Doing God’$ Work: 21st Century Indulgences

One of my prime hopes for 2010 is that it will be a year of truth, indeed of realization. One such realization has by now been delivered to most Americans, no matter their socioeconomic or political affiliation: whatever progress Western culture may have made during its two-thousand year ascension, it remains economically a swamp of disparity — there has been no change in that respect from, say, the 13th century to this moment. None.

Indeed, you can see it in today’s headlines: Goldman Sachs executives are paying out the equivalent of indulgences — small but significant amounts to “do God’s work” — to avoid or mitigate the Purgatorio of public outrage at their 6, 7, and 8 figure bonuses on top of their 6, 7, and 8 figure salaries, earned for playing shell games with taxpayers’ money.

Well, is that what “God’s work” is all about? Aren’t we mired in the same swamp of fundamentally cynical delusions about who or what God is, if we imagine that He or She or It can be bought with the crumbs of a 7 figure bonus? And what would the young man who kicked over the money changers’ tables in the temple some 2,100 years ago think about God’s Work and the 21st century indulgence sale?

Well, maybe that would be the next realization: that god, if such an entity can be said to exist, does not do such “work”. God, that is to say, neither sells nor honors indulgences; nor does God favor a culture that concentrates its total wealth within a single percentage point of the population. Goldman Sachs and its ilk may believe that it’s a great idea to turn rocks into bread; but the purported founder of the Christian religion seemed to think the notion more appropriate to the mindset of his cosmic opponent.