Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Volkswagen admitted to rigging the software of several hundred thousand of their diesel fueled models, going as far back as 2009 in some models. Essentially, the software was programmed to know when it was being officially test driven, releasing fewer emissions than when the software detected patterns more like “normal” driving. When driving was considered normal, it would switch to a more powerful mechanic that sacrificed legal emissions for horsepower. It’s been a long held truth, only starting to change here in the states around the aughts, that European and Japanese cars were great on gas, had a lot of torque, were front wheel drive usually, and/or were pretty durable. This came, however, at the sacrifice of speed and power. Those two things are long entrenched musts in the U.S. automotive market. It was in the 70’s that this glaring difference was the most obvious and became the dichotomy of European versus American cars. Coming out of high school in the late 70s, would you want a Charger, a Mustang, a Corvette, or a Volkswagen Golf which was maximized here in the states for a whopping…

Wait for it...

100hp.

This, after initial releases here in the states got as low as 47 at peak.

Needless to say, European cars needed to be a lot more if they wanted to be competitive with the giants that dominated the roads and haunt the nightmares of EPA officials to this day. So, recently, as in the past 20 years or so, foreign car manufacturers have surrendered in the durability versus power battle, and started making more powerful models of their cars specially for sale in the United States. Some releases were for the states only, the Volkswagen Golf model getting upwards of approximately 70 MPG in European markets, but significantly less in the U.S. And therein lies the issue at hand, the market; the omnibus thing that outputs money for input of product, as the TLDR definition of market economics would go. The Europeans, Volkswagen chief among them, found out that they had to change their cars to get some more “oomph” into them and more cash out of Americans. They couldn’t put out the very best in fuel economy essentially because we Americans actually enjoy driving. We don’t quite have as much metro space as Europe does, so we do a lot of driving in open places, and especially on virtually traffic free interstate highways. Add to that our prosperity/consumer culture that valued a car as a sign of status and wealth that never really has gone away (there are probably as many cars in West Virginia as there are people), and you get a market vastly different than the one back home for the Germans.

“But,” you might be wondering, “this is simple economics, consumer demand, marketing; why are you telling me this, and how does this line up with Volkswagen’s most recent scandal?” My point up to now has been to show how much culture shapes consumption; but even deeper than that is how our hearts effect our business. That being said, I think it’s pretty fair to go into business to make money. I mean, at the end of the day, one has to make a living and one definitely needs to provide for a family, given that’s the case. If we happen to be as successful as a Volkswagen or a G.E. on the way, then there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, in my mind. We often want to blame the money itself, but that isn’t legitimate to me. It’s inanimate, inert, inherently neutral. So Volkswagen has not somehow been corrupted simply by the presence of vast amounts of money. So, how then, did Volkswagen put themselves in this mess? We, and specifically in this case Volkswagen, do so much more than attach some fixed, arbitrary value to money. It’s not simply a matter of market trends and prices. Everything that we think it can get us goes with it, and it’s not hard to move these things into almost transcendent importance. It’s not unfamiliar to us, we usually call it “love.” The money promises to gets us the power, the comfort, the status, the security and even the attractiveness that we think we need so desperately. It’s this love and devotion to money, and not the thing itself, that causes these sort of scandals. The Bible puts it very directly when it says “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils...” (1 Timothy 5:10, English Standard Version). To hate money is to hate food for making you unhealthy, in other words. There is an exercise of the will at play here, which is ultimately an exercise of the heart and that works and expresses itself in love; whether that be perverted and twisted, bent on getting money at any cost, or good, bent on seeking what money can never provide, or rather, how to provide for others with it (as only one small example). The decision makers at Volkswagen, and at the other major manufacturers seeing as they’ve all had their own dishonest scandals, succumbed to the love of the money, motivating them to believe the lie that lies are worth wealth.

This may seem like an extreme to some of us. We may even feel, in light of this, that we aren’t quite that bad. Validated, even. But, if its true that Volkswagen didn't act greedy and deceitful because of the mere presence of huge sums of money, it doesn’t follow that we are generous and honest for the lack of them. No, if the final decision about money and its value to us comes from the heart, from within each of us, then we are all as much in danger of loving money as VW is. I’m reminded of a line from the recent film “Race,” about the story of Jesse Owens at the famous 1936 “Nazi Olympics.” The scene was Jesse and his opponent in the long-jump that year, Lutz Long, in the latter’s room. Lutz was detailing an encounter he had earlier in the games when a young woman had come to his room, by order of the German government, to be impregnated by him. After telling Jesse that he feels as if perhaps America is better off relative to such things, Owens answered, “yeah, well I don’t think it’s really all that different.” The difference was the action; the common progenitor was a heart of hate and racial superiority. It’s just the same when it comes to the love of money. Whether we’re lying on an insurance claim or lying to the E.P.A.

But far (very far) be it from God to give us a negative without a corresponding positive, to warn us of a storm and not point us to a lighthouse. The very next verse of the Scriptures in which Paul warns of the love of money, he points to the safety and joy of “[pursuing] righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.” And lest we thought we were a lighthouse unto ourselves, he grounds this passionate pursuit of good as being “in the presence of God” just some few lines later. This presence of God is not as judge but, by faith, as Father. The just wrath of God was put on Him for our false, soul-draining, dry, hopeless, impure, perverse, and wilfully misdirected loves and lusts, despite being innocent of every charge Himself. Even after all of that He lives and happily, without compulsion, bitterness, or thoughts of reciprocity at all, accepts a settlement of nothing but faith and this short, fleeting life to be surrendered to Him, welcoming us into life with Himself.