When The Idol's Masked Slipped by Bishop Peter Selby

When I sought to unmask the idol that money had become,* it concerned me that my argument – which I put as cogently as I could -  would fail to speak to those who needed to hear it, even enough to annoy them. I was after all writing a theological book, and that meant using language and drawing on a tradition that has virtually passed out of range of public awareness. The very notion of an idol, central to my argument, if it isn’t heard as a reference to a ‘pop idol’, just seems to most hearers to refer to small ornaments or the artefacts of primitive and long dead religions.

When I finished the writing I wondered how I might have communicated more appropriately to those who most needed to hear what I was saying, people who have lost touch with what money is doing to them and to our society, no matter how much they are eager to acquire and to use it. The dominance of the market, so basic to the operation of our society, was unquestioned even by those who were concerned about the negative aspects of its working, the widening inequality, the exploitation of the planet’s resources, the prevalence of gambling and of the huge rates of interest paid by poor people.

Enter stage left COVID-19, and suddenly the problem of communicating this argument looks very different. All that we had looked to money to do in good times has not availed us against this tiny microbe. The richest country in the world is furthest behind in testing, and heads the league in the number of people infected and fatalities. The story that we have told ourselves about the capacity of capitalism to lift the world out of poverty and of the market to solve all our problems has turned out not to be a very good story at all. The debt that as a result blighted the lives of individuals and the poorest countries** turns out not to have enabled either the individuals or the poorest countries to be insulated against the pandemic and the suffering and death it brings in its wake. 

Of course some of the human ingenuity we need to solve this crisis needs resources, and the resulting shock to the economy will take resources to cure, and money will have a role in that. But something will have changed in the process. We shall have had to learn that money works for us as servant but not as idol. It will work because we have decided to control it rather than let it control us. When we needed vast resources to protect people from eviction, unemployment and destitution we shall have learned that ‘we can’t afford it’, the law of money, has to be set aside. We shall have had to learn that it’s no use scoffing at ‘magic money trees’ that don’t exist; that if you need it as an instrument of human solidarity and to prevent suffering by working together, there’s no limit to the amount of it you can control. 

We shall have learned, that is to say, that what has to happen in the situation the world is facing is to find all the instruments we need for the common good, because the individual or merely national good we have looked to money to provide won’t avail us against this microbe that threatens the world and is beyond any individual or nation, however wealthy, to defeat. Only shared knowledge, the common good, the protection of the vulnerable will save us. If we learn the virtues of charity and trust we shall be able to use money and not have it use us.

None of this should be any surprise; faith, hope and love are the only things that last, the only things that work. Under the control of those virtues there will be enough. And the only question we shall have to ask after the end of this crisis is how can we make sure that we remember the lessons we have had to learn in this crisis. And that’s a critical question because there are other crises with which we need to grapple: they are chronic and hugely dangerous. Will we remember that the rising sea levels and extremes of climate require the same virtues to overcome? And will we remember that if we act in solidarity across class, nation and generation together the mechanisms – money, power, ingenuity – will be there for us. If we remember the lessons of this crisis and apply them to the other emergencies we face our faith, hope and love won’t be disappointed.

* Peter Selby, An Idol Unmasked: a Faith Perspective on Money (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2014)

** Peter Selby, Grace and Mortgage: the Language of Faith and the Debt of the World (Darton, Longman and Todd, 1997, 2008; Pendlebury 2018)                

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Each day, we will post a short article by one of Darton, Longman and Todd’s amazing authors, offering a personal reflection on our current situation in life. Sometimes this will be written with reference to one of their books, and sometimes about how they are living in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus and our current world situation. We hope it will give you a taste of the depth and diversity of DLT’s list – books for heart, mind and soul that aim to meet the needs and interests of all.

Today’s post is by the Rt Revd Peter Selby, author of An Idol Unmasked: A faith perspective on money. You can buy a copy of the book here. He also wrote Grace and Mortgage: The language of faith and the debt of the world, previously published by DLT and now available here.