On more than one occasion I've had people recommend Triablogue to me as a sterling Reformed website. I've explored it on numerous occasions and never really found much that interested me or that I agreed with. It seems like it's mostly Baptistic-leaning material and thus contains a lot of minimalist rationalist-driven theology alongside a good deal of dubious historical commentary. I've always felt like there was something a bit off about the site.
But I still check in (so to speak) from time to time. The tab about child rearing recently caught my eye and I started reading through the page - it was a bit mystifying to be honest. It's mostly this elaborate list of academic exercises and once again I found myself disagreeing with both the broad strokes and the specifics and there are some glaring theological omissions - or at least I think so.
But then one bullet point really caught my eye. The author (the now deceased Steve Hays) suggests that to rear Christian children:
'They should occasionally work at shelters to see first-hand the consequences of a godless lifestyle.'
That really made me pause. I don't know much about Hays but from everything I've read he inherited his wealth - and apparently didn't have to work. So for him to make this kind of dig at the poor is rather presumptuous and frankly offensive.
I think it always testifies to the latent prosperity gospel that continues to taint the Magisterial Protestant tradition which has always had a problem (from a New Testament perspective) with wealth and power, the ethics of the sword and the coin.
The tacky Evangelical-Charismatic versions of the Prosperity Gospel offend Confessionalists and more conservative Evangelicals, but the high-brow variety, and even the middle class variety are celebrated and actively promoted.
It's a fine thing to expose your kids to poverty - a shelter is one place to experience it and I would argue there are many lessons to be learned, not just the 'consequences of a godless lifestyle'.
I'm afraid I find myself getting somewhat angry as I re-type that line.
For my part I did something quite different. I always took my children to the poor parts of the city (where the homeless people are) as well as to the rich neighbourhoods. I wanted them to see the wealth and prestige - not to celebrate the 'godly lifestyles' of these 'attainers' but rather to talk about the idolatry, the ethical bankruptcy and the blindness, the traps the world sets before us.
I've worked for both rich and poor and as I have said before the well-to-do are often some of the most unhappy people I encounter. Many are superficial - hardly a surprise. A lot of them are unethical (in terms of the law). Instead of shoplifting or other petty crimes, they do things on a grand scale. They hide income, manipulate numbers through accounting tricks, and use people. I've seen both doctors and lawyers cheat and try to draw me into their schemes - either assuming I'm as crooked as they are or maybe just stupid. If I'm ethically okay in committing fraud against an insurance company or the IRS, why would I do that for free? Why wouldn't I demand a cut? These are of course people I walk away from. What basis is there for trust? Why would I assume they're going to be honest with me? They don't know that I don't believe in the courts and won't use them but they are banking on the fact that I won't have the funds to pursue litigation when they fail to pay me what we agreed upon. I've had that happen once and I had a bad feeling about the whole thing from my first encounters with the client in question. I took the loss and it hurt. After that, I always follow my gut instinct and it has served me well.
But I must say the most ethically degenerate people I have encountered are those connected to finance. This is kind of ironic when I think of people who live on dividends and payouts from investments - or perhaps an inheritance. It's all the more ironic as just in the past few years I've seen multiple 'Christian' finance outfits emerge who promote 'Kingdom' investing or 'Faith-based' investing - even in the Anabaptist community.
The finance people (particularly connected to investment and insurance) are the worst - self-serving, manipulative, and evil - though they'd often be the last people to see it. Of course if they attend a Confessional Presbyterian church - they'll probably be ordained as elders.
So when we drive around on the Upper East Side, Fox Chapel, Squirrel Hill, Princeton, or Georgetown, the lessons we conveyed to our children are quite different. We talk about those in the insurance industry, the usurers in banking and finance, the rich doctors who cash in on people's pain and suffering, the leaders of corporations who build empires atop human suffering, theft, and financial alchemy.
One wonders if in fact our gospels are different, if we are citizens of different Kingdoms? One wonders. I think of the prophet Isaiah speaking of Tyre and its 'merchants who are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth. The Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth.'
Were their lifestyles not godless? And yet they were princes. They weren't at homeless shelters.
What of those in Hebrews who 'wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.'
If only they had embraced the values of the middle class and had a financial plan - life would have been easier and yet they would have lost their souls.
Why
do modern Western Christians think these verses do not apply to
today? Is it because they've been deceived into thinking Liberal
Capitalist society is somehow godly and therefore as they flourish
within in it - they equate such 'success' with godliness?
What
if they're wrong? What if this is in fact a wicked society and
fundamentally godless and materialist. In a wicked society, the
wicked flourish, the faithful do not. Whether they are sawn asunder
or slain with the sword makes no difference. In some respects such
harsh persecution would make the lines clear. But because the
persecution is soft and the culture seductive, the faithful road
results mostly in scorn and mocking, and only occasionally in legal
difficulty.
In some respects this one line from the Triablogue website encapsulates that quality of 'off-ness' that has always characterized my experiences there. There's lots of info, but something is 'off' - in this case there's no nuance. The rot worked its way to the surface.