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The Worship of Mammon: The Fetishism of Capital in the Theological Thoughts of Creflo Dollar and Michael Novak Jack StephensReligious Studies 696Professor HoodDec., 2006
 
Stephens 2“As a stake is driven firmly into a fissure between stones, so sin is wedged in between selling and buying.”-Sirach 27:2
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Over the years the concept of “Prosperity Theology,” in where God shows his blessings toHis people by showering them with riches, has obviously attracted many followers, and seems to begaining more momentum by the day. The poster child of this movement, in all of his excessive andover the top glory, is the Rev. Creflo Dollar of Creflo Dollar Ministries and who is the reverend of the World Changers International World Dome church in southwest Atlanta. Dollar preaches allover the United States about how God wants to shower all of his faithful with money (of course,Dollar is quick to point out that he also means spiritual wealth) and one of his biggest selling pointsis the fact that he flaunts his own wealth to prove God is blessing him. He unabashedly shows hiscongregants, and anyone else for that matter, “his custom-tailored suits and alligator shoes, hisRolls-Royces, his private airplanes” and has no problems demanding from his congregation 10% of their income for tithes, and if they decide to give less they might as well not even bother and instead,“Go buy a Happy Meal.” The concept of Prosperity Theology arose out of the capitalist system
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and indeed is the religious byproduct of the capitalist system. Without the unrestrained capitalistsystem and its forms of perversion there would more than likely be no Prosperity Theology to be preached upon. Prosperity Theology, as preached by Creflo Dollar, is the religious justification of capitalism and of capitalism’s systems. While Creflo Dollar speaks on a more simplistic level,stating that people who follow the Bible and follow God will soon become rich, or at leastfinancially comfortable, neo-conservative Catholic Theologian Michael Novak takes a morenuanced approached to capitalism and the building of capital (wealth). Novak’s belief is that because everyone is affected by original sin and is in nature sinful and imperfect, the capitalistsystem is the most logical choice for human kind, in fact, he sees the capitalist system as practically
 
Stephens 3ordained by God. For Novak, the capitalist market system is the best vehicle for making sure that
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the common good of humanity is meet. Novak’s fetishistic trust in the “free” market I argue is justas flawed as Dollar’s fetishistic trust in God’s love through the form of money and that both areinherently wrong in their interpretation of the Bible on their views of money and capitalism. Toshow how their relationship between the Bible and the free market is inherently incorrect I will beusing liberation theologian Franz J. Hinkelammert’s theological critique of capitalism and his use of Marx’s theory of fetishism in order to critique the microeconomic fallacies of Dollar and themacroeconomic fallacies of Novak and how their trust and Biblical justification in the free marketand the capitalist system undermines their Biblical message.In order to understand the theological perversities of Dollar’s preachings on money and theluxurious commodities people can acquire with money we must first look at Marx’s theory of thefetish which first comes to us in the form of the commodity fetish since the commodity fetish is“[t]he basis of the whole analysis of [Marx’s theory of] fetishism.” Hinkelammert describes the
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capitalistic world as “a world that is bewitched” and that the analysis of the commodity fetish is away to unveil this world of enchanted commodities. Marx states, quite rightly, that wealth in
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societies that have a “capitalist mode of production...appears as an ‘immense collection of commodities.’” In order to begin his investigation of “political economy” Marx begins his
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investigation with this mass of commodities. Marx states that “[a] commodity appears at first sight
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an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing,abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.” Its these subtleties and niceties that
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end up taking “‘metaphysical’ and ‘theological’ guises” because capitalist industry obscures andhides the fact that commodities are created by human labor. This is do to the fact of capitalist
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 production which separates the manufacturing process through the division of labor; which happens
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