{"id":710,"date":"2004-11-05T04:37:25","date_gmt":"2004-11-04T16:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=710"},"modified":"2004-11-05T09:49:09","modified_gmt":"2004-11-04T21:49:09","slug":"god-and-mammon-and-such","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/archives\/710","title":{"rendered":"Mmmammon and such"},"content":{"rendered":"

In For Such a Time as This: The Relevance of the Neo-Calvinist Tradition today<\/em> Craig Bartholomew quotes the Puritan William Perkins:<\/p>\n

Now if we compare worke to worke, there is a difference betwixt washing of the dishes, and preaching of the word of God: but as touching to please God none at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reading the article, I get the feeling Postmodernism could be seen as Mammon’s dutiful servant. When all grand stories to structure lives are suspect, ‘buy more shite’ slips under the radar. This is how Susan White says it, quoted by Bartholomew:<\/p>\n

If there is any overarching metanarrative that purports to explain reality in the late 20th century, it is surely the narrative of the free-market economy. In the beginning of this narrative is the self-made, self-sufficient human being. At the end of this narrative is the big house, the big car, and the expensive clothes. In the middle is the struggle for success, the greed, the getting-and-spending in a world in which there is no such thing as a free lunch. Most of us have made this so thoroughly \u2018our story\u2019 that we are hardly aware of its influence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Upon some discussion with Aaron: postmodernist and modernist selves are similar, boldly striding into the future with nary a backwards glance. The difference is the pomo’s direction of travel is a bit more private. Both choosing, choosing, choosing to discover\/define the self. But the thing that isn’t obvious on the surface is that it’s always money that enables choice. <\/p>\n

A philosopher acquaintence of mine thinks God-talk is always a veiled reference to what he calls the ‘concerting instinct’ — those connections that pull us together. He thinks money is a troublesome shortcut to, or counterfeit of, the concerting instinct. It lets selves choose independently of family, land, tradition, the past. But it’s a trick of course. H H Farmer is quoted in that article as saying, “If you go against the grain of the universe you get splinters”. The world revolts in various kinds of chaos — lonely & angry people, spoiled land, ugly buildings etc. Which is possibly another way of saying that Mammon demands sacrifices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In For Such a Time as This: The Relevance of the Neo-Calvinist Tradition today Craig Bartholomew quotes the Puritan William Perkins: Now if we compare worke to worke, there is a difference betwixt washing of the dishes, and preaching of the word of God: but as touching to please God none at all. Reading the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}