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Just here, however, we of the middle class must be on our guard. As we back the Camry out of the driveway of our comfortable suburban home, we congratulate ourselves that we are not like Milken. ("Thanks be to God that I am not like that sinner.") And as for Drexel, well, that's a fanatical extreme to which normal Christians aren't called. And so, by the clever use of false comparison groups, we emerge morally in the clear, our own tendencies to greed successfully explained away. But our job is not simply to be better than Milken, but to conform fully to the image of Christ, whatever that may demand of us. And while it's true that not all of us are called to emulate Francis of Assisi and Katherine Drexel, some of us may be, and to dismiss such generosity as a fanatical extreme may close us off to the way God wishes to work in our lives.

Greed can also take form as stinginess—being too reluctant to part with one's goods. Just as one can be rich or of modest means and be generous, so one can be rich or poor and be tight-fisted. Fear may be a motivating factor. Recall Scarlett O'Hara's oath shouted before God with a clenched fist: "As God as my witness, I'll never be hungry again." Her fear of not having enough hardened her in a career of calculated greediness.

Other rationales may motivate stinginess. As you walk down the bustling city street a beggar chinks his cup of coins in your direction, asking for a handout. You quicken your pace, avoid eye contact, give the beggar wide berth, and succeed in not parting with a dime. And as you hasten on you may mollify a twinge of conscience by saying, "I'm doing him a favor by not reinforcing his panhandling ways."

Yes, there are con men in the world, though persons reduced to begging for pocket change are often among the genuinely poor in spirit. The problem is that our indifference to the plight of the poor easily becomes a settled state of the will, which we justify by oft-heard rationales: These people are shiftless and lazy; they will only squander what is given; I don't want to reinforce a welfare culture, and so forth. Christians, however, are commanded "to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share" (1 Tim. 6:18). If sharing should be the default mode for Christians, then if most of us aim wide of the mark by being "hair-trigger" givers, we'll probably come close to hitting the target.

Most insidiously, greed sometimes masquerades as a Christian virtue. A Christian college hired a friend of mine to teach, deliberately calculating his course load at a fraction less than what was required for him to receive benefits. His department chair protested to the administration, but they told him that it was simply a matter of good stewardship not to pay more than the market would bear. When the professor took ill that same year and was hospitalized, he could not pay his medical bills.

The churches that fall prey to fraud may have justified their investments by saying they did not want to bury their talents. In the name of good stewardship, they suppressed the critical faculties that usually tell us "if it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true." Perhaps they cast an envious eye on the nearest megachurch and reassured themselves that lavish budgets and huge physical plants are God's preferred way of showing his favor. In an extreme form, Christian justifications for greed lead to a "name it and claim it" gospel of prosperity that inverts the Gospel teaching about camels, needles, rich persons, and heaven.

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January 2005, Vol. 49, No. 1