{"id":20505,"date":"2021-09-21T10:20:03","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T14:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20505"},"modified":"2021-09-21T10:24:13","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T14:24:13","slug":"20505","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20505","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IqfV0zeEvT8\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br>The Power of Money<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In 2019, Richard wrote a short book entitled&nbsp;<\/em>What Do We Do with Evil?<em>&nbsp;In it, he explored the apostle Paul\u2019s teachings on \u201cthe world, the flesh, and the devil,\u201d to clarify the often invisible, systemic, and hidden nature of evil, including systems of money.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For most of history we believed that evil was almost exclusively the result of \u201cbad people\u201d and that it was our job to make them into good people. We thought this alone would change the world. And sometimes it worked! Yet only in the 20th century did popes and many moral theologians begin to teach about corporate sin, institutionalized evil, systemic violence, and structural racism. These very words are new to most people, especially ones who benefit from such illusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe personal evil is committed rather freely because it is derived from and legitimated by our underlying, unspoken agreement that certain evils are necessary for the common good. Let\u2019s call this&nbsp;<em>systemic evil<\/em>. However, if we would be honest, this leaves us very conflicted. We call war \u201cgood and necessary,\u201d but murder bad. National or corporate pride is expected, but personal vanity is bad. Capitalism is rewarded, but personal gluttony or greed is bad (or, at least, it used to be). Lying and cover-ups are considered acceptable to protect powerful systems (the church, political groups, governments), but individuals should not tell lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus we now find ourselves unable to recognize or defeat the tyranny of evil at the most invisible, institutionalized, and entrenched level. Evil at this stage has become not only pleasing to us but idealized, romanticized, and even \u201ctoo big to fail.\u201d This is what I call \u201cthe devil\u201d and Paul calls \u201cthe thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers\u201d (Colossians 1:16) or \u201cspirits of the air\u201d (Ephesians 6:12). These were his premodern words for corporations, institutions, and nation states. Anything that is deemed above criticism and hidden in the spirit of the age will in time\u2014usually in a rather short time\u2014always become demonic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As regards money and evil, money\u2019s meaning and use is highly obfuscated by small print and obscure vocabularies which only highly-trained economists can understand: annuities, interest (\u201cusury\u201d used to be a major sin!), non-fiduciary, reverse mortgages, and more. Yes, the devil is in the details! The ordinary person is left at the mercy of these new clerics who alone understand how we can be \u201csaved\u201d by the \u201cinfallible laws of the market\u201d and the \u201cbottom line\u201d of everything. They use the language of religion and transcendence to speak with a kind of assumed objectivity that we once only allowed in the realm of theology and from the pulpit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Letting the domination systems of \u201cthe world\u201d off the hook, we put almost all our moral concern on greedy or ambitious individuals. We tried to change them without recognizing that each isolated individual was on bended knee before the powers and principalities of the market and more. In most nations today, our moral compass has been thrown off its foundations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"302\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/image-8-500x302.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20506\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/image-8-500x302.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/image-8-300x181.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/image-8-768x464.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/image-8.png 1894w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Power of Money In 2019, Richard wrote a short book entitled&nbsp;What Do We Do with Evil?&nbsp;In it, he explored the apostle Paul\u2019s teachings on \u201cthe world, the flesh, and the devil,\u201d to clarify the often invisible, systemic, and hidden nature of evil, including systems of money.&nbsp; For most of history we believed that evil [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20505"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20505"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20509,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20505\/revisions\/20509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}