Thursday, March 29, 2018

Is Greed Implicit in Christian Theology?

In Business Ethics for Dummies (p. 123), greed is defined as a basic desire for more. The authors posit a “reasonable greed,” which in business “fuels growth,” which in turn “creates jobs and adds value to a society [and] economy” (p. 124). The authors conclude that “in terms of this social and economic growth at least, greed is a good thing” (p. 124). This sounds like a partial affirmation of Gordon Gekko’s claim that “greed, for lack of a better word, is good” (Wall Street). As long as greed proffers good consequences—the greatest good for the greatest number—the desire for more is ethical, or “reasonable.”

In terms of Christianity even where the religious thought has allowed for profit-seeking and the holding of wealth (e.g., for the virtues of liberality and magnificence), greed itself has been excoriated as sin. That is to say, even though Christianity contains different takes on the relationship between wealth and greed, the religion has never approved of the desire for more.

Theologians have typically assumed that the fundamental desire for more is for lower goods, such as wealth, rather than for higher ones, such as God. Greed thus represents misordered concupiscence: the placing of a lower good over a higher one. Such greed is thus desire in excess to what the object deserves. According to Business Ethics for Dummies, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines greed as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed” (p. 316). The desire is thus sordid in that it is selfish and excessive, regardless of the object being desired or any beneficial consequences for others.

Undoubtedly, the basic desire for more can be directed to many objects. According to Business Ethics for Dummies, people can be greedy “for power, status, influence, or anything else they desire in excess” (p. 316). One might ask whether a desire for God can possibly be selfish and in excess.

Augustine, for instance, writes of his yearning for God as though a lover pining after a beloved. His language evinces an obsession of sorts, hence possibly capable of excess. “You are my God, and I sigh for you day and night,” Augustine declares in Confessions (7.10.171). “You have sent forth fragrance, and I have drawn in my breath, and I pant after you. I have tasted you and I hunger and I thirst for you. You have touched me and I have burned for your peace” (Confessions, 10.27.254-55). If it is the limitless nature of the desire for more that is responsible for Christianity’s long-held aversion to greed, then what of Augustine’s sighing and burning for God?  If Augustine’s higher passion is akin to lust, is not selfishness and excess possible? Augustine’s more may be higher, but it is still more, and he wants the object without limit.

To be sure, God is without limit, being omnipotent and omniscient as well as omnipresent, so it could be argued that a desire for God can be unlimited without being excessive (given the nature of the object). If so, Augustine’s sublimated eros being directed to God can be carved out as an exception and labeled as “holy greed” to distinguish it from the commercial “reasonable greed” that issues in economic growth and jobs. The nature of the object and beneficial consequences are the respective justifiers of these two manifestations of greed. However, this path of carving out exceptions can lead to greed itself being deemed good in itself.

I contend that the desire for more is troubling even if the desire evinces a proclivity to vindicate more and more of itself. In being selfish and subject to excess, the desire for more can be said to resemble an addiction, regardless of the object and unintentional beneficial impacts on others.

In terms of excess, the desire innately sets aside any possible restraints such as a desire for equilibrium (e.g., “enough is enough!”). Furthermore, in being self-centered, the desire warps one’s perception to enable still more. For instance, something just ascertained is suddenly viewed as a given, and thus to be augmented rather than accepted as sufficient. If the amount gained had been a good deal, this is taken for granted as an even better deal is sought. Hence, the desire does not diminish out of a sense that enough has been gained. Lest a declining marginal utility arrest the desire in terms of consumption, still more is desired in terms of savings either because 1) you can never be certain that you won’t be able to use the still more or 2) the addiction to more is too captivating. The question is perhaps whether the human desire for more is itself subject to declining marginal utility as a motivation.  Does one become tired of feeling it or is it self-perpetuating?

Even though the desire is innate and self-perpetuating, it need not dominate a person’s motivation and behavior. I suspect that the key to setting aside the desire for still more is seeing it for what it is—that is, being able to recognize it as one is in its grip. A person noticing the cycle can instantly see that the good deal one has just achieved as sufficient. In other words, once the desire is recognized, a bracketing counter-motive can be applied. The promise of freedom from the otherwise all-consuming desire for more is superior to even “reasonable” and “holy” greed.  

Source:

Norman Bowie and Meg Schneider, Business Ethics for Dummies (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011).

Related book: God's Gold  The text goes through the history of Christian thought on how greed is related to wealth and profit-seeking, and proffers an explanation for why the historical shift was from anti-wealth to a pro-wealth dominant stance. 

An Interfaith Declaration of Business (Ethics)

Released in 1994, “An Interfaith Declaration: A Code of Ethics on International Business for Christians, Muslims, and Jews” is comprised of two parts: principles and guidelines. The four principles (justice, mutual respect/love, stewardship and honesty) are described predominantly in religious terms, devoid of any connection to business. In contrast, the guidelines invoke the principles in their ethical sense, devoid of any religious connotation. The disconnect in applying religious ethics to business is not merely in books; the heavenly and earthly cities are as though separated by a great ocean of time.

 Are these religions applicable to business?    Wikipedia

The full essay is at "An Interfaith Declaration of Business."

Source:


Related paper: "Religion in Strategic Leadership: A Positivistic, Normative/Theological and Strategic Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics (2005) 57: 221-239.

Related book: God's Gold  The text goes through the history of Christian thought on how greed is related to wealth and profit-seeking, and proffers an explanation for why the historical shift was from anti-wealth to a pro-wealth dominant stance. 

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Christian Films as Distinctly Theological: A Theological Project

Should films with a distinctively religious theme and narrative water down the theological dimension so to be more acceptable in modern, secular society (i.e., a broader range of movie-goers), and thus profitable? The success of films like The Last Temptation of Christ, The Nativity Story, The Passion of the Christ, and Son of God suggest that theology should be embraced rather than tempered if box-office numbers are at all important. The genre should thus be distinguished from historical drama. Screenwriters and directors engaging in the religious genre would be wise, therefore, to distinguish the theological from the historical even in handling religions in which the historical is salient in the theological.

The full essay is at "Christian Films as Theological."

Monday, March 26, 2018

Differences between Two Living Popes White-Washed in Fake News

People in glass houses should not throw stones. Or, the person who is without sin casts the first stone. Lastly, a house divided cannot stand, at least in the long run. Yet houses are so rarely as fundamentally divided as the one in which I grew up. Regarding religious institutions, theological differences can be allowed to blow up into major, life-threatening disputes, or papered over by sins of omission pertaining to just how deep a fissure goes. Conflicts, in other words, can be exacerbated or mollified, depending on the temperaments.
On February 7, 2018, Joe Ratzinger, a former pope of the Roman Catholic Church, wrote a letter pertaining to a multi-volume book on the then-current pope’s theology. Reading from the letter at the book’s presentation the next month, Dario Vigano, the prefect of the Vatican’s communications office, said that Benedict, the  former pope, confirmed that Francis, the current pope, had a solid theological and philosophical training and that the book showed the “interior continuity” between the two papacies.[1] This “left the impression that the 91-year-old retired pope had read the [book] and l endorsed it, when in fact he hadn’t.” The retired pope had not read the book!
Vigano was guilty of bearing false witness; he lied. He also conveniently left out the last two lines of the first page of Benedict’s letter, and the Vatican went so far as to blur the lines in a digitally manipulated photo of  the page released to the public. The former pope noted in those lines that the author of one of the volumes—a progressive theologian by the name of Peter Huenermann, “had launched ‘virulent,’ ‘anti-papist’ attacks against [Benedict’s] teaching and that of Pope John Paul II.[2] But is criticism of the theological interpretations of two popes in particular the same as criticizing the papacy itself? It apparently felt so to the retired pope, who consequently decided he had insufficient time in a retirement confined to the Vatican to read the book. He had not read the book, so he could not possibly have found in it an “interior continuity” between him and Pope Francis.
As if bearing false witness were not hypocritical enough for the Vatican, the Secretariat for Communications made reference to the “presumed manipulation” of the letter even though the office had just released the entire letter, in focus, publicly, which clearly showed that manipulation had taken place. Indeed, the Vatican admitted that it had blurred the final two lines of the first page of the letter. The Secretariat “said its decision to withhold part of the letter [had been] based on its desire for reserve, ‘not because of any desire to censor.’”[3] Recalling the detective Perot reacting to the old countess in the film, “The Orient Express,” I answer in a similarly raised, shrilled voice, obfuscation and another lie!
The inherently irresolvable, Kierkegaardian sort of irony can be found in Pope Francis having dedicated his annual message for the church’s social communications day to fighting fake news and the distortion of information. That pope had “frequently criticized journalists for only giving half of the story.”[4] Francis probably had had the United States in mind, and deservingly so, for the splinting of network news had resulted in some very partisan news networks, and, perhaps relatedly, U.S. President Trump had presented his country and the world with a gaping loophole: the possibility that lies can slip through with impunity such that truth itself becomes, as Nietzsche had urged, a problem rather than a given.
As bad as fake news is in the media and government, the added element of hypocrisy in a Christian church that recognizes the Decalogue as truth renders the Vatican’s lapse much more severe. Alternatively, the Vatican could have produced the entire letter and mollify any perceived cleft between the two living popes as that which exists between theology and pastoral care. A woman who thought I might make a suitable pastor at her church, said to me when I visited her church, “I know you got the theology down, but can you care for the people?” I answered affirmatively; she should have asked about my theology instead, for I am indeed a deep thinker who transcends reigning assumptions, sometimes treating them as problems rather than as given. I suppose folks could make my propensity into a big deal, or not, depending on their penchant for conflict.
Certainly the two co-extant popes could be said have differed. I submit that they were closer on Catholic social ethics than people who conflate style for substance have realized. Both popes resisted the institution of women priests, and both men maintained that homosexuality is a sin. Perhaps Benedict put more emphasis on God’s judgment while Francis pointed to God’s mercy. Is such a “division” worth fighting over? Can it instead be transcended? I submit that a focus on transcendent, religious or spiritual experience, which is oriented beyond the limits of human cognition, sensibility, and perception, can relegate differences of emphasis on theological and pastoral matters. Put another way, the people invested psychologically in turning mole hills into mountains with troops digging in on both sides are not transcending in a religious sense. This includes Vatican officials, for time devoted to lying and manipulating could otherwise be more focused on what really matters in a religious organization. The worldly, our realm of quotidian activity in which we live, can be viewed as merely a surface that can be transcended in a distinctly religious sense. What I remember about Pope John Paul II was images of him kneeling whether in prayer or raw yearning for God. His views on women or gays in the church pale in comparison. So too, his anti-communist view and work similarly have fallen aside. A religious organization is primarily about religiosity. Perhaps both Benedict and Francis could emulate their common predecessor in this respect.

For more on religion and leadership, see "Christianized Ethical Leadership," and "Spiritual Leadership in Business."

1. Nicole Winfield, “Vatican Bows to Pressure, Releases Retired Pope’s Letter,” Religion News Service, March 18, 2018.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Is Scientology a Religion?

I contend that other domains have encroached on religion, or religion on them, such that the native fauna in religion’s own garden is scarcely recognizable. In this essay, I distinguish psychology from religion using Scientology as a case in which the two domains have been obfuscated. In other words, I want to remove the troublesome category mistake that allows psychological matters to be reckoned as religious. 
After living on the Divinity School quad at Yale for a year, I ventured off-campus to a small apartment. The contrast was stark; as I was unloading my mattress off the U-Haul truck, an old prostitute came over and offered to help me. “And then we can use it,” she said. I politely declined. Once I had moved in, the building’s janitor introduced himself and informed me that the building was owned by Scientologists and he was one as well. Hearing that I was a divinity student, he quickly came up with a thick book on Scientology for me to read, which I did. My reaction was that the substance of Scientology is psychological rather than religious.
The core practice in Scientology is the audit, in which one person helps another in getting rid of hurtful memories. The aim is freedom. Scientologists would say that such freedom is spiritual, but I contend that being free from the pain of certain memories is a psychological freedom because the freedom is mental—of the mind. My aim is not to be critical of Scientology; helping people to dissolve traumatic memories is highly laudatory, even though it is not religious.
Part of the problem has to do with getting carried away with wording. In advance of the launch of Scientology’s television network in March, 2018, a promotional video featured an e-meter. This piece of equipment is described in the ad as ‘the cutting edge of spiritual technology.”[1] The expression, spiritual technology, seems odd, even oxymoronic. “According to Scientology’s website, the electronic instrument is used by auditors in sessions with members to check [sic] they are addressing ‘the correct area in order to discharge the harmful energy connected with that portion of the preclear’s reactive mind.”[2] In other words, the device measures how nervous a person is while bad memories are being targeted for dissolution. Lest energy signal something spiritual, the correct categories are physiology and thermodynamics (i.e., natural science).
Even in terms of cosmology, God is believed to be the source of the universe, including its energy, rather than the energy itself (which would be pantheism). God, in other words, transcends the limits of the universe, rather than being its energy. The harmful energy being picked up by the meter is a physiological effect of a psychological state or change. Such energy, and the audit process itself, lie wholly within the created realm and thus do not satisfy the divine attribute of transcendence. Not even “getting deep” psychologically counts as transcendence theologically speaking, which involves yearning for a beyond that lies beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility. The latter term includes emotional feeling. So Augustine’s very emotional erotic pining for God can be reckoned as human, all too human, rather than of a wholly other quality reflecting the transcendence that is distinctly theological. In other words, theological love is not emotional feeling. I suspect that we are so used to conflating psychology with theology that the nature of distinctly theological yearning eclipses our understanding and practice. To transcend emotion, being free of it, may be a freedom surpassing that of the emotional freedom from bad memories.

For more on weeding category mistakes out of religion, see the booklet, Spiritual Leadership in Business.



1. Erin Jensen, “Scientology Makes Debut with Its Own TV Network,” USA Today, March 13, 2018.
2. Ibid.