The Unjust Steward: Wealth, Poverty, and the Church Today

"The first official status for a Christian Church community was registration as a burial club."  Back in May, I leashed up my dog for our evening walk and put in my earphones to listen to a podcast. As had been the case for months, my route involved walking past the refrigerated morgue truck parked outside Brooklyn Hospital on my way to Fort Greene Park. The rate of COVID-19 deaths was continuing to increase in many places across the country and the podcast episode I was listening to was  entitled Why is the Pandemic Killing so Many Black Americans?  In it, the host interviewed New York Times journalist Linda Villarosa and contradicted the notion of COVID-19 as the great equalizer.  The episode began with the story of Cornell Charles, nicknamed Dickey, who died after he attended New Orleans’ Governor’s Ball back in late February. Dickey was a member of the New Orleans’ Zulu Club and was one of several members who contracted COVID-19 as a result of that gathering. In telling t

 “Against the demon that said to us, ‘Property can, when a person acquires riches, serve the Lord’: No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth (Matt 6:24).” - Evagrius Ponticus Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent early mornings exploring the fascinating - and yet fairly self-destructive - spiritual battles of Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD), also known as Evagrius the Solitary. In Evagrius’ writings, one finds a man and world beset by demons, ones that Evagrius carefully observed, categorized, and struggled against over many nights in his monastic cell. The intense conflict with demons - including the demon Love of Money -  was a major part of fourth century monks’ struggle for salvation and purity of soul, and Evagrius is credited with crafting the most sophisticated demonology of early Christian monasticism, if not from ancient Christianity as a whole.[1]  Among