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Letters | EPISTLES TO THE BOSTONIANS

Scripture’s ‘root of all evil’: money

THE MICHAEL Ramirez cartoon of Dec. 29 depicts a character designated as the personification of evil animated by various supposed roots labeled as “pop culture,” “dissolution of the family,” etc.

Pointedly missing is any mention of the love of money, as declaimed in 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” Without this well known yet seldom heeded biblical verse, the cartoon has no cultural reference.

So, why did Ramirez choose to omit the message of the verse that inspired his cartoon commentary? Does he think the timeless message of Timothy does not apply in contemporary America?

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Concealed in our grief and outrage over the unending deluge of senseless killing in our country is the fact that the National Rifle Association is not only a Second Amendment advocacy group, it is also a lobby for the gun industry. The NRA finances politicians into positions of power with money, who it then controls with more money, directing them to channel more money into the coffers of gun manufacturers to make more money for corporations who give more money to the NRA . . . and so on.

And yet somehow, in suggesting lots of possible roots of evil, Ramirez avoids mentioning the one and only cause in the biblical teaching to which his cartoon alludes.

If the cartoon showed “love of money” as the taproot from which the others stem, the image would be true to the verse that inspired it — and far more effective in pointing to a cultural blind spot.

JONATHAN KLATE

Amherst