The Other Journal: The Theological Legacy of Money and Debt: An Interview with Devin Singh
November 5, 2018
I spoke with Zachary Settle of The Other Journal in this online interview about my book, Divine Currency.
The Ethics of Bitcoin? Religion and Cryptocurrency
This summer I received word that I had been selected to participate in a Luce Foundation-funded project called Public Theologies of Technology and Presence, administered through the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley.
My project, “Decentered Sovereignties and Spectral Transactions: Cryptocurrency, Public Theology, and the Ethics of Presence” will examine the hidden ethical vision of cryptocurrency and evaluate its potential impact on community. Click the link to learn more!
Sirius XM Interview on Divine Currency
The Briefing, Powered by Dartmouth
May 5, 2018
Money is significant in Western culture, and as the saying goes, money is power. But how did it become such a central part of Western life? Dartmouth’s Devin Singh examines the religious and theological sources of money’s influence in his new book Divine Currency: The Theological Power of Money in the West.
The Briefing Powered By Dartmouth on SiriusXM Insight Channel 121. Airs Saturdays at 8am EST, rebroadcast Sundays at 6am and 7pm EST. A lively hour dissecting the history, facts and perspectives shaping this week's news.
Sirius Radio’s legal prevents me from posting the whole thing but feel free to message me for a file of the entire interview for your personal use.
Dartmouth 3D Mag: Good Life Lessons; Student Written Profile
Last year I was interviewed by a Dartmouth student and this profile was recently published. Click the image for a link to a readable online version!
The Catacombic Machine Podcast: Interview on Divine Currency
In this episode of The Catacombic Machine, Matt Baker and Preston Price speak with Devin Singh about his book Divine Currency: The Theological Power of Money in the West, among other things.
Stanford Press Blog: King's critique of American militarized capitalism
As an extension of his fight against racist laws at home, Martin Luther King Jr. became increasingly critical of US policies abroad. Indeed, many speculate that King’s progressively strident critique of US militarism and intervention, particularly in Vietnam, and his challenge to American market priorities were factors that accelerated plans for his assassination—the 50th anniversary of which we recently marked as a nation. Among his many detractors were white clergy who, already incensed at King’s challenge to segregation and Jim Crow, were dumbfounded that he would move to oppose US warmongering and to call out the evils of capitalism. As King’s confrontation revealed, their theology was not only implicated in their racist vision of society, but also in a worldview that prioritized economic supremacy by any means necessary.
On April 4th, 1967, exactly one year to the day before he was murdered, King gathered with other religious leaders to protest the war in Vietnam at the Riverside Church in New York, where he delivered his famous sermon, “Beyond Vietnam.” As he began, King addressed his critics, those who asked, “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?”; “Peace and civil rights don’t mix.” To such complaints, King responded: “the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.”
God and the Human Future
I was recently invited to join the Westar Institute's annual gathering in Santa Rosa, CA, as part of a new discussion in their God Seminar on decolonizing theology. Mary Keller (Wyoming), An Yountae (Northridge) and myself were asked to share reflections about theism and post-theisms in light of post- and decolonial thought. I spoke on the question of the secular in light of decolonial reflection, arguing that some notion of the secular as a space to protect difference should be preserved, and perhaps can be theologically legitimated and defended from a variety of religious and humanist traditions, suggesting that the decolonial turn may open up new perspectives on the question.
It was a lovely gathering of scholars, including Jeff Robbins, Clayton Crockett, Karen Bray, Noelle Vahanian, John Caputo, Wilson Dickinson, Jordan Miller, Michael Zbaraschuk, Sarah Morice Brubaker, and Mike Grimshaw. This was a chance for me to learn about the interesting work of the institute and seminar, and consider some of the contemporary challenges being tackled.
Since we were in prime wine country, some of us were able to sneak off to sample the local varietals.
It begins
Looking forward to getting a copy of excellent "Divine Currency" by @devinps. Introduction online here: https://t.co/ihptI9Gnxs
— Martijn Konings (@konings_martijn) March 12, 2018
St Paul's School Lecture: Anger: The Power for Change
I recently spent a few days on the campus of Saint Paul's School in Concord, NH, as part of their Chapel Program review committee, where they gathered a team of external reviewers to assess their fulfillment of their mission on campus.
As part of this visit, I was invited to address their community in their morning chapel. This gathering of their entire student body and faculty took place in their impressive and imposing Chapel of St Peter and St Paul. I took the opportunity to speak about a topic that has remained near and dear to my heart for most of my life: anger.
Our attitude toward anger is ambivalent, at best. Usually, it is an emotion and affective state that is feared, resisted, and repressed... until it explodes. In these brief reflections, I suggest a slightly different attitude toward anger, one that recognizes it as a major resource in our lives for change.
Harvard Divinity School panel: Christianity and Mass Incarceration
I recently participated on a panel as part of a broader conference on Christianity, Race, and Mass Incarceration at Harvard Divinity School:
"Christianity, Race, and Mass Incarceration will gather scholars of various disciplines in conversation alongside activists, organizers, and formerly incarcerated persons. We hope to advance through this workshop a critical study of carceral punishment, especially as it relates to questions of Christian thought and practice, and to provoke awareness and activism around incarceration in America."
After a first, brilliant panel on "Religion and the Historical Roots of US Incarceration" followed by a second, equally brilliant and hard-hitting panel on "Race and Religion in Modern Mass Incarceration," the third panel was a "Theology and Humanities Roundtable" where scholars shared their perspectives on how their work relates to this pressing social and conceptual problem.
On the panel, I was accompanied by Michelle Sanchez, Todne Thomas, Cornel West, and Andre Willis:
Pictured: Cornel West, Devin Singh, Todne Thomas, Andre Willis, Michelle Sanchez
My brief remarks, titled "Guilty Debt? The Economy of Carcerality" emphasized the role of debt in supporting imaginaries that deem pain and punishment an appropriate "repayment" for crimes committed and that construe indebtedness as moral culpability and guilt.
I also asked whether Christian theories of salvation that make repayment of the "debt" of sin a central piece might not be reinforcing this broader social imaginary that sacralizes and centers on debt. Can we rethink salvation outside of the terms of redemption, recompense or repayment?
Watch the full video of this particular panel:
The Immanent Frame: Money- flat, broad, and deep
The Moneychanger and his Wife. Quentin Massys, 1514. | Public Domain
Is money transcendent or immanent?
Some might suggest that money is the preeminent symbol of immanence. It enables exchange, the dyadic interface of two agents, passing values about on the same plane. It requires no “outside.” Money has supposedly become the be-all and end-all of our age, as the horizon of the good, and, as such, forges a closed, self-contained system. The modern era, the age of immanence, is also the age of money and capital, as economy has come to ground and delimit much of how we understand ourselves. Money and its preponderance appear correlated to the immanent.
Others may counter that money appears irrevocably tied to transcendence. After all, money only works by serving as an abstract “third” position to mediate two incommensurate articles of exchange. Money signifies value, itself an ethereal category not fully exhausted by materialist definitions. Money “stands above” the plane of objects of labor, commodities, and use-values. Some might press further to claim that money has usurped the place of God in societal imagination, trading on theological residues to become the index for ultimate concern and even sovereign decision. Implied here is a critique of false transcendence. The immanent has overstepped its place. Which brings us full circle.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this circularity reveals the shortcomings of the opening query. It cannot be asked meaningfully without specifying the types of immanence and transcendence in question, for clearly their registers are multiple, layered, and textured...
Read the the full, original post at The Immanent Frame.
Oxide Radio: Discussing Pope Francis on the economy and environment
Find other episodes at
http://www.oxideradio.org/episodes/2017/6/24/episode-13-religion
Patheos: Who Absolves the Priests? The Panama Papers, Transparency, and Confession
The Panama Papers caught some of the most powerful people on the globe in the act of self-dealing. Now the public wants the guilty to come clean, step into the light, and confess their financial misdeeds.
While such confession might be an important public ritual, there are reasons to believe that confession won’t make the sins disappear and they’ll likely happen again.
Read the rest of the piece at Patheos.com
HuffPo: Teaching Theology in a Liberal Arts Setting
Should theological texts and other insider religious documents be part of a curriculum at a secular, liberal arts college? What use or relevance do these objects of study have? Why would students need to spend time reading them to prepare for success in today's world?
My recent post in the Huffington Post makes the point that theology offers many benefits to students as part of a robust and well-rounded liberal arts curriculum. We shouldn't write it off too swiftly.
Time Magazine: Is Donald Trump a Tyrant?
As a nation, we recognize the dangers of special interest politics—the influence of lobbyists and impact of corporations. We’re rightly cautious of the ways money is used to commandeer the political process and undermine democracy. But Trump is far from the untainted outsider that he purports to be. To the contrary, he is a one-stop-shop for all these dangers that we rightly fear. In his campaign, the seeds of tyranny lie waiting to take root.
What do I mean by associating Trump and tyranny? It's not a question of likeability or character, really. Rather, insights from the ancient Greeks, from whom we get ideas of democracy, provide warning. They highlight the dangers of extreme wealth used by private citizens to step around established political norms and processes. This leads to a lack of accountability by leadership and possible betrayal of the people.
Read more of my exploration of Trump and tyranny in Time magazine.
Cosmologics Magazine: Debt Cancellation as Sovereign Crisis Management
Debt cancellation has become part of the public conversation over the past decades in response to our cycles of financial crises.
...
It’s in part because of its proximity to language of salvation and its association with divine activity that debt cancellation has garnered an altruistic aura. It smacks of profound mercy and justice. Progressive social movements, whether religiously inspired or not, champion debt cancellation in various forms, from the famed Jubilee 2000 campaign to groups associated with Occupy Wall Street. Thus, Jubilee is part of a set of purportedly radical options marshaled to challenge the excesses and abuses of our current global capitalist order.
If we assess the originary logic and historical context of Jubilee, however, it’s clear that we should pause before we champion debt cancellation policies today. For debt cancellation in its ANE context is unquestionably an act and prerogative of sovereign power. Jubilee is an exceptional act, occurring in moments of transition in sovereignty or in times of crisis. It is a declaration of sovereignty, a statement of total supremacy over the economy and society of a territory or empire. Only the sovereign can declare Jubilee. Such acts, while framed as benevolent and while certainly providing a temporary relief, ultimately reinforce sovereign authority and emphasize the system’s dependence upon sovereign will and decision. Debt cancellation is a form of sovereign crisis management.
Read the rest on COSMOLOGICS!
HuffPo: Market Faith in Anxious Times
As markets tumble again in China, with ripple effects across the globe, concerns about the role of fear and anxiety in market behavior have reemerged. Is the sharp decline based on "real" changes in value or the result of speculation and a herd mentality? Are emotions and anxieties the actual source of the problem? Calls for calm are being issued. After the previous crash last August, Chinese authorities even cracked down on the spread of rumors about market activity! Analysts around the world hasten to explain the economic forces at work, with many calling for renewed trust in the market.
It's important to understand what's behind this language of calls for market confidence, because it bears on how we respond to crises like this one.
Read the rest on Huffington Post!
Syndicate: Provincializing Christendom: Reviewing Milbank's Beyond Secular Order
I recently participated in a review symposium for John Milbank's latest book, Beyond Secular Order.
Here's an excerpt:
Once, there was no Christendom. And Christendom was not latent in the Greek and later Hellenistic philosophical schools that preceded it, awaiting catalysis and ferment by the dew of heaven, the word made flesh. Rather, there emerged a ragtag group of social, cultural, and economic nobodies who invoked strange tales of messianic fulfillment. They gathered in houses to celebrate and enact these stories, outside the watchful eye of Rome and its regulation of superstitio. Very soon, wealthy patrons were involved, hosting these assemblies in their homes and providing food for their celebratory “love feasts.” As the community grew, the story goes, so did persecution and clashes with the regime. Defenses and appeals were made. Eventually, some high-profile governmental officials joined the movement. Finally, an emperor.
What began as a marginal and particularist sect (its arguably universalist claims notwithstanding) would have its vision (or, better, one of its many internally competing visions) projected across an empire. The voices and views of a small community, initially pursued by power, came to be extended from the seat of power itself, an inversion that has long-ranging consequences. Christendom had to be instituted and imagined. And disciplined. And enforced. This institution is not meaningfully grasped in the language of inevitability or with the hindsight of what would come to be called, agonistically, orthodoxy.
John Milbank knows these roots and must celebrate them in the name of incarnational materialism and truth as historically developed. For the origins of the church according to apostolic and patristic witness depend upon “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1). Ecclesial historical actualization required “seeing our teacher, and hearing his voice with our own ears” (Irenaeus Haer. 5.1.1). In short, the ragtag team-turned-fathers-of-the-church emphasized the necessity of a material encounter with an initially nondescript human in a backwater province of the Roman Empire. This encounter was specific and its universalization denotes a transition.
Read the rest of the review, John Milbank's response, and my rejoinder at the Syndicate Theology site!
Bubble-Up Money: Further Thoughts on Piketty’s Capital
Money bubbles up. But not in the way liberal and progressive policy planners might have hoped. This is one of the indirect lessons of Piketty’s book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Though the theory is not new, for the first time we’ve been presented with apparently hard evidence of the tendency for wealth to be concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, even in a “well-functioning” economy.
Back in the days of Reagan-era “trickle down” theories of economic redistribution via tax cuts for the wealthy, some on the left touted a “bubble up” approach in response. Instead of spending on the rich and hoping money makes its way to the rest of society through job creation and better wages, tax benefits and social welfare programs spent on the more vulnerable might help all through greater productivity and increased consumption. A healthier, happier, better-educated, and socially-supported worker and a more motivated consumer would translate into greater returns for employers. A portion of the money spent at the bottom, so to speak, would make its way to the top. Everyone would win, the story went.
Unfortunately, Piketty’s work suggests that, wherever it is spent, not just a portion but the majority of money rises to the top. Money has an inclination to slip out of the hands of the many and return to the few. While it certainly doesn’t trickle down, money’s bubble-up tendency means that its presence among and benefit to those who have less of it are fleeting. Money appears to want to come back to its origins among those who already hold it in greater supply. The old adage that “it takes money to make money” rings true here on a broader social scale: those small sectors that have it in abundance will continue to make more.
In today's world, wealth’s increase is largely generated through monetary instruments. The rate of return on capital, Piketty claims, always exceeds the rate of growth through production and income (his now famous formula r > g). Interest rates (public and private debt) and other monetary mechanisms are the driving force behind skyrocketing capital returns. He calls this capital growth rate “arbitrary.” And this is right, since interest rates are socially and politically determined. They are not subject to some natural or physical law.
Paying attention to the origins, nature, and function of money as a medium reveals at least two factors that help explain the dynamic illustrated by Piketty:
The first is that money is created through lending and indicates a credit-debt relationship.
The second is that money is politically instituted and is set into play and regulated by centralized authorities.
If money is generated through debt creation (this is how banks make money), it makes sense that a portion of it will return to its places of origin in the form of interest.
Regardless of the amount or location of money in circulation, it accumulates to the lender. If governments establish fiscal policy in cooperation with financial institutions and the wealthy elite who direct them, it makes sense that monetary circuits work in their favor. Laws work ultimately to facilitate money’s return to the pools of wealth that put money into motion in the first place.
As dramatic and “utopian” as Piketty’s proposal for a progressive global tax on the most wealthy appears, it may be at best a short-term and stopgap intervention. Other proposals, such as Joseph Stiglitz's, may be too optimistic about the capacity for capitalism to correct inequalities. Redirecting money away from centers of wealth will work for a time until it finds its way back, through the endless innovation of monetary instruments and the laws that are always a few steps behind. Money wants to bubble up, and the self-correction and “equilibrium” toward which markets tend is that of money’s concentration at the top.
Devin Singh is Assistant Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College, where he teaches courses on religion and economics, modern religious thought, and philosophy of religion. His current book project examines the relation between money and Christian doctrine and considers how theology shapes economy in the West.
Protestant Work Ethic, On a Tuesday?
Max Weber famously claimed, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that many capitalist values and practices in early modernity were shaped by a new Protestant ethos and culture. Two central ideas he examined were those of election, seen especially in Calvinism, and calling (Beruf), as explored by Luther, among many others.
In Calvinism, teaching about predestination of an elect group for salvation, coupled with the inscrutability of the sovereign God's will and plan, fueled a kind of spiritual anxiety. No one could be sure of one's elect status. Signs and markers in the world had to be sought, to give hints at God's possible blessing and hence confirming, ideally, one's status among the chosen. A central such sign, Weber surmises, was business success.
What Lutheranism contributed was a secularization of the idea of calling or vocation. Originally a notion of discipleship, following Christ in a specialized religious calling (most notably monks), the idea was extended, per Luther, to all one's worldly activity. Suddenly mundane or earthly tasks were to be infused with the same spiritual vigor and significance as religious endeavors. God's calling was a call to the world. One could follow Christ in one's daily work.
We can imagine how the two impulses could combine in a potent synthesis. On one hand, one sets one's mind to toil hard and gain success in work, in order to "prove" God's election. On the other, one can take comfort that toiling and working in this way is fulfilling one's divine purpose on earth.
Debates rage about whether Weber was on to something or chasing phantoms. Debate also continues about whether we can see this extending to our contemporary moment. This raises questions about secularization and what it means to see these initially religious impulses carried forward in a new guise.
What might it mean that the Protestant ethic is alive and well today, but in a non-religious (or differently religious) way?
One possibility is our culture of busyness and the prestige and status that come from the idea of toiling hard and being successful in business. One need only flip open any issue of Forbes to quickly realize that our society celebrates business success. We're also familiar with the sense of significance we get in proclaiming how busy we are, how hard we're working all the time. Might there be some residue of the Protestant ethic here, such that the new elect status is found in those who are toiling hard and finding success at work, just without concern for the afterlife?
We see this theme in popular culture. It comes up, I suggest, in the hit song "Tuesday" by ILoveMakonnen (feat. Drake). Listen to them:
Wait, isn't this song about partying, cutting loose, and indulging?
Only upon first blush. It actually celebrates something else primarily.
As Drizzy Claims:
Ain't got no motherf#@$*n' time
To party on the weekend...
One night off and this is it
Always workin' OT,
Overtime and out of town
Drake is working too hard to relax and party. He's far too serious and enjoying far too much success. After all:
Squad goin' up
Nobody flippin' packs now
I just did 3 in a row
Them shows is back-to-back to back now
No longer needing to deal, his success means back to back shows and constant working. Working overtime.
ILoveMakonnen offers a similar sentiment, from a different angle:
Workin' Monday night
On the corner flippin' hard
Made at least 3 thousand
On the boulevard
I've been workin' graveyard
Shifts every other weekend
Ain't got f#@$*n' time
To party on the weekend
Here we see that it really isn’t about a pure or prestigious type of work. That’s not the issue. While Drake celebrates moving on from this lifestyle of drug dealing, the counterpoint here is that this lifestyle is still alright, as long as you’re working hard, taking care of your business. Whatever the product, whatever the service, if you’re busting your butt and working so hard you barely have time to chill, and--and this is key--being successful--then you’re worthy of respect
The video's images celebrate ideas of serious toil at work:
The accountant working hard at this desk:
Or the late night work in the boardroom:
My claim is that, ultimately, this song is about the glorification of work, of working hard, of having business success. This success shows one’s worthiness; it is a mark of status and value. Working hard, always working, and finding success at this work through financial gain, marks one’s elect status. Now we see that election is no longer about future salvation, but rather about status, prestige, and worthiness in the present. Calling has been carried forward to infuse any and all work with an almost spiritual significance.
If leisure is celebrated, it is the leisure that comes as a pause in one's commitment to work. These boys have no other time to relax and party than on an insignificant Tuesday night. But, and this is added bonus, their business success and prestige are so great that even on a piddly Tuesday they have the club poppin' off.
"Tuesday" is about a lot of things, but it isn't primarily a song about partying. It's about the afterthought of rest and relaxation that come after an indivisible focus on working hard to find success in one's business. The money made is confirmation of one's chosen status. This may be one way that the Protestant ethic is carried forward in our day.