{"id":423,"date":"2010-06-01T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2010-06-01T00:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=423"},"modified":"2021-11-27T17:37:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-27T09:37:01","slug":"9-money-caesar-and-the-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=423","title":{"rendered":"9. Money, Caesar and the Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him<\/span><\/strong>\u201d [Mark 1:12-13]<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Tribute Money<\/a><\/em> by Masaccio<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A priest-friend has just emailed us an article by a keen observer and commentator of the Malaysian political scene. The article comes with a few photographs. Like most people, political headlines do intrigue us, but they nevertheless are unable to detain our attention for long. Perhaps faster than most people, our interest on secular politics wanes rather quickly and we quite naturally, and unknowingly, just move on with our work without entering into any further coffee-corner discussions on those matters.<\/span><\/p>\n

This time, however, it is different. The article is critical of churches and churchmen who appear to collaborate with politicians, receiving big sums of cash-donations (dubbed \u201cspecial grants\u201d) from them in the midst of a by-election campaign and photo-posing with them. It leaves us disturbed, as certainly as it did our priest-friend himself. Why?<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether the politicians were in breach of the law (the Election Offenses Act) in possibly committing \u201cbribery\u201d during election campaigns is a matter for the police and the courts and should not detain us. What does concern us is the obvious corruption all this is doing to the spirit of the Christian churches whose fundamental responsibility is to uncompromisingly bear witness to the Gospel of Christ.\u00a0 Are we so anxious to receive cash-donations that we do not care about being seen publicly endorsing the Caesar of the day? Are we not at all concerned that accepting these donations, our commitment to the Gospel and our stand in social justice might be compromised? Is money so important to us that we are prepared to gain some of it even at the expense of losing our ecclesial soul (\u201cFor what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and loses his soul?\u201d \u2013 Mt 16:26)?<\/span><\/p>\n

What Martin Luther King, Jr. said in this regard is again worthy of our attention:<\/span><\/p>\n