Welcome to the new Queercents God and Mammon series on money and religion, connections and disconnects, the history of and the modern-day relationship between the two, all tied to the personal experience of having grown up as a pastor’s kid who would ultimately come out as queer. My experience has been primarily with Western religion, so, aside from specific references, the majority of the opinions in my posts will be regarding modern Christianity.

Sometime ago, Nina posted commentary on a few other posts she’d read on religion and personal finance, much of the content of which debated the relativity of the two to one another. The link between money and religion is an interesting and ancient one. Money is a child of the church, literally. Practicing religion arguably has an impact on personal finance, but even without a personal practice, micro and macroeconomics are steeped in the currency of the global states of various religions.

Of the original seventy-some medieval churches, there remain 36 in the British town in which I’m now living. They are beautiful; around almost every corner a looming gothic design is situated, including one massive Cathedral built by the intruding Normans in the eleventh century. Mandatory tithing and/or forced labor brought many of these architectural treasures into being. These two traditions – tithing and slavery — have accompanied western religion for centuries and are a major force in historical urban development, as well as fostering the stratification of class systems, and fueling serious personal gain for various ruling classes.

The induction of the first gold coins in history, those of King Croesus of Lydia (present-day part of Turkey) in 560 BC, marks both an interesting link to and departure point of money from its progenitor, the Church. The Museum of Money and Financial Institution’s website, A Brief History of Money and Religion, notes that “In the time of many gods, the temple was the treasury.” Money and religion were, in fact, inseparable. The site also offers a brief and incomplete etymology of the word gold, in part a derivative of an eighth century verb, gelten, meaning to sacrifice. Sacrifices were the original form of investment. The wealth of the spirit and financial well-being were not separate entities.

When these first gold coins were introduced, they bore the symbol of the highly sacred bull, the primary currency of exchange – via sacrifice – with the gods. The coins became the kick-off for and transition of consumerism, a shift from that of the consumption of sacrifice (god or priests consumed the sacrifices of man) to consuming by way of purchase; and the “progression” from barter to the use of money in currency between individuals ensued. Roman money likewise had its origin in a temple, that of Moneta, from which the word money comes.

The well-known story of Jesus in the marketplace is one commonly used in modern Christian sermons to encourage a specific Christian relationship with money, one that removes money from the sacred place of worship and maintains a spiritual existence separate from that of the “market,” and is indicative of the constant and universal battle to separate the two. Watch Jesus go nuts on this YouTube dramatization of those biblical events. However, other scriptures, like the one emphasized by this religion news service, encourage a ministry that goes out into the “marketplace” to extend spirituality to those in need, an integration of spirituality as opposed to a segregation. The language hints that the Church assumes a specific poverty in the lives of those focused on finance (or other external goals) and that those individuals are in need of some kind of intervention.

The Crusades and their concurrent “ministries”, which lasted from 1095 until 1291, were recruited for and employed as religious battles; yet they were just as accurately battles of capital and real estate. And, as the Wikipedia page on the Crusades affirms, “The Crusades had far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts, some of which have lasted into contemporary times.”

Also from the religion and money website: as late as the mid-1900s, bank designs were being modeled after ancient Greek temples. The historic parallel between money and religion seems to be tightly twisted into the major movements of both. In 1973, Nixon abandoned the gold standard for exchange rates, and money became a sign of a sign. The “Death of God,” phraseology borrowed from Nietszche, also occurred theologically around the same time, and involved the idea that transcendence as a potential in human reality had lost meaning to modern thinkers.

Transcendence by way of income has taken on new meaning for modern thinkers, however. Next week: more on the history of tithing and its modern implications.