An Aggressive And Rapidly Growing "MCUSA"

Evelyn De Morgan's 1909 painting, The Worship of Mammon, is on the cover of McCarraher's widely read book on modern capitalism. 

All around us we can see signs of a hostile takeover of the Christian movement. Mennonites, along with members of all denominations, have metamorphosed into something Jesus may have difficulty recognizing as his body and embracing as his bride. According to authors like Eugene McCarraher, we and our fellow Protestant and Catholics neighbors have become enmeshed in the cult of Mammon, becoming what we might call "Mammonite Church USA." 

Meanwhile, Christians continue reciting the same Apostles Creed, praying the same Lord's Prayer, preaching from the same Holy Bible and singing the same hymns exalting God as Sovereign and Jesus as Lord--as though nothing had changed since the first century founding of the Christian faith. 

How has this leaven of Mammon so permeated and deformed us? How have followers of Jesus been seduced into embracing a gospel of gain, a creed of greed, a community of shrewd capitalists not essentially different from the rest of their pagan neighbors?

This seductive and viral heresy is based on some of the following "Ten Amendments" (displacing Moses's Ten Commandments) as introduced and amplified here:

It is I, Mammon, the market-driven, wealth-amassing, earth-exploiting Sovereign of the Capitalist Age, who will deliver you from want and offer you the truly good life of comfort, convenience and consumer wealth. Therefore,

1. You shall have no other goals before me.

2. You shall devote the best years of your life, give the primary share of your attention, and pledge your ultimate loyalty and allegiance, to me above everything else.

3. You shall invest in compound interest yielding savings and wealth-multiplying stocks early and often throughout your working life. 

4. Six decades shall you labor and do all your work, but in the seventh you shall enter a well deserved and carefully planned retirement, having laid up for yourself more than enough to live well, travel extensively and enjoy a life of ease.

5. Honor your financial advisors and your money management consultants to ensure that that you will live long and well in the land and have an ample estate to leave to your children.

6. You shall make sure that you have accumulated more assets and gained more wealth by the end of each year of your working life than you had the year before.

7. When giving to charity, never do so at the risk of jeopardizing the achievement of the prior (#6) goal.

8. You shall not steal, but certainly make the most of being a part of a nation that has robbed native Americans of their lives and their land and has benefitted enormously from the labor of slaves and of oppressed workers at home and abroad.

9. You shall not bear false witness, yet always make sure you take advantage of every loophole possible to circumvent government regulations and reduce or eliminate tax liability.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, but coveting a lot of other things is commendable, since the economy is dependent on everyone spending beyond their means for luxury homes with multiple bedrooms and baths, fashionable clothing made by oppressed workers to fill our walk-in closets, environmentally destructive cruises and other exotic vacations for our entertainment and pleasure, and frequent dinners at 5-star restaurants.

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Meanwhile, Jesus's message to each of us remains the same, "It's me or Mammon. You cannot serve both."

Kyrie Eleison.