The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic InterpretationSinclair, Upton
Religion
The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation
Sinclair, Upton
Christianity -- Controversial literature
This discovery of a new method of interpreting the Bible is one
of such very great interest and importance that I cannot forbear
to ask space to comment upon it. May I suggest that Dr. Abbott
elaborate this exceedingly fruitful idea, and write us another
article upon the extent to which the teachings of the Inspired
Word are modified by modern conditions, by the progress of
invention and the scientific arts? The point of view which Dr.
Abbott takes is one which had never occurred to me before, and I
had therefore been completely mistaken as to the attitude of
Jesus on the question. Also I have, like Dr. Abbott, many radical
friends who are still laboring under error.
Jesus goes on to bid his hearers: "Consider the lilies of the
field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." What
an apt simile is this for the "great mass of American wealth," in
Dr. Abbott's portrayal of it! "It is serving the community," he
tells us; "it is building a railway to open a new country to
settlement by the homeless; it is operating a railway to carry
grain from the harvests of the West to the unfed millions of the
East," etc. Incidentally, it is piling up dividends for its pious
owners; and so everybody is happy--and Jesus, if he should come
back to earth, could never know that he had left the abodes of
bliss above.
Truly, there should be a new school of Bible interpretation
founded upon this brilliant idea. Jesus says, "Therefore when
thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the
hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may
have glory of men." Verily not; for of what avail are trumpets,
compared with the millions of copies of newspapers which daily go
forth to tell of Mr. Rockefeller's benefactions? How transitory
are they, compared with the graven marble or granite which Mr.
Carnegie sets upon the front of each of his libraries!
There is the paragraph, "Neither shalt thou swear by thy head,
because thou canst not make one hair white or black." I have
several among my friends who are Quakers; presumably Dr. Abbott
has also; and he should not fail to point out to them the changes
which scientific discovery has wrought in the significance of
this command against swearing. We can now make our hair either
white or black, or a combination of both. We can make it a
brilliant peroxide golden; we could, if pushed to an extreme,
make it purple or green. So we are clearly entitled to swear all
we please by our head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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