Each every now and then I come throughout a e book that modifications the way in which I take a look at the world. Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Man Born to Be King was one such e book (although technically a play cycle fairly than a standard e book). So too had been Makoto Fujimura’s Tradition Care, and Sandra Glahn’s No person’s Mom, and Elena Ferrante’s My Good Good friend. Every of those led to a basic shift in my serious about a specific matter—religion, or historical past, and even my circle of relatives background—or about life on the whole.
Malcolm Foley’s The Anti-Greed Gospel is one other such e book. Foley, a pastor, historian, and advisor to the president of Baylor College, makes a provocative and convincing case for shifting our pondering on racism and how one can overcome it. “Opposite to in style opinion,” he writes, “race just isn’t primarily about pores and skin coloration however about individuals in search of to categorize each other to be able to exploit them. It’s about greed.”
Foley backs up this rivalry with an abundance of historic proof and scriptural perception. The tragic historical past of racism, he demonstrates, could be traced on to the lust for wealth. White Europeans and Individuals kidnapped and enslaved Blacks from Africa not as a result of they hated them, however as a result of they needed free labor to assist them accumulate cash, land, and energy. That’s how the sin of racism took root, and that’s the reason, Foley argues, efforts to eradicate racial hatred won’t ever succeed until they take greed into consideration.
The tragic historical past of racism could be traced on to the lust for wealth.
In any case, he reveals us, greed continued to encourage racial persecution within the post-slavery period. We want solely take a look at the horrifying observe of lynching from Reconstruction onward to see the sample. Foley extensively cites the crusading journalist Ida B. Wells to indicate how flimsy or outright fabricated excuses for lynchings typically coated up the true cause: the will to hoard wealth and property and hold Black individuals from accessing them.
As Foley explains:
Considered one of our major questions at any time when we encounter racism on this planet is that this: Who stands to profit politically or economically from racist actions? We are going to discover that when individuals act out of hate, such hate doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. Someplace alongside the road, self-interest crawled into the mind of the offender. After festering, it took a brand new type: hate.
Foley attracts on Christ’s teachings about greed to drive his level residence. “This e book is precipitated,” he writes,” by the truth that rival gods require blood sacrifice. Mammon isn’t any completely different. Jesus just isn’t exaggerating when he says we can’t serve two masters: God and Mammon. … We are going to hate one and love the opposite.”
As I mentioned, Foley’s highly effective presentation of his case has altered my views on the character of the issue. Within the second half of the e book, the place he lays out potential options, he misplaced me a bit, primarily as a result of he’s a dedicated pacifist and I’m not. He spends a great deal of time selling the concept, and I respect the thoroughness of his analysis and the energy of his convictions—particularly as he’s arguing in opposition to his personal self-interest—however ultimately I nonetheless consider there’s a spot for self-defense (and so did Foley’s heroine Ida B. Wells, as he acknowledges).
So I will not be Foley’s superb reader, however I nonetheless deeply respect the general ethical imaginative and prescient he provides on this e book, one which requires Christians to display a love radical sufficient to push again in opposition to our tradition’s profane worship of wealth and its lethal penalties. This battle is fought, he reveals us, on each the non secular and materials ranges, and preventing it should require our creativeness, our creativity, our honesty, and our willingness to stroll alongside the oppressed and the struggling. If I can’t agree with Foley on each strategic element, I’m nonetheless very grateful for the knowledge and steering he provides right here. Books that change your pondering don’t come alongside day-after-day; once they do, they need to be savored.
This assessment was initially revealed on Expensive, Unusual Issues! on Might 11, 2025. Republished right here with the writer’s permission.
