Two Stories About Money
Regular readers may know that I'm sympathetic to Hugh Nibley's description of money as "congealed wickedness," so I couldn't help but laugh--and think deeply--when a couple of stories recently caught my attention in which money became an important substitute for something like faith or love. Consider, for example, the recent example of an entire town in Cambodia which converted to Christianity in order to save money : At upwards of US$500, the cost of slaughtering a buffalo to revive a relative condemned to ill-health by the spirits has pushed the Jarai indigenous minority residents of Somkul village in Ratanakkiri to a more affordable religious option: Christianity. In the village in O’Yadav district’s Som Thom commune, about 80 per cent of the community have given up on spirits and ghosts in favour of Sunday sermons and modern medicine. Sev Chel , 38, said she made the switch because when she used to get sick, it could cost her hundreds of dollars to ap