It seems hard to believe, but PubTheo has been at it for a full decade of thought-provoking conversations in Lake Orion and Oxford, with good food and drink thrown in as a bonus. We began this adventure way back in the summer of 2013, so many thanks to those of you who have stuck with us from the beginning.
To mark this milestone, we will be periodically revisiting conversations from our first 10 years, especially when they have relevance to topics we’ve discussed more recently, or when they speak to our present moment in time. So let’s get that ball rolling.
You may have noticed that no-one has one the nationwide Powerball lottery in awhile, bringing the jackpot in Monday’s drawing to a whopping $785 million. Way back in January 2016, when there was an even bigger jackpot on the line, we asked ourselves some questions about what a windfall like this might mean for us and out community. So, supposing you beat the astronomical odds — 1 in 292.2 million or so — and actually won, what would you change in your life, or your community, or the world, with those kinds of resources at your disposal? And why those things? Why do you think the so-called “super-rich,” who over the past decade have grabbed up for themselves fully half of all new wealth generated worldwide, haven’t done more to make the world a better place? Or have they, and we’ve just not noticed?
And while we’re on the topic of money, back in September 2015, we wrestled with three different perspectives. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy 6:10, we get this familiar statement: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.” As you might guess, others have pushed back against this sentiment. Objectivist writer and philosopher Any Rand claimed “Money is the root of all good,” while Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, and political activist George Bernard Shaw declared “Lack of money is the root of all evil.” So which of these perspectives do you think comes closest to the truth, or is there a little bit of truth in all three?
Join us for the conversation tomorrow evening beginning at 7pm at Casa Real in downtown Oxford. And help us to raise a glass to celebrate 10 years of PubTheo!