Malcolm Foley > Quotes

“When racism does not kill by rending flesh, it kills by constricting our theological and ethical imagination.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Narrated morally, greed lies at the root of our modern capitalist system. Greed is its logic. For some, this is just an account ​of the way the world works. But for the Christian, this ought to be terrifying.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“But the Christian ethic of love demands that we seek to eradicate violence everywhere we are, including the spaces that can operate by the logic of the kingdom of God.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“For people who just want to get rich, we live in a golden age. But for those who ascribe to a faith in which riches and wealth are articulated as God’s greatest rival, we live in an age of horror. Ours is an age when Mammon is eager to sink its talons into our hearts and stretch its tendrils around our throats.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“hoarding wealth is definitionally an act of hate, a lack of love for one’s neighbor.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Our enemies are not our fellow humans but the powers and principalities that seek to use us against one another.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“He must ponder whether revolutionary violence is less or more deplorable than the violence perpetuated by the system.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“At its center is the claim that hate and ignorance are not at the root of race; rather, that root is greed. Notably, King, especially in the last few years of his life, drew attention to the three-headed evil that has plagued Western civilization: racism, materialism, and militarism. More pointedly, however, he drew attention to them in their most violent and common instantiations: white supremacy, capitalism, and war.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Race is not about some timeless hate between groups of people. Rather, it is rooted in material exploitation.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“We don’t need to be post-racial or even primarily anti-racist; we need to be anti-racial. Racism itself has to be consciously evacuated of its power.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Race and racism were created because some people wanted more resources, wanted them cheaply, and were willing to do whatever it took to accumulate those resources.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“The Westminster Larger Catechism reminds us that the Ten Commandments bear within them both prohibitions and duties. The catechism teaches us not only not to lie about one another but also to love one another by rejoicing in others’ good reputation, by promoting and rejoicing in the truth, and by distancing ourselves from and discouraging lies, slander, and injustice.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Our resistance to capitalism should come from our commitment to Christ and our guarding against the very things he continually tells us to guard against.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“This, then, is the beginning of modern race relations. It was not an abstract, natural, immemorial feeling of mutual antipathy between groups, but rather a practical exploitative relationship with its ​socio-attitudinal facilitation.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Yet one of the unforeseen consequences of a movement that placed a considerable stigma on being known as racist is that it drove racist thought underground without addressing the conditions that make racism appear reasonable.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Racialized capitalism will not be defeated by isolated individuals.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Ultimately, racism is not a sin of ignorance; it is about pride and greed.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“I’m Reformed and Black enough to be suspicious of those who look at American history and celebrate the visible goodness of humanity.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“The Christian’s political theology is summed up in this statement: the most effective way to effect social change is to form an alternative society.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“Race is not primarily about hate and ignorance. It’s about greed. It always has been.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward

“an anti-racist community is an anti-greed community. An anti-racist community is a community in which the desire for more is excised and replaced with a robust embrace of the communion of the saints. Such a community follows the logic of the kingdom of God: authority and resources are to be shared rather than hoarded.”
― Malcolm Foley, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward