Are You Allying with America’s Cows of Bashan?

“They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.” Amos 2:7

by John Ellis

The elegance and dignity with which she entered my car stood in stark contrast to our surroundings. The difference was so pronounced, I found it jarring, unexpected.[1] The way she carried herself reminded me of my mom. Approximately ten years or so my senior, she quietly, politely, and yet firmly greeted me in broken English and asked how my day was going. While answering, I glanced around at the decrepit apartment complex’s littered, pothole ridden parking lot, decks sagging dangerously off the chipped, cracking brick walls with peeling paint and struggled to determine if my emotional response was a patronizing pity or genuine empathy (see footnote #1). At the conclusion of the ride, my emotions turned to anger, and I didn’t need to do any navel-gazing to figure out why.

Our conversation was shorter than what I have with many of the Uber passengers who sit in the backseat of my car, but long enough to conclude that she was kind yet no-nonsense, intelligent and hard-working, and filled with a generosity of spirit that revealed itself in her motherly apologetic concern for asking me to drive her to work on roads made slippery by rain. For most of the ride, which was approximately thirty-minutes, she sat quietly, staring out the window. As we pulled up to the guard shack standing foreboding watch over one of the wealthiest, most prestigious neighborhoods in the Orlando area, she gracefully slid over to driver’s side of the backseat to easier communicate with the waiting security guard.

While typing information from both of our ids into his iPad, he quizzed her about the address of her destination and her reason for entering this forbidden territory of wealth and privilege that requires an invite. As she quietly explained that she was the family’s housecleaner, he found her name on the approved list and waved us through. Before I drove away, though, he sternly warned me while gesturing to the other side of the gatehouse, “Make sure you exit over there as soon as you drop her off.”

Later that evening, I told my wife and son, “I’ve never seen so many Rolls Royce cars in one place.”

The ostentatious mansion I dropped her off at boasted 3 such vehicles in a garage with an open door: 2 Rolls Royce SUVs and 1 Rolls Royce sedan. I have no idea what kind of cars were hidden behind the closed door of the other garage. Rolls Royce vehicles were also parked in many of the neighboring driveways, to compliment the bevy of other extremely high-end luxury vehicles in the neighborhood. Focusing on the house of my passenger’s employer, the best I can tell, and attempting to be conservative in my estimate, I’m guessing that those 3 vehicles represented at least 1 million dollars; possibly, if not likely, more.

Watching her exit my car, her demeanor had changed. The quietly confident and dignified lady whom I had picked up an half an hour earlier now appeared weighed down. She looked down as she approached the large entrance, and her face appeared sad and weary. I hope this isn’t crass, but the contrasting roles from when I picked her up had reversed: the house stood in dignified authority over the trodden-upon lady who slowly trudged towards the door.

As I drove back towards the guardhouse, my anger rose. I wanted to turn around, knock on the door, and preach, “Hey, why don’t you sell one of those Rolls Royce SUVs, replace it with a BMW X7, and then give the remaining $200k, if not more, to your housekeeper as a Christmas bonus so that she can move out of that shithole she’s forced to live in because you pay her poverty level wages.”[2]

I didn’t of course. The only thing it would’ve accomplished would have been me possibly hit with a trespassing charge as well as getting banned from driving for Uber. It might have also gotten my passenger promptly dismissed from that specific job. If you work in the service industry for any length of time, you learn that the wealthy do not like, to put it lightly, being challenged by an economic inferior.[3]

Driving away from the neighborhood, the episode made me think about the book of Amos. Specifically, I thought of the excoriating words of the prophet Amos in 4:1 in which the social justice warrior called the rich Israelite women “cows of Bashan … who oppress the poor and crush the needy.” While great wealth accumulated at the top of Israelite society, the privileged few rejected the commands of the Torah that clearly spell out that we are our brothers and sisters’ keeper and that the material goods given us by God are not our own, but are to be used in the service of others. The rich Israelites were increasing their bounty while ignoring the needs of the workers.

Shamefully, and owing in large part to political and economic battle lines drawn over the last 80 years especially, many professing Christians in this country ally with the cows of Bashan.[4] Those with far-reaching platforms – social media, books, podcasts, conferences, etc. – also tend to use their voice to defend and promote the exploitation and oppression of other image bearers. One of the most insidious ways in which this is accomplished is through the currently popular Neocalvinist refrain that work is good with next to zero acknowledgment of the Fall/Curse’s effects. Before diving into that, though, I want to help frame (and underline) the discussion with another anecdote.

Several years ago, during a conversation with a member of our former church, the point was driven home to me about how entrenched a specific economic theory is in many Christians’ anthropology (and ethics); entrenched to the point of sacrosanct. The offending comments were prompted by an anecdote I had told as a means to support my contention that meritocratic capitalism (libertarianism) is unbiblical.

While working third shift at a Home Depot in Antioch, CA, word came down from the corporate office in Atlanta that the store’s profit margin wasn’t large enough and cuts were required. Specifically, hourly-wage earners’ hours needed to be slashed. Working third-shift stocking merchandise meant that my hours were safe, but my injustice detector went off anyway. Assuming, correctly it turned out, that the managerial staff would receive bonuses for making the “necessary” cuts, I rebelliously approached the store’s general manager one morning after my shift had ended. I challenged him about the fairness of cutting peoples’ hours who depended on every dollar they could squeeze out of their labor for rent, food, and the other necessities of life. He curtly responded by insisting that if they worked hard enough, those whose hours were being cut could be promoted to the rank of manager where they too could enjoy higher wages and regular bonuses. The not-so-subtle subtext was that their financial fate was their own fault. Before he could finish, I cut him off, “What about Tom in electrical?[5] Can he work hard enough to ever be promoted to manager?”

My question was a trap. It was obvious that Tom, while diligent, dependable, and likeable, lacked the requisite cognitive abilities to rise to the position of manager. Through no fault of his own, the earning potential of the friendly, generous, hardworking Tom was severely limited. The store manager brusquely brushed me off.[6]

The response by my fellow church member to that story shocked me, although in hindsight it shouldn’t have. “People should only get paid what they’re worth,” he flatly said.

Surely, I misunderstood I thought while hesitantly pushing back, “How do you know what people are worth?”

With an utter lack of self-awareness, this professing Christian spat out, “They’re worth what they can produce.”

Now, I understand that most Christians would never utter out loud such a perverse, crass anthropology. But, unfortunately, that perverse, crass anthropology is present, whether realized or not, in many Christians in this country. By way of example, think back to my revolutionary desire to call the rich people to sell one of their Rolls Royce SUVs, buy an X7, and give the difference to the housekeeper. No doubt, many responses reflect a version of, “but what has she done to deserve those people’s hard-earned money?” implying that the rich people have earned what they have through a level of hard work that she has, of yet, failed to reach. Like the thinking of that Home Depot manager in California, many believe that she only has herself to blame for her financial situation – and if it’s not solely her fault, it’s her fault for failing to rise above and beyond; America is the land of opportunity after all, and it’s her fault if she fails to pull herself up by her own bootstraps.

The economic belief that we have equality of opportunity in this country produces a perspective that denigrates and blames victims of oppression. When you fold in the belief that “all work is good,” the subtext is included that this is the way God intends society to function. Furthermore, and whether we want to accept it or not, identity – including levels of value/worth – are existentially and, hence, ethically/economically and anthropologically determined to varying degrees in our thinking by vocation. Think about the makeup of most churches’ elder boards, for example. What jobs does our society value? Those who hold those jobs are the ones who are often viewed as spiritually worthy of shepherding others over the man who faithfully fulfills orders at the Taco Bell drive thru. Claiming that all work is good denies the reality of how our society – including Christians – has fashioned a societal hierarchy based in part on vocation.

Instead of a being a prophetic voice speaking into systems of oppression and exploitation, Christian voices are most often raised in defense of those systems. Often, anthropocentric and over-realized doctrines of common grace are utilized, at times unwittingly, to be fair, as epistemological tools in service to the exploitation and oppression of those made fully in the image of God. As I wrote above, one of the more common and insidious ways this is currently being accomplished is via the insistence that all work is good.

Binaries rarely hold in our post-Fall and post-Curse world. Take sex, for example. Specifically, take the statements “sex is good” and “sex is bad.” Neither statement reflects the complexities and ethical nuances about sex and sexuality that are the result of Adam’s sin and the subsequent Curse. The same is true of work. For sure, God created work as a gift to be enjoyed by those made in His image. Like sex, though, the Fall and Curse have negatively impacted work/jobs, and a flattening out of work as good as if the Fall and Curse never happened is theological malfeasance in service to oppressors. I’ve written more in detail about not all work being good, so I won’t rehash it here. You can read that previous article by clicking here. Please think of that previous article as the middle of this article – the meat of this article, if you will.[7]

In his book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, anthropology professor Alexei Yurchak wrote about the existential untangling required of Russians during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.[8] While able to see the corruption, flaws, and inability to solve societal problems innate in Soviet-styled Marxism, Soviet citizens lacked the imagination and communal epistemology to perceive of a different system. The corruption and incompetence were hypernormalized, to use Yurchak’s term. Hypernormalization is evident in this country, too. The growing wealth disparity and pockets of poverty are shrugged off as a product of the system – products of the immutable laws of economics. It’s unfortunate, we’re taught to believe, but we can’t imagine a different system even though the system is a product of human efforts meaning that a new system is theoretically possible. But the market and financial sectors resist allowing narratives that encourage innovation in economic theories, especially those that challenge the status quo of world markets and those who hold the majority of this world’s wealth.  

Instead of bowing before the power structures in place, followers of King Jesus should use our voices to denounce the oppression. Instead of accepting the lie that submits anthropology to the hubris of modernist economic theories that operate as if immutable universal laws are in place, we should challenge the status quo through the biblical lens of sin’s devastating effect on all society, including work. In doing so, and as an act of humility, we should be willing to entertain new theories that challenge the received wisdom fed us by the power brokers of our society.

There are multiple conversations that can and should come out of this. When discipling those who are the victims of economic exploitation and oppression, it’s gloriously true that through the Spirit they can find their identity and contentment in Christ. We’re not called to be revolutionaries apart from the counterculture demands of the gospel that will earn us the hatred and violence of the world. We can and should find contentment and peace no matter our job and economic situation. However, while that’s true, it’s an abdication of our responsibility before our King if we use our platforms to promote and prop-up the exploitation and oppression that is part and parcel of our Western imperialistic economic system. When churches, parachurch organizations, and individual Christians use their voice to encourage the oppressed to be okay with being worn downs cogs in the oppressive machine instead of using our voices as a prophetic call to repentance speaking into the oppression, we do not represent our King. When we lie to people and tell them that all work is good instead of denouncing those who profit from the exploitation of image bearers, we severely undermine our ability to be faithful witnesses to the Resurrection.

Karl Marx was an enemy of Christianity, there’s no doubt about that. Which is why it’s so frustrating that Christians and Christian organizations seem hell-bent on proving Marx prophetic. Religious organizations willfully using the platforms God has given them to hold out a religion in service to Western power/imperialism is tantamount to holding out a religion that is little more than opium for the masses. Using religion to protect oppressors and to dull the minds of the oppressed is not the religion of King Jesus.

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[1] This reveals that I still harbor a condescending perspective dominated by epistemologies of privilege. Dignity, elegance, and intelligence are not the birthright of the privileged. During his time walking this earth, our King didn’t have a place to lay his head.

[2] Look, I picked an X7 because it’s still a luxury SUV, an incredibly nice luxury SUV. We could argue over the specifics. Why not buy a nice Honda Pilot instead? Or a Jeep Grand Wagoneer? Conversations about the complexities of living in the capitalistic, consumeristic society the Holy Spirit has sent us as ambassadors isn’t always cut and dried nor easy. My point is that in their garage sits an overabundance of extravagant wealth that looks especially bad in contrast to the living conditions of at least one of their staff. Where the line of too much luxury is, I don’ t know, although it’s an important ethical conversation that we need to have. But that conversation is likely never going to take place if we continue to not only give a pass to the worst excesses of wealth but, even more damning, defend and prop up the system that allows that disparity to exist. Asking someone to give up a Rolls Royce SUV for a BMW X7 cannot reasonably (nor rationally) be described as asking them to make a sacrifice. The absurdity of it highlights my point, I believe.

[3] By an overwhelming majority, the number of passengers in my car who have been rude, condescending, and entitled (usually all three at once) have been from the upper reaches of the socioeconomic ladder. I have stories to tell from my time bartending, delivering pizzas, and waiting tables, too, that match my experience as an Uber driver.

[4] The syncretism of capitalism with Christianity started earlier, of course, but there is a clear dividing line from before the National Association of Manufactures recruited the Rev. James Fifield in the late 1930s to do the dirty, unholy work of creating a Christian libertarianism that taught that laissez faire capitalism is biblical. Fifield’s torch was quickly passed to Billy Graham.

[5] Not his real name nor the actual department he worked in.

[6] That wasn’t the end of it, but the ending of that story has little to do with this article. You can ask me about it, but it’s not that interesting.

[7] I view my articles as ongoing conversations and not one-off, usually, stand-alone articles. This is why it irritates me when someone reads one or two of my articles and then operates as if they’ve got a handle on my entire thought/perspective/beliefs. My point, and to be blunt: while you are under no obligation to read anything I write or pay attention to anything I have to say, if you don’t read the previous article (or haven’t already read it), I have zero interest in hearing what you think about this current article.

[8] Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).