Ebenezer Scrooge: Exemplary Minion of Pluto

Contemporary America society is enslaved by and devoted to six false yet destructive gods. These are the gods of Olympianity: the world’s oldest, most popular, yet least recognized religion. Pluto, god of money, is one of these dreary gods.

    
Pluto, like the other Olympian gods, is parasitic by nature. He has no vitality of his own, gets none whatsoever from Yahweh, so must take all he can from us. He does this by paying us to be indifferent to our fellow human beings. He gains whatever vitality we suck from our neighbors through that indifference. He’s feeling particularly robust these days.

Freedom for Abba: Asking for What We Need to Live as Faithful Witnesses (Matthew 6:11-14)

When teaching us how to pray, Jesus tells us to always put Abba’s cause first (Matthew 6:9-10). We do this first by developing personal and communal ways of living that honor Abba. Next we need Abba to send Jesus to us with fresh words of liberating truth. Finally we need Abba to grant that the Holy Spirit might burn brightly in our hearts so that we might discern the always surprising words of Jesus and have the pluck to do them. In these ways we honor Abba, his kingdom comes through fresh words from Jesus, and we do his will as expressed through those words. In these ways we live as the faithful witnesses that Abba created, Jesus reconciled, and the Spirit redeems us to be.

  
Today Jesus teaches us to ask Abba for what we need to live as Christians who honor him by hearing and doing his will:

Freedom for Abba: Putting His Cause First (Matthew 6:9-10)

On a hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Jesus once taught some disciples how they might pray to God. Through those same words, Jesus invites us to enjoy, with him, this same unimaginable privilege today. Jesus teaches us afresh to:

     9 “Pray then in this way:

     Our Father in heaven,
          hallowed be your name.
     10 Your kingdom come.
          Your will be done,
              on earth as it is in heaven.
(Matthew 6:9-10, New Revised Standard Version).

Abba! Our Father. Right off Jesus frees us to join him in this unimaginable privilege. From all eternity, God the Father freely loved God the Son and Jesus freely loved God the Father, both in the unity of God the Holy Spirit. In teaching us how to pray to God, Jesus frees us by grace to join him in this same relationship of freedom and love which he has always enjoyed with God the Father by nature.

Freedom for Yahweh: Meaning What We Pray

“You can be sure that on the Judgment Day you will have to give account of every useless word you have ever spoken” (Matthew 12:36, Good News Translation).

American society and culture are Olympian. They are organized in terms of the six false, destructive, yet conventional gods of Olympianity: (1) Jupiter, god of politics; (2) Mars, god of war; (3) Vulcan, god of technology; (4) Venus, goddess of sex; (5) Pluto, god of money; and (6) Bacchus, god of consumption. So too is the Olympian personality that we each have.

     
The Olympian gods, along with the Olympian societies, cultures, and personalities which they dominate, regard words strictly as means to an end and that end is always power: keeping it and increasing it. To Olympians, then, words are not true or false. They are useful, effective, successful, or not. In conformity to these gods, our Olympian personalities find words useful if they increase our political power, for example, or justify war, express our delirium over the latest technological gadget, improve our sexual attractiveness, get us a promotion at work, or increase the monetary value of the gifts we receive at Christmas. The gods are happy, we’re happy, it’s all good.

     
Oddly enough, Jesus takes a different view. To him, words are true or false. True words are words which express our core identity as faithful witnesses to Jesus as well as the core identity of Jesus as the one true god and human of freedom, truth, love, and vitality. Words which do not do this are false.

Freedom for Abba: Prayer to the Point (Matthew 6:7-8)

Freedom is never a state of being. It is always an act. At any given moment, we are either actively free for God and actively affirm our liberation by him from the six false gods of Olympianity. Or we are actually enslaved by those gods and acting as both their victims and minions rather than as faithful witnesses to God.

One important way we affirm our freedom for God and from the gods is by praying to him. Happily, Jesus frees us to do this by speaking to us, today, through the same words of truth he spoke yesterday to liberate his disciples for this same purpose.

Celebrating New Year's Eve Tonight (November 28)

Every religion has its own calendar. According to the calendar of Olympianity, today is November 28: two days after Thanksgiving, one day after Black Friday, and just another day in this year’s 37-day-long season of Bacchanalia stretching from Thanksgiving Day to New Year’s Day (January 1, 2016). Yes, this is the season of the year in which Olympians strenuously seek happiness through conspicuous consumption.

   
Happily, as faithful witnesses to Jesus, we have a meaningful alternative. According to the Church calendar, today is New Year’s Eve. That’s because tomorrow is New Year’s Day: the First Sunday of Advent.

Organized Sports as Religious Experience

America: profoundly Olympian

As witnesses to Jesus, one mistake we make is thinking that American society is secular. It isn’t. It is profoundly religious—but definitely not Christian.

By far the dominant religion in America is Olympianity. Olympianity is the religion of power. It is the world’s oldest, most popular, yet least recognized religion. Like all Olympian societies, America is structured in terms of six false yet conventional gods: (1) Jupiter, god of politics; (2) Mars, god of war; (3) Vulcan, god of technology; (4) Venus, goddess of sex; (5) Pluto, god of money; and (6) Bacchus, god of consumption.

From a strictly sociological point of view, we can easily verify this. The gods served by any society are those who provide two essential services. One, they provide us with security, happiness, importance, justification, and meaning. Two, they protect us from insecurity, misery, unimportance, guilt, and meaninglessness. Because of their significance to us, the gods, and the people who serve them best, are the objects of our devotion and the subjects of our conversations.