Year A, Proper 21, Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost

“'A religion that is responsive to the pressures of the market will end up profoundly fractured, with each denomination finding most hateful to God the sins that least tempt its members, while those sins that are the most popular become redefined and even sanctified. In the end, a market-driven approach to religion gives rise to a market-driven approach to truth, and this development ultimately eviscerated conservative Christianity in the US and left it the possession of hypocrites and hucksters.' There was, and is, enough in this to sting." (Russell Moore, Losing Our Religion)