Stop Celebrating Being Broke
It's really just a closet hatred of authority and the father.
First, this morning:
I’d been thinking similar thoughts about how “macho blowhards” are really just seeking a masculinized version of feminist privileges, rather than the standards of the Word of God.
This is similar to how the “Nazi-friendly” churches have been labeled “Woke Right,” which isn’t a great term. But I think it accurately captures the idea that there are members of the political right that have accepted the “identity politics” framing of the left, and decided to get their piece of the identity pie.
Then Michael added this tweet, this afternoon:
And via a spark of inspiration, the two ideas combined in my head, and I wrote the following tweet [LINK]
The Reformed world talks endlessly about "building generational wealth"... then turns around and shames people who actually build it. This stems from the same hatred of authority that
wisely highlighted this morning.Here's the logic:
1. Authenticity is today's most precious currency. Its supposed opposite is Hypocrisy - the ultimate evil.
2. The unspoken assumption:
- If you're poor, you must be authentic (you have nothing to lose, right?)
- If you have authority, you must be a hypocrite
- And since wealth = authority, then wealth = hypocrisy
The twisted result is that the only way to prove your authenticity is to remain poor. The moment you build any success, you're labeled a "hypocrite."
Or the one that gets used instead: "grifter"
Translation: "You're just saying this for money, unlike those *more authentic* voices" (who conveniently haven't succeeded yet)
It's a perfect tool - having money becomes automatic grounds for dismissing someone's authority. A green scarlet letter.
What's really happening is that the "grifter" accusation is just a backwards way for people to elevate failures above the successful... and excuse their own failures at the same time.
So when you see someone throwing around baseless "grifter" claims, what you're really seeing is:
Insecurity
Wokeness
Communism
Hatred of the Father
Raw Anti-Authoritarianism
Earning money is a blessing from God, because He grants the increase (1 Cor 3:7). So with our Reformed brothers and sisters, we should celebrate their economic success, pray that they earn it wisely, and then seek to build our own houses, rather than tearing others’ down.
Meanwhile, we shouldn’t judge those who haven’t built wealth.
Nor should we elevate them to unearned positions of authority simply because they haven’t.
