We went from a loving Father to the Protestants’ God from whom we could not earn salvation (we were all sinners reliant on his grace). As anxious souls unable to control our destiny, we channel insecurity into work: visible virtue.

Excessive work accumulates wealth, so we flipped the signified and signifier to claim “wealth” as God’s favor and our status through materialism (not spiritualism or kindness).

Our insecurity drove us into the arms of a more capricious, uncaring, and taxing God: Money. The comfort of the trade is the objective measure of our salvation, which proves most of us unworthy once again.