Coronavirus: God and Mammon

23 March 2020: As cases of coronavirus continue to rise, President Donald Trump said Monday that he wants to reopen the country for business in weeks, not months, as he claimed, without evidence, that continued closures could result in more deaths than the pandemic itself. “Life is fragile and economies are fragile,” Trump said, insisting he could protect both. While he acknowledged there were trade-offs — “there’s no question about that” — he claimed that, if closures stretch on for months, there would be “probably more death from that than anything that we’re talking about with respect to the virus.”

The comments were further evidence that Trump has grown impatient with the pandemic, even before it has reached its expected peak. In recent days, tensions have been rising between those who argue the country needs to get back up and running to prevent a deep economic depression, and medical experts who warn that, unless more extreme action is taken, the human cost will be catastrophic. “We can’t shut in the economy. The economic cost to individuals is just too great,” Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, said in an interview Monday on Fox News Channel. “The president is right. The cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re going to have to make some difficult trade-offs.”

Here we see the beating heart of Late Stage Capitalism: the life is not in the blood, but in the economy.  Life is put on the scale and measured against economy. . .

Jesus well said:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

In America, the rulers clearly serve mammon.  They choose inorganic economy over life. . .

And I suppose not a few of the American pew-warmers also choose to serve mammon.  In this, they would earn the hatred of David, the king known for being a man after God's own heart:

I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the Lord.

It really shouldn't even be a tough judgment to make.  It's absurd and anti-Christ to even put economy on the scale. . .

As Jesus instructed: 

I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?  Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Is not the life more than the economy?

Of course, no one in Late State Capitalism believes this, not even the pew-warmers.  Mammon is served.  Even the poor, of whom Jesus (and I imagine Him wearily pronouncing this) said we would always have with us, serve a system which little benefits them, but, so afraid, so caught up in taking thought for the morrow, for what they shall eat or for how they shall be clothed, bow to the scraps of mammon that keep them (mechanically and anxiously) alive.

The truth is, almost all of what is called economy can be put down and taken up again, without consequence.  Money, which, to their likely eternal shame, even the pew-warmers worship, isn't even real.  In a matter of a few minutes 1.5 trillion *dollars* were conjured from thin air by the Federal Reserve to loan to financial institutions, which will then lend this *money* to debtors who are expected to pay back even more imaginary money (with interest, fees, etc).

The economy, the false god, can be shut down and started up over and over and over again.  

The reason for the rush back to economy is simple: the rich want to preserve their wealth, they have no desire to start all over again.  That's more important than the deaths of some old people, people who have lived past their usefulness to economy, anyway.

It's obvious Jesus would value life over economy, He took workers out of economy to follow Him.  Jesus repudiated the world system and instead preached the kingdom of God.  

It's just as obvious most, even among the pew-warmers, wouldn't follow Jesus today.  To them, it's the money that is real, not the Gospel.  It's the money that animates their life, nearly from birth to death taught first and foremost to chase a *good job* to fund their entirely material existence.  The Gospel is just a noble, but impractical, philosophy.

Well, in our coronavirus days, the following saying of Jesus may have an immediate, as well as eternal, fulfillment:

Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.




{And from the what should it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul School of Economics, we have the Texas Lt Governor, an old man named Dan Patrick who told Tucker Carlson on his 23 March broadcast he would be willing to die a coronavirus death in order to save the economy for his grandchildren! OK. Let's hope in this case wisdom isn't justified by her children, and Patrick's grandkids tell gramps to go fuck his shitty economy. Patrick is a self-proclaimed Christian, and here we see a sterling example of the pew-warmer I mentioned above who treasures economy more than life. Patrick made the remarkable statement the biggest gift we give our children, our grandchildren is the legacy of our country. Patrick treasures economy over the Gospel. Patrick is a loser in the profoundest respect.}


Take no thought for the economy of tomorrow, sufficient unto the day is the coronavirus. . .