disgusted by wealth ... really?

Gregory Stevens

A Silicon Valley pastor [Gregory Stevens] has resigned from his church after calling the city of Palo Alto an “elitist shit den of hate” and criticizing the hypocrisy of “social justice” activism in the region....
“The tech industry is motivated by endless profit, elite status, rampant greed, and the myth that their technologies are somehow always improving the world.”....
“I hate ‘social justice’ in Palo Alto. What a fucking joke.”

On the one hand, you can imagine his frustrations. It's good for a news story.

On the other hand, from where I sit, a larger story goes begging -- how those who might be considered rich fit in to a wider swath of political liberalism. How does being wealthy disbar those who might wish to add their voices to a more generous vision? Shall l fault them by the nature of what may have been their upbringing? As a poor man may be encumbered/limited by an impoverished background, isn't there something to be said for rich people who simply grew up in and with plenty? Are they encumbered by their past as any of us might be? True, there are braggarts and elitists, but for the few who may question their own comforts ... well, what about a background over which you have no control?

Stevens, I notice, is 28 -- a ripe age for discovering the mixed nature or hypocrisy of things. A minister's job, among other things, is to milk the cash cow, much as a college president might. Look around any church congregation and count what I have come to call "the blue-haired ladies" -- devoted widows, often, who have chosen to support their local tabernacle. If money is what they can currently afford, well, movements need money, if only to buy the plastic bottles full of water ... bottles that can wash up on a beach near you. Donning sack cloth and ashes may sound humble-pie, but shining stars are often in need of very tangible telescopes.

I leave it there. I've run out of energy.