The one force that has seemingly triumphed over and over in American history is the “almighty dollar”.  Wisconsin has been the first “Arab Spring” moment in our country,  and has shown signs of inducing the same kinds of reactions in Michigan and Ohio (as well as my present home state of Tennessee).  But Wisconsin is the litmus test right now.  Today,  they go to the polls to try and RECALL at least 3 of 6 Republicans and win a majority in the state senate.  That one of those seems out of reach for the Democrats and 2 are “up in the air” after all the energy and hope shown the country by the mass actions,  I am afraid of the dollars of the right wing.

It is symptomatic of the problem our country is facing.  The SCOTUS decision allowing unlimited corporate campaign funding is the number one sign of the cynical, greedy manipulation of the public mind.  I see it at work in family members and across the board in Christendom.  People continue to be convinced that advertising may sway OTHERS but they remain unswayed.  Things just are the way they are.  They remain ignorant of the subtle value shaping injected into the marketplace of ideas from people whose financial power drives them to take measures to ensure the continuation of that power,  and to further ensconce that power.  They have succeeded in the past 30 years to expand their “gap” between themselves and the rest of us. 

They have taken a 15-20% segment of America and manipulated it to their advantage.  They know that when you find a passionate, motivated vocal group and can seize on that and claim that you support and represent those passions,  it is a goldmine.  They saw this in the Tea Party;  an energy to redirect into blindly insisting upon a righteousness that is “under attack”,  further ensconcing them in their blind allegiance that eschews the experienced knowledge of economists (and climate science).  All of this coalesces to serve the mantra that helps to solidify and expand the oligarchy of the richest,  injecting a self-righteousness that rejects regulation (looking out for the public good)  in the name of another god, “the Free Hand”;  the idol of the right wing that masquerades as an arm of the Holy Spirit, blessed by an American nationalistic theology. 

Capitalism is seen as a force for good,  which is just the way the oligarchy designed it.  It is the “opiate” that keeps the masses in line,  and “faithful citizens”.   It is the programmed dream generated within and for The Matrix,  which keeps the psyche fed and compliant,  while the same system also drains the energy from the body for power to the system.  (Now,  I am aware that further chapters in the saga that is the Matrix trilogy reveals even “Zion” to be a program,  and “saviors” like Neo a dime a dozen to feed the myth.  But I‘ll stick to the Part 1 story, before it is exposed as another device,  and take that story as the complete one which pulls one into what I see as a helpful device for understanding “the world” to which we are “born into” and its contrast to the Kingdom in which an alternative plane of existence results in a “transforming of the mind”. Besides,  one could posit a fourth Matrix story which exposes 2 and 3 as systems designed to discredit the first story as merely wish fulfillment or simply “opiate” which keeps people in line with impossible dreams of a successful resistance and final home. After all,  we still have “Alice in Wonderland”, don’t we?)

So if capitalism is the story given to us that allows us to acquiesce and believe that this is faith,  and that this faith is validated by our American system blessed by the God of the nationalist story,  we have a competing “theology” at work.  It is powered by the energies of spirituality and allegiance for what is ostensibly the greater good and our own nourishment.  So it is soaked in a religiosity which scares the secular left, and offends the progressive sensibilities of the non-fundamentalist church community.

I want to suggest that there is a space for cooperation and concerted efforts in the progressive space between the church’s hope and the “secular left/progressive”  passions for justice that wins out over the nationalisms that divide and demonize.  But it is a delicate journey to hold fast to a robust ecclesiology and join hands in a spiritual way  with secular progressive forces,  but I think it is worth the danger,  in that the church needs to be a witness to a spirituality that is not captive to any other allegiance (including nationalism and “Free Market” idolatry).   My brothers and sisters in Radical Orthodoxy and in “Emergent” circles have schooled me on the fine lines there.  I have written about this before,  but I wanted to reiterate that fine distinction here,  as we find ourselves in a time that seems to call for working on the overlapping concerns in this time of immense danger.