produce commodities is always at the same time the decision to accept
being determined by the sum of commodities. He goes on to say that [c]ommodities begin to
move although no one wanted or intended them to do so, and even though any movement on their
part comes from some movement of human beings. The effects are completely beyond all human
intention and control. This whole effect of commodities on the lives of human beings are12
products of the human brain which make commodities (commodities that Dollar tells his
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congregation to seek and which he seeks himself) appear as autonomous figures endowed with a
life of their own, which enter into relations with human beings on the market system and their
everyday lives. Marx calls this...fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour as soon as
they are produced as commodities, and therefore inseparable from the production of commodities
the fetishism of the world of commodities. 13
In order to better understand and illustrate the commodity (and money and capital) fetish
Marx stated that, we must take flight into the misty realm of religion. Because of their14
alienation from the products they make, human beings invest into commodities their own hopes and
dreams, fears and longings. They dont see a Nike shoe as a product made of rubber, phylon, and
polyurethane which is wholly overpriced compared to its production value and labor expenses, they
instead see a product which they must buy in order to obtain a certain status amongst their peers
or to make themselves feel better about who they are. In this way they enchant...commodities with
hopes of gratification and justice that these commodities obviously cant fulfill them with. This is15
the fundamental flaw of Creflo Dollars preaching and theology. He tells his congregation that God
showers blessings onto His people through the forms of money and commodities. Dollar states he is
blessed by God because of his wealth in commodities. I own two Rolls-Royces and didnt pay a
dime for them,( they were given to him through donors), Why? Because while Im pursuing the
Lord those cars are pursuing me. Because Dollar has yet to demystify the commodities around16
him he sees commodities as blessings and as signs that he is doing the right thing. One could take
the opposite view of his mind set that instead of gifts from God they were the gifts of a very generous
congregation (his own) and a very generous group of his own workers through their own money.
This is the commodity fetishism in a nutshell. Instead of using religion as an analogy Dollar
actually really does see the commodities as having suprasensual qualities and having been
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enchanted with divine properties. And this is what leads Dollar away from the true God and17
towards false gods, the gods of commodities. Max Weber wrote that despite being defeated by the
proclamation of the Christian religion by being declared the official religion of the Roman Empire
and the Christianization of the European world and of the Americas, the old polytheistic gods were
resurrected in the form of capitalism and of commodities. Eugene McCarraher states, Observing
how many old gods ascend from their graves to become the laws of nature of the market, [W eber]
called upon his fellow modern intellectuals that we live as did the ancients when their world was
not yet disenchantedof its gods and demons [authors italics] only we...live in a different
sense.18
Yet the big selling point for Dollar isnt the commodities per se, but the item that gets people
those luxurious commodities: money. Dollar tells his congregants and viewers that they must
speak debt-canceling Scriptures every day, in order to help make Gods promise real in order for
them to get more money to buy the commodities they want and need and in order to live a19
comfortable(and possibly a lavish) life. Which brings us to the next stage of Marxs theory of
fetishism, and another fundamental (and idolatress) flaw, the money fetish. Hinkelammert sums up
Marxs views on money by stating, Money is a commodity. But it is not a commodity like the rest;
it is the commodity that stands out above all the rest. Money is not meant to be consumed like20
other commodities such as sneakers that you wear and get old or cars you drive that must be
scrapped after their life span exceeds its limit. Instead money is the common denominator
between all commodities, with this the process of [the] commodity [fetish] intensifies. For21
Marx, it is at this stage of the money fetish, an intensification of the commodity fetish, that money is
endowed with the attributes of a conscious subject, as Hinkelammert puts it. With commodities22
there was no hierarchy with one commodity representing an equivalent for another, but with money
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there is now a hierarchy, money is the kingin the polytheistic commodity world. Marx states that
through the actions of capitalists and consumers, money has been set apart to be the universal
equivalent in where one commodity is brought into an opposing relation with some other23
commodity. So now the human being, which is brought under the power of commodities of their24
own making, having their lives ruled by commodities, are now ru led by a universal equivalent to
commodities that can transcend individual commodities and represent all commodities (i.e., $10 can
buy a CD, a few snow cones, a movie ticket, etc.). This causes Marx to label money as the Mark
of the Beast by quoting the Latin text of the Book of Revelations in the New Testament which25
states: These are united in yielding their power and authority to the beast...so that no one can buy
or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. (Rev.
17:13 , 13:17, NRSV). Analyzing Marxs use of this Christian image Hinkelammert goes on to say
that [t]he other reference to Christianity in the text links the commodity world, and specifically
money, with the apocalyptic tradition of the beast, the Antichristthat is, the antihuman. In26
Grundrisse (written a decade before CapitalVolume I) Marx wrote that when money was first
minted it was stored in the temples of antiquity, with this Marx took the analogy that money was
the god among commodities and the real commu nity of capitalist society.27
Patrick D. Miller puts it this way, In the case of Jesus radical instruction...there seems to
be no tension, only the assumption that property and wealth are another god, an alternative master in
whom one is always at risk of putting ones trust and finding a place of ultimate refuge. Dollar28
puts not only himself, but his congregants, at risk when he preaches about the gods of wealth and
projects divine qualities onto money and onto commodities. We see that when he speaks of not only
spiritual but financial increase. All one has to do is tithe to the church, read their Bible, and be29
good Christians and they will become prosperous and rich. With this thinking being indoctrinated
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into oneself regularly one could not be held at fault for thinking that those whom are poor are not
blessed by God while those who are rich are blessed by God. Quickly one begins to mix up the
polytheistic world of commodities and the Anti-Christ of money with the realities of the true God.
Money are blessings which give one precious commodities. Precious commodities are received
because one is blessed by God. Money is now ones god, the false god. In fact, Dollar and his
ministry are seemingly mixing up the world of the fetish with God everyday. Kelefa Sanneh stated
in a piece in theNew Yorkerthat during his stay at the World Changers campus things started:
to get mixed up: the shareholders are the customers are the employees, and the
corporate commitment to excellence comes to seem indistinguishable from the
religious commitment to righteousness. It is a vision in which everyone will go on
becoming more righteous and more excellent and more prosperous, forever and
ever.30
The First Commandment states, I am Yhwh your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt...you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make yourself an idol...You shall not
bow down to them or worship them... (Ex. 20:2-5, NRSV). For the world of the people of Yisrael
(Israel), to worship other gods did not just mean to worship a bunch of divine beings up in the sky or
on a mountain, but to put ones trust in certain gods because they gave people certain things, or
commodities. If one put trust in other gods they did so to receive money, property, commodities, etc.
One of those gods, in the ancient Near East, was Baal, a Canaanite god whos name in Aramaic
was Mammon (which has also been translated as Wealth). The word Mammon has been seen by
some etymologists as coming from the word ~mana which means that in which one trusts. This31
etymological root can help us better understand Jesus parable on serving two masters better, and
put into context Dollars (such an apt name if I do say so myself) heresy. No slave can serve two
masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise
the other. You cannot serve God and Wealth. Jesus then goes on to condemn the religious
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establishment who were lovers of money by saying, You are those who justify yourself in the
sight of others; but God knows your hearts, for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in
the sight of God. (Luke 16 :13-15, NRSV) This quote from Jesus, the man Dollar states he serves
and speaks to on a regular basis, gets to the heart of the matter. Dollar misguidedly preaches a
heretical message to his people based on his fetishistic view of commodities and money. Because his
vision is so simplistic and narrow minded, instead of preaching about the true God, the Fa ther, Son,
and Holy Spirit, which Christians state is their true god, he preaches a fetishistic gospel based on the
perversities of the capitalist system. One no longer puts her or his trust in God but now one puts her
or his trust in money, from which one has access to multiple gods, the gods of the commodities
(money in the Hindu sense can almost be seen like a perversion of the god Ganesh, whom gives
many Hindus access to the gods they want to pray too).
Norman O. Browns 1959 bookLife Aga inst Death is perhaps the most searching
psychoanalytical critique of capitalism ever written, states McCarraher. With capitalism, Brown32
writes, the power over this world has passed from God to Gods ape, the Devil. With money
Brown sees the essence of the secular, and therefore of the demonic. Writing on Brown33
McCarraher states, The money complex, which Dollar falls under and what Marx considered
the animating spirit of commodity fetishismis, in Browns words, the heir to and substitute for the
religious complex, an attempt to find God in things. Capitalism, we might add, was a new form of
enchantment. As I have stated above for commodities, Dollar appears to be putting divine34
characteristics of enchainment into money, hes trying to find God in commodities and money
instead of trying to find God in the presence of human beings, which is a subject that Gustavo
Gutirrez talks at length about. Hes putting money above all else, even commodities. This is35
Dollars downfall and his largest weakness. While he may be preaching a theology that many want
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to hear (especially the rich) he is preaching a false theology that only can exist under the pretenses of
the commodity and money fetish. Yet these fetishes wouldnt be as intense unless it had to do with
the capitalistic market economy. Pablo Richard and Raul Vidales write that:
With the advance of the capitalist system money is transformed into capital...In the
transformation of money into capital it becomes obvious that commodity
relationships in their very operation have the power of decision not only over the
proportions of material goods to be produced but even over the life or death of the
producer.36
With this we now enter the capital fetish and into the thoughts of the neo-conservative
Catholic theologian, and neo-classical proponent of capitalism, Michael Novak, whom also uses
religion and the Bible to justify capitalism and the building of capital (wealth). Like Dollar, Novak
subscribes to a Prosperity Theology, yet a different branch of Prosperity Theology. Instead of
focusing too much on the accumulation of commodities through money and being a cheerleader,
Novak uses his theology as a jumping off point for the justification of the system of capitalism and
to justify laissez-fair free market capitalistic policies.
In Capital, Vol. IIIMarx states, We have already shown in connection with the most simple
categories of the capitalist mode of production and commodity production in general the mystifying
character of money and commodities and the fetishes that arise out of them. In the capitalist mode
of production, however, where capital is the dominant category and forms specific relation of
production, this bewitched and distorted world develops much further. With an ever deepening37
capitalist system commodity and money relationships widen their scope to include means of
production as well the working classes of society. As money becomes capital, Hinkelammert
says, it becomes obvious how commodity relationships in their very workings are in a position to
decide not merely how much of what material goods shall be produced but even whether producers
will live or not. Now everyone is affected by commodities and money through the accumulation38
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of capital (surplus value). Those who work for corporations and manufacturers no longer control
their own lives. Their livelihood is now based on the conditions of where they work and are
determined by the way commodities interact with each other in the free market. Depending how
commodities such as oil and high grade steel battle with each other, etc., this will affect the worker
at her or his job. If one is an employee for American Airlines and the prices of oil skyrocket one will
loose her or his job due to increased costs at American Airlines (for fueling the airliners) and if
another is working at an Exxon-Mobil oil rig than that one will be able to keep her or his job, and
maybe even make a little more money. Both of those workers jobs depend on how capital is built up
and how commodities battle and interact with each other. Unfitted by nature to make anything
independently, the manufacturing worker develops his productive activity only as an appendage of
the corporation. As the chosen people bore in their features the sign that they were the property of
Jehovah, says Marx, so the division of labour brands the manufacturing worker the property of
capital. Now, due to circumstances beyond a workers control, he or she must give their39
allegiances to the corporation and must submit to the interaction of commodities and capital. Miller
states that the First Commandment not only applies to other gods but also to multiple claims on
your obedience. But this wouldnt be the fault of the worker, the workermustwork in order to40
live, if the worker chooses not to submit to commodities he or she will die. The fault doesnt lie at
the feet of the worker and the exploited but rather at the feet of the capitalist and those who justify
capitalist oppression, such as Michael Novak. The prophet Jeremiah states that:
Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings. Like a cage full of birds,
their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become rich, they have grown
fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with
justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the right of
the needy. (Italics mine, Jer. 5:25-29 , NRSV)
For Novak the corporation is the best secular analogue to the church. Viewed in the41
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long run of history, the business corporation is a fascinating institution. It is asocialinstitution
and [i]ts legal existence is transgenerational. and it is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition
for the success of democracy because the Founding Fathers saw quite clearly that democracy
would be safer if built upon the commercial and industrial classes. Novak also writes that [i]ts
members come to it voluntarily. They do not give it all the commitment and all the energies of
life. Finally, the business corporation is, in its essence, a moral institution of a distinctive type42
which imposes its moral obligations that are inherent in its own ends, structure, and modes of
operation. Hinkelammert argues that in order for capital and corporations to live, the worker43
must be kept alive. Capital gets its life from the worker and therefore has to keep the worker alive
in order to stay alive itself. Yet it seems that corporations (guided by capital), that is, capital,44
only care about the bare necessities in order for their worker to live. In manufacture, Marx says,
the social productive power of the collective worker, hence of capital, is enriched through the
impoverishment of the worker in individual productive power. Corporations are vehicles meant45
to build up capital and it needs workers to consume to build up that capital. They are not seemingly
guided by the welfare of human beings or of its workers but instead guided by one single force, to
accumulate capital, to build wealth. This capital fetish, the wanting (needing) to build up capital is
something that the prophet Amos criticizes when he chides the leaders and the rich of Yissrael by
stating:
Hear this, you that trample the needy and bring ruin to the poor of the land saying:
When will the new moon be overso that we may sell grain ; and the sabbath, sothat we may o ffer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel
great...buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the
sweepings of the wheat. Yhwh has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never
forget any of their deeds. (Italics mine, Amos 8:4-7, NRSV)
Novaks capital fetish blinds him to the fact of this reality. In fact, it blinds him so much
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that he actually equates the corporation for the Body of Christ, the church, by stating it is the best
secular ana logue to the church. Instead of pledging his allegiance to God he is pledging his
allegiance to an entity whos sole purpose is to build up capital (money), which leads to a further
intensification of idolatry by further delving into the commodity and money fetish and by putting
ones faith in money and by imbuing money and commodities with divine like qualities; this then
leads to the ultimate heresy in claiming that a corporation is in essence a church, the Body of Christ.
Which for those accepting those principles, makes sense, since they project divine characteristics
onto commodities and money.
Novak also states that a corporations members come to it voluntarily. Yet Novak does not
expound who its members are. Are the members the boardroom members, the janitors, cubicle
workers, shareholders, sweatshop workers? Also, the idea of choice within a capitalists system, as46
we have seen above, depends on ones position in that system. But even if one is an owner of capital
in the system he or she does not direct how capital should be used since it is commodities, made by
human beings, that seem to direct the flow of capital (as we have seen above). Marx states that for
the owner of capital one only hears:
Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!...If, in the eyes of
classical economics, the proletarian is merely a machine for the production of
surplus-value [the building of capital], the capitalist too is merely a machine for the
transformation of this surplus value into surplus capital.47
We can also see how instead of being a beacon for freedom, as Novak states the corporation
is, we now see that many Americans (and Europeans) are working longer hours for lesser pay (since
inflation is rising faster than wages). Novaks main theological flaw is putting his trust in an48
institution of capitalism which its only goal is the consumption of human life in order to accumulate
capital, the Anti-Christ, as Marx states. This then puts Novak on the opposite side of the theological
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divide between those whom fight for God and His people and on the side of those whom fight
against God and for capital (all be it both sides claim to fight for God).
This trust in the corporation for Novak is only possible because of his trust in the capitalist
free market which he views as the best vehicle for the common good of humanity. I believe in sin,
stated Novak in a Washington Postcolumn in March of 1976, I am for capitalism, modified and
made intelligent...It allows human beings to do pretty much what they will...Capitalism is a system
built on belief in human selfishness; given checks and balances, it is near always a smashing,
scandalous success. What Novak is doing here is framing his argument for capitalism in a49
theological way which will protect him from the criticism of fellow Christians (mainly liberation
theologians) by relying on old Mediaeval beliefs on the concept of sin. Yet through out much of the
Tanakh (the Hebrew bible, known as the Old T estament to most) and the New Testament we see
many of the prophets, evangelists, and Jesus, framing the concept of sin in economical terms of those
exploiting the masses (Ex. 3:7-10; Neh. 5:1-5; Ps. 10:1-3; Is. 10:1-3b; Sir. 34:18-22; Matt. 6:19-21;
Lk. 1:46-55; Jam. 5:1-6, etc.). To uplift the masses Novak sees the capitalist system, the free
market, as the perfect means to do this. Speaking of the time period of Adam Smith Novak states,
If you face a world of 800 million people, most of them poor...and you can produce new wealth,
then you mustproduce new wealth. If you can do it, you must, give the widespread poverty in the
world. One shouldnt focus on the poor whom are poor due to the free markets constant50
obsession with amassing more capital since that is the [w]rong question. I mean, supposing
somebody figured out the causes of poverty. So now that you know how to make poverty who
wants it? I mean it is absolutely the wrong question. It is just an insane question. Novak seems51
to be blinded by his fetish for capital to see the contradictory terms in his statement in a world where
the pursuit for capital inevitably leaves many people in poverty due to the aftereffects of pursuing
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capital in the free market. This is where we can clearly see Novaks apostasy in relation to his belief
in God. To question the free market is to question the divine will of God (even though Novak has
admitted that the free market is capitalistic hell ). Novak sees the commodities and money52
(capital) built up in the capitalist system as divine objects of God, which is the same mistake that
Dollar makes, and because of this, Novak sees the free market as being set up by God for common
good purposes despite the fact that Novak states it is an imperfect system. Using terms from53
Hinkelammert, Novak, instead of having a faith in the Christian God of the Bible, has:
faith in money, which is the Holy Spirit immanent in the commodity world...faith in
the preestablished order of the relationships of productionfaith that they will
continue eternally...[and] faith that the agents of production are, and will continue to
be personifications of capital.54
With this Novak has fallen into sin, which is what the author of 1 Tim. talks about when hest
states that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some
have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. (1 T im. 6:9-10,
NRSV). Not only is Novak wrong in the theological realm but his thinking in the secular realm is
also off. Here, we see a circular justification for the oppression and grinding poverty of millions of
people around the world due to free market and neoliberal policies. Since there are poor people in
this world society must produce more wealth and because of the building up of capital this will
adversely affect the poor, thus causing them to slip further into poverty, which in turn, according to55
Novak, will require us to make more capital.
Novak always goes back to Adam Smith in his analysis of free market capitalism. He
always states that free markets are the best system because they lead to democracy and free
societies. Yet his outlook either ignores (on purpose) or fails to realize that while economies56
become more and more modernized, the direct association between production and use gets
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increasingly obscured for exchange. In early 19 and late 18 century Americas economies were57 th th
more local and means of production more spread out which lead to a more democratic market
since there was yet any national and transnational corporations and large businesses. If you were in
a town you got your meat from a butcher who knew you, clothes from a tailor who knew you, and
grain from a merchant who more than likely knew you. Yet when the distance between service and
profit increased, and commodity and monetary relations became less personalized and more
impersonal, the market became more and more obsessed with the accumulation of capital and less
for the benefits of human beings. We can see with the advancement of capitalism through58
neoliberal globalization the effects it has on those of the lower classes; such as an increase of
suicides in India by local farmers due to an increase in large scale industry farming. For59
thousands of years, land in areas such as India and Guatemala were used for subsistence farming.
As capitalism expands into the third world, however, land is seen as too commercially viable to
remain outside the cycle of exchange. Capital has now reached a point where it is now60
consuming land in order to continue its massive growth, and with that growth it is consuming those
who used to farm the land. Now these farmers have become dependent on the money economy
instead of themselves for subsistence. Novak, instead of condemning this action based on his faith61
actually applauds these policies and he justifies them religiously. The prophet Isaiah states, It is
you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by
crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor? Says the Lord God of hosts (Is. 3:14b-15,
NRSV). And yet Novak seems to be ignoring this piece of scripture, and others, for the benefit of
the capitalist. If Marx says that [j]ust as man is governed, in religion, by the products of his own
brain, so, in capitalist production, he is governed by the products of his own hand than we can62
also state the reverse for Novak: Just as in capitalist production human beings are enslaved by
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products of their own hands, they project this slavery onto a religious world, in which they are
dominated by products emanating from their own brains. This gets to the heart of the matter of
Novaks true heresy and mistake. Novaks religious thought is controlled by his capital fetish, in
order to justify the accumulation of capital he twists the texts of the Bible to satisfy his own fetish
instead of looking critically at the world around him and himself, to see if he is staying true to his
professed Christian God. Also, criticizing Novaks belief that the free market creates a common
good, Thomas R. Rourke points out that how is the common good being meet when Nike
corporation...paid an average female worker in Indonesia approximately $.82 per day in 1991" and
charged consumers more than 100 times that much for the shoe produced and paid Michael Jordan
$20,000,000. Which was a figure higher than all of the workers who produced shoes in Indonesia
combined. This oversight by Novak can only be explained by his being guided by the capital fetish63
instead of being guided by the Holy Spirit (a being he believes in and professes to be guided by).
Ultimately people such as N ovak, who justify free market systems by using the Bible, and
Dollar, who justify wealth building by using the Bible and who states God shows his blessings
through money, are blinded by their fetishes for capital, money, and commodities. Its these fetishes
which guide their theological perspectives, instead of the Bible guiding their theological
perspectives. Because of this, no matter how much they justify their views, they will always be lead
down the wrong path by their fetishes, and that path will lead them to idolatry by worshiping
commodities, money, and the capitalist system. Instead of God being their concrete reality (which
they proclaim God is), their concrete reality will be what they see (yet they will see it in a
perverted sense), and what they see is commodities and money, which is one thing the Bible is very
clear on and one thread of the Bible that connects the New Testament and the Tanakh. That thread
is the condemnation of money and commodities which distract people from God, and since they are
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Stephens 18
distracted from God they are ultimately distracted from each other and the common good of their
fellow human beings.
They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall
not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the
days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
-Isaiah 65:21-22
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Stephens 19
1. All quotes from the Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant Bible are taken from the New Revised Standard
Version (NRSV) translation. The Bible in use is Michael D. Coogan ed., The New Oxford
Annotated Bible Third Edition (New York : Oxford University Press, 2001).
2. Kelefa Sanneh, Pray and Grow Rich.New Yorker80, no. 30 (Oct. 11, 2004): 48-57,
http://0-web.ebscohost.com.opac.sfsu.edu/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=6&sid=ccbc98f3-5524-468 4-9d
58-475fec862823%40SRCSM2 (accessed Oct. 5, 2006).
3. Michael Novak, Three in One: Essays on Democratic Capitalism, 1976-2000 (Lanham, Md:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001), 4.
4. Franz J. Hinkelammert, The Ideological Weapons of Death: A Theological Critique of
Capitalism, trans. by Phillip Berryman (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1986), 5.
5. Hinkelammert, The Ideological Weapons of Death, 5 .
6. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I, trans. by Ben Fowkes (London:
Pelican Books, 1976. Reprint, New York: Penguin Classics, 1990), 125.
7. Mike Wayne, Fetishism and Ideology: A Reply to Dimoulis and Milios,Historical
Materialism 13, no. 3 (2005): 201.
8. Marx, Capital,163.
9. Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: Notes Toward a Theological History of
Capitalism,Modern Theology 21, no. 3 (July 2005): 437.
10. The commodity, for Marx, is a sensuous [thing] which...at the same time [is] suprasensible or
social...the impression made by a thing on the optic nerve is perceived not as a subjective excitation
of that nerve but as the objective form of a thing outside the eye. In the act of seeing...is a physical
relation between physical things...As against this, the commodity-form, and the value-relation of the
products of labour within nature of the commodity and the material [dinglich] relations arising out
of this. (Marx, Capital, 163)
11. Hinkelammert, The Ideological Weapons of Death , 6.
12. Ibid., 7.
13. Marx, Capital, 165.
14. Ibid.
15. McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon, 438.
Notes
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Stephens 20
16. Quoted in Sanneh, Pray and Grow Rich.
17. By true God I dont mean to state that the Christian God is the only true God and all other
gods are false gods and that all other religions are demonic, false, and evil, etc. By true God I
mean the true God in the sense that Dollar sees, or thinks he sees, it. The god of the Christian
religion, which Dollar holds to be his god. I will argue that Dollar no longer worships the god he
sees as true but now worships a plethora of false gods in the forms of commodities and the ultimate
false god, the anti-Christ, in the form of money, which is the unifier of commodities on the free
market.
18. McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon, 435.
19. Sanneh, Pray and Grow Rich.
20. Hinkelammert, The Ideological Weapons of Death , 16.
21. Pablo Richard and Raul Vidales, Introduction, ibid., xvii.
22. Hinkelammert, The Ideological Weapons of Death , 19.
23. Marx, Capital, 181.
24. Ibid., 180.
25. T he text he quotes is: Illi unum consilium habent et virutem et potestatem suam bestiae
tradunt...Et ne quis possit emere aut vendere, nisi qui habet charactereum au t nomen bestiae,
aut numerum nominis eius. (Marx, Capital, 181).
26. Hinkelammert, The Ideological Weapons of Death , 19.
27. McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon, 437.
28. Patrick D. Miller, The God You Have: Politics, Religion, and the First Commandment
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 31.
29. Members must tithe 10% of what they make and in order to become a member they have to meet
numerous requirements, among which is to give the church their social security number (Sanneh,
Pray and Grow Rich).
30. Sanneh, Pray and Grow Rich.
31. Miller, The God You Have, 25.
32. McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon, 442.
33. By stating the essence of the secular, and therefore of the demonic, he does not mean that the
secular is demonic in the classical evangelical sense, in fact, far from it. Brown, in writing his book
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Stephens 22
49. Novak, Three in One, 4.
50. Ibid., 57.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., 4.
53. Ibid., 56.
54. Hinkelammert, The Ideological Weapons of Death , 44.
55. For more on the adverse effects of neoliberal policies on the lower classes around the world see
Edmund Amann and Werner Baer, Neoliberalism and its Consequences in Brazil,Journal of
Latin American Studies 34, no. 4 (Nov. 2002): 945-959; Werner Baer and William Maloney,
Neoliberalism and Income Distribution in Latin America, World Development25, no. 3 (March1997): 311-327; Rubiana Chamarbagwala, Economic Liberalization and Wage Inequality in
India, World Development34, no. 12 (Dec. 2006): 1997-2015; and Warwick E. Murray,
Neoliberal Globalisation, Exotic Agro-exports, and Local Chance in the Pacific Islands: A Study
of the Fijian Kava Sector, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 21, no. 3 (Nov. 2000): 355-
373.
56. On the fallacy of capitalism leading to democracy in the 21 century see Bruce Bueno dest
Mesquita and George Downs, Development and Democracy,Foreign Affairs 84, no. 5 (Sept/Oct
2005): 77-86.
57. Thomas R. Rourke, Michael Novak and Yves R. Simon on the Common Good and
Capitalism,Review of Politics, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 249.
58. Rourke, Michael Novak and Yves R. Simon, 249.
59. Somini Sengupta, On Indias Despairing Farms, a Plague of Suicide,New York Times , 19
Sept., 2006, A1.
60. Rourke, Michael Novak and Yves R. Simon, 249.
61. Ibid., 250.
62. Marx, Capital, 772.
63. Rourke, Michael Novak and Yves R. Simon, 250.
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Stephens 23
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