"Spiritual snobbery" towards the poor

In the comboxes yesterday, an anonymous blogger posted a note saying he/she can't stand the "spiritual snobbery" towards the poor for enjoying material things after so much deprivation. If the point is that we should be careful in applying our judgments, that's fine. But I sensed there a belief that the poor who spend shamelessly or who take on vulgar habits with money are to be exempted from judgment simply because they were once poor. I think that's a big mistake, however charitably intended.

If you watch TBN, the pop Pentecostal network, or if you ever watched the PTL Club, you get accustomed to the shiny decor, too much make-up on the women, the big hair, the overly primped men, and the overall atmosphere of glitz. This is what people who grew up in material deprivation do when they get money: they adopt habits that show, or intend to show, that they now have money. To the sophisticated eye, TBN is extraordinarily vulgar in its trappings. But to many who grew up in want, and who find something meaningful in TBN's style of Christianity, all that glitz is a sign of God's blessing.

This is where the "prosperity Gospel" comes from. TBN is all about prosperity theology. If you believe that it's "spiritual snobbery" to criticize the formerly poor for excessive materialism, then you have no grounds on which to criticize the prosperity Gospel (which I firmly believe is a deep refutation of true Christianity). I've known people who grew up poor and then got money who became good stewards of their wealth because they knew what it was like to be without it. I've known people who grew up poor and then got money who became terrible stewards of it -- and indeed, the money ruined them.

Money gives us the power to become more of who we already are. I keep thinking that if I win the lottery, I'll use the money wisely, for the good of my family and my community. But I really don't know that, and in fact, the likelihood is that having lots of money would bring out the worst aspects of my character. As Jesus said, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to inherit the Kingdom of God. What he meant was that having money and material things distracts us from the things of God.

Remember what I blogged yesterday about my Soviet emigre friend who doesn't want to go back home because of the rampant, sometimes violent, materialism there? I thought of him last night when reading this passage from Fr. Schmemann's diary (2/22/75):

Today I read in the New York Times an article about changes occurring in Russia. No more dissidents, no young people to carry on the opposition. Sakharov is quite alone. People want televisions, cars, ice cream, comfort. The tragic high note taken by Solzhenitsyn is lost in this decay. S. issues a call to "live without lies," but his opponents reply, "Does he not understand that people always and everywhere lived -- and will live -- by and with lies?" It is impossible to oppose society's lowest impersonal ways.

Fr. Schmemann then discusses a meeting of bishops in which they talked about money matters with the kind of reverence they ought to reserve (but don't) for talking about religious matters. Neither the rich, nor the poor, nor the middle class is exempt from the corruptions of materialism. Nor me. Nor you.