“We are, in short, a deeply religious people. As a nation of believers, we would expect our religious commitments to have a decisive impact on our economic behavior. But we are also passionately committed to the almighty dollar. We devote the bulk of our waking hours to earning it and much of the rest of our time to finding ways to spend it. In our more candid moments, we admit to being thoroughly materialistic (while deploring this trait in our children). We believe in the proverbial bottom line, shoulder greater and greater personal economic obligations, and fret about how to pay our bills…Jesus warned his followers of the impossibility of serving God and mammon. Are those who claim to be his followers today, then, defying this warning by trying to be spiritual and yet being unwilling to detach from material pursuits? Or perhaps we have found a way to get beyond these ancient tensions living in material abundance and yet keeping our eyes fixed steadfastly on the sacred. Perhaps American religion even encourages us in some subtle way to amass worldly riches. Or perhaps our faith has become so narrowly defined that it seldom pricks our conscience when pocketbook issues are at stake.”
Robert Wuthnow in God and Mammon in America (New York, MacMillan, 1994) 2-3.