Article
Creed
Economics
Seven Deadly Sins
Sin
6 min read

Greed: “No, I’ll never have enough”

In the third of a series on the Seven Deadly Sins, Jane Williams highlights how Greed destroys both individuals and societies.

Jane Williams is the McDonald Professor in Christian Theology at St Mellitus College.

Piles of money

In the old Humphrey Bogart film, Key Largo, the villain, played with a vicious childishness by Edward G. Robinson, is asked by Bogie what he wants. Rocco, Robinson’s character, thinks for a bit and then says that what Rocco wants is MORE!  ‘Will you ever have enough?’, Bogie asks, and Robinson thinks about it for a moment before replying, ‘I never have so far. No, I’ll never have enough’. 

That is Greed, in a vivid nutshell. Rocco doesn’t want anything particular, and he doesn’t value anything in itself; he just has a vast, unspecific, insatiable desire for anything and everything, particularly if it belongs to someone else. 

Rapacious greed does not love what it desires; it is driven to possess; it does not value what it has. 

Greed, like all the Seven Deadly Sins, is a ‘capital’ or ‘cardinal’ sin, meaning it is a disposition from which destructive, abusive actions flow. Having this over-mastering tendency to Greed makes us act in a whole variety of ways that are damaging and abusive to others and to ourselves. Greed leads to a variety of ‘sins’. Rapacious greed does not love what it desires; it is driven to possess; it does not value what it has, because while there is ‘more’ out there somewhere, greed must have it. It does not care what or whom it attacks or destroys: anything that stands in its way must be obliterated. It does not want to admire or use what it seeks, it merely needs to possess it, and the moment the sought after thing is achieved, all-consuming greed moves onto the next thing, always seeking ‘more’, always despising what it has, as not enough. 

Greed is destructive both on the personal front and also as it shapes societies. Individuals ruled by greed cannot maintain love or friendship or loyalty: their eyes are always on the next thing, always hungry for what they have not got. They leave behind them, without a backward glance, hurt and broken friends, family, colleagues, jobs. And if the fallout is clear for all the people around someone driven by greed, it is also obvious that it destroys the greedy, too.  

Overpowering greed empties even the greedy of worth; they can never be successful, because they do not have what they want – everything. 

Nothing can ever satisfy someone consumed by greed; there is no rest, no peace, no pleasure, because the world is full of things still to be grabbed at.  Jesus is quoted as having said, ‘Where your treasure is, that’s where your heart will be’. It’s a warning to beware of what you long for, because we are so powerfully shaped by our desires. But if all Greed longs for is ‘more’, then, in the end, the greedy person or society has no heart at all. It is shaped only by a drive for possession, opening up a vast and echoing emptiness where an actual longed-for being or thing should live. Overpowering greed empties even the greedy of worth; they can never be successful, because they do not have what they want – everything.  

It is obvious how Greed is deadly for individuals, but it is also deadly when it becomes a motivating force for society at large. The media have recently been talking again about ‘greedflation’. The theory behind the term is much debated, but the word itself is instantly memorable. Institutions that are governed primarily by the need for ‘more’ drive an insatiable economy, always needing more consumers, more profit, more rewards. Dissatisfaction and envy are the necessary tools of a society, an economy, of Greed. Individuals and groups that try to opt out of this out-of-control consumerism are viewed as a threat, and must be diminished, dismissed, cast out. It is dangerous in such a society ever to ask, ‘Do we really need more?’ That is the Emperor’s New Clothes question, which must be avoided at all costs. Surveys that ask people at different income levels whether they feel that they have enough nearly always find that everyone would like just a little bit more. Everyone would like to be at the next level up of income and possessions; but if they achieve that next level, then, strangely, they find that it is actually the level above that that really want.  

Contentment lays an axe to the roots of Greed. It allows us to see what we have and value it.

The World Happiness Report, which has been regularly updated for the last 10 years, works with a complex set of definitions of what makes for happiness, for individuals and for societies. Finland regularly tops the chart of Happiest Countries in the world, which Finns find a bit puzzling, apparently. They don’t see themselves as cheerful, jolly people, but they do speak of a national characteristic that might be described as contentment. Contentment lays an axe to the roots of Greed. It allows us to see what we have and value it, rather than despising it because there are things we do not have. 

One of the values that The World Happiness Report notes as making for greater happiness is altruism – doing good and receiving goodness from others makes both parties happier. The Christian tradition has known this for a long time. Cardinal Sins have their opposing Cardinal Virtues, dispositions that we can cultivate to help us to free ourselves from enslaving habits, like Greed. ‘Charity’ is the Cardinal Virtue that undermines the sin of Greed. When we give to others from our own resources, of time, money, attention, care, prayer, help of any kind, we begin to loosen the deadly grip of insatiable Greed upon ourselves and our world. Greed can’t live alongside Charity, or altruism; charity sees real people and situations in need, and supplies what it can from its own resources; Greed sees only more and more objects to be acquired, never able to see what it already has, never able to share or be content. 

Deadly Sins lead to behaviour that makes for misery, both for those driven by them, and for those on the receiving end of them. That is why they are called ‘deadly’. They are not just a bit naughty; they are actively destructive of human flourishing, both personal and communal. There is so much in our society that positively encourages Greed, the reckless desire for More, which can never be satisfied. But there are ways of combatting this most pernicious of habits.  

One is the practice of gratitude: instead of thinking about what we haven’t got, or would like to have, or what someone else has, we can think of what we have got, and think of it as gift, something to say thank you for. It’s a good habit to build into every day, perhaps as we go to bed, taking just a few minutes to think about the good things that have come to us that day: a child’s smile, a gleam of sunshine, a hug from a friend or partner, a delicious piece of bread; everyday things that we can take for granted, in which case they go unnoticed; or we can see that they are  gifts to be grateful for, which enlarge our spirit and our wellbeing. Gratitude is a virtuous circle: it is lovely to be on the receiving end of gratitude, as well as to practice being grateful. And gratitude often leads to another excellent practice for undermining Greed, which is charity, or altruism. If we are learning how to say thank you for what we have, we may also want to share what we now notice that we have. If we’ve given the gift of gratitude, and seen how it makes us and the receiver feel, we may want to extend that further and further. Worth a try? 

Article
Belief
Creed
Ethics
Politics
7 min read

The Danish Prime Minister is right - the West needs a spiritual rearmament

Christianity should challenge, not reflect, the cultural zeitgeist

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Mette Frederiksen gesture as she delivers a speech.
Mette Frederiksen speaking at Aalborg University.
Aalborg University.

For some time, there has been a sense of crisis in Europe. You can feel it. European nations are re-arming themselves as America turns off the financial tap. They are struggling to manage levels of migration. Young people are losing faith in democracy.  

Yet this is not primarily an economic crisis, or even a political or ethnic one. It is spiritual. And when you start to look for it, you see the signs of it everywhere.  

Take one example. Back in the summer, Mette Frederiksen, the Prime Minister of Denmark announced a national military build-up involving increased defence spending, conscription and so on, all fuelled by the general north European fear of expansionist Russia. While speaking to a group of Aalborg University students soon after, she surprised everyone by saying: 

“We will need a form of rearmament that is just as important (as the military one). That is the spiritual one.” 

She spoke of the discernment needed to tell the difference between truth and falsehood in a world where they were hard to tell apart - and implied this required spiritual wisdom not more technology. Increasing levels of conscription is one thing, but persuading young Danes to fight and even die for anything is another. The problems are not unique to Denmark. Why would Gen Z fight for an economic system that doesn't seem to be working in their favour, doesn't offer them the prospect of owning a home or a stable job, and offers little to inspire any kind of heroism? John Lennon imagined a world with “nothing to kill or die for.” If there is nothing you would die for, there probably isn’t much to live for either.  

Frederiksen’s call is just one sign of the spiritual crisis in Europe. Another is the rise of what is sometimes called ‘Christian nationalism’. Elites may sneer at the flags on lamp posts and the crosses held aloft in populist marches, but these are the visible signs of swathes of people in the UK who feel no-one listens to them, and who regret the loss of the cultural and broadly Christian framework that in the memory of past generations provided the operating system of British life for centuries. Its disappearance since the 1960s and the lack of anything to replace it is a problem. The ‘new atheism’ was an act of cultural vandalism, aiming to destroy faith but with nothing to put in its place. You don't have to believe that Tommy Robinson or even Nigel Farage is the answer to this yearning to recognise the validity of this sense of loss. 

Yet another is what has been called the ‘Quiet Revival’ - signs of renewed churchgoing among (especially) young men in the UK. Revivals of religion usually happen when a community feels its identity and survival is under threat. At such times, people go back to their roots, to available sources of wisdom and reassurance. This isn't yet a wholesale turning to the Church, but it is sign of a yearning for some kind of spiritual meaning, for something sacred – something that can't be bought for money and that has a value beyond what we choose to give it.  

So - back to Mette Frederiksen’s surprising call for spiritual renewal in her own country. Denmark is one of Europe’s most secular nations, Frederiksen is not known as a regular churchgoer, and her Social Democrat party has generally been lukewarm about religion in recent decades. Yet she was honest enough to recognise the problem. If we have told ourselves for decades that there is no such thing as truth, it's not surprising we find it hard to tell truth from falsehood. When we have confidently proclaimed that the most important voice to listen to is our own desires – ‘you be you’ – it is not surprising that that we don’t have any ideals left to live or die for. Young people might take to the streets over climate change or Palestine, but being willing to lay down their lives for something beautiful, sacred, something transcendent beyond all that - even when it has sustained their civilisation for generations? Probably not. And there is no reason to think that Denmark is any different from any other European country. The same is surely true in Britain, even if our politicians are not as perceptive as Mette Frederiksen in noticing the problem.  

So where is an answer to be found? Mette Frederiksen called out to the Church for an answer:  

“I believe that people will increasingly seek the Church, because it offers natural fellowship and national grounding… If I were the Church, I would be thinking right now: how can we be both a spiritual and physical framework for what Danes are going through?” 

Yet herein lies the problem. The Church of Denmark, one of northern Europe’s Lutheran churches, is not exactly in a great state. 70 per cent of the population may be registered members of the church, but only 2.4 per centof those actually turn up in church on Sundays – which makes for an average of 30 people in any local Danish Lutheran church on Sunday.  

In Ireland, the Roman Catholic Church ordained just 13 priests this year. Fifty years ago, 90 per cent of Irish people went to mass every week. Now it’s around 16 per cent. The decline was a self-inflicted disaster as scandals of abuse and cruelty recurred with depressing frequency. The Church of England’s attendance figures are not much more encouraging. And its ability to offer something to live and die for is far from clear. The philosopher John Gray is scathing about the western churches’ captivity to the spirit of the age. He thinks of them as “mirroring the confusion of the zeitgeist rather than offering a coherent alternative to it… this kind of Christianity is a symptom of the disease not a cure for it.” 

That may be the problem - but it is also the opportunity. Christianity is the west’s default spiritual tradition. Nothing goes as deep into the European soul as this. Others come and go, but this faith is in our veins, our landscape, our art and our memory. Time and again, from its early centuries, it has inspired countless people to live lives of selfless devotion. It happened when the Byzantine empire emerged from the ruins of the Roman one, when a new medieval Christianised civilisation grew out of the ruins of the barbarian conquests, or in the reform movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or the missionary movements of the nineteenth centuries. Time and time again it has proved a catalyst for wisdom to face the challenges of crisis, for individual self-sacrifice, cultural renewal and a purpose beyond personal fulfilment – something to live - and die - for.  

And it still does. You only have to recall the 21 Libyan martyrs – mostly ordinary Coptic Christians from a simple Egyptian village who were captured by ISIS in 2015, and who chose a gruesome death rather than forsake their faith in the love of Christ – to show how Christian faith gives something not to kill – but to die for.  

I have no doubt Christianity can provide that again. Not as a reversion to something past, but in a new form that is true to its roots, but in a way that will look new – maybe humbler, simpler, purer. 

This is the challenge for such new leaders as Pope Leo and soon-to-be Archbishop Sarah Mullally. And indeed, for all of us who call ourselves Christian. Can we Christians, as John Gray put it, offer a coherent alternative to the confusion of the zeitgeist rather than be a pale reflection of it?  

The future, not just of European Christianity, but also of Europe may depend on it.  

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