{"id":9545,"date":"2016-10-06T19:14:09","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T02:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9545"},"modified":"2016-10-06T19:14:09","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T02:14:09","slug":"follow-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/follow-the-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow the Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Intr\"FollowTheMoney\"<\/a>oduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFollow the money!\u201d<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Has anything really changed?\u00a0 In Peter Frankopan\u2019s book, The Silk Road: A New History of the World, <\/em>he reiterates this very thought of money, currency, trade goods and the impact upon the world.\u00a0 Of greater interest is his shifting of the \u201ccenter\u201d of the world away from the \u201calluvial lowlands of Mesopotamia, fed by the Tigris and Euphrates, provided the basis for civilization itself \u2013 for it was in the region that the first towns and cities took shape. Systemized agriculture developed in Mesopotamia and across the whole of the \u201cFertile Crescent\u201d, a band of highly productive land with access to plentiful water, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean coast.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

That was the \u201ccenter\u201d that I had been exposed to from both a historical and Christian perspective.\u00a0 I had heard of the Silk Roads but did not reorient my geography to see them in the light that Frankopan exposed me to.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cChina had opened a door leading on to a trans-continental network; it was the moment of the birth of the Silk Roads.\u00a0 The expansion of China saw a surge of interest in what lay beyond.\u00a0 Officials were commissioned to investigate and write report about the regions beyond the mountains.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

They explored, they wrote, but their aggression was more than singular focus.\u00a0 It was financial, religious, trade control, spread of disease, and a sense of domination.\u00a0 Not much has changed in more than two thousand years.\u00a0 Chinese President, Xi Jinping, said, \u201cThe time has come\u2026for a \u2018Silk Road Economic Belt\u2019 to be built \u2013 in other words, a New Silk Road.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

Frankopan navigates us through twenty-five different roads from silk to faith, gold to silver, black gold to wheat, and the list goes on.\u00a0 The \u201croad\u201d is not necessarily the challenge.\u00a0 The challenge is the carnage and damage that is inflicted on the people engaged are located in the path of the \u201croad\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Chinese seemed to initiate a global influence of creating \u201croads\u201d that many nations have pursued in one form or another.\u00a0 Whether it was the proliferation of goods and services or idealism, a \u201croad\u201d can be established that will benefit a small sector of the populace of the world. \u00a0Human nature lends itself to producing \u201croads\u201d that benefit a small sector of the human population.<\/p>\n

Analysis
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of special interest was the use of silk as currency.\u00a0 \u201cIt was in some ways the most reliable currency; producing money in sufficient quantities was a problem, as was the fact that not all of China was fully monetized; this presented a particular difficulty when it came to military pay since theatres of action were often in remote regions, where coins were useless.\u00a0 Grain, meanwhile went rotten after a time.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"silk\"<\/a>I had never considered that silk was so far reaching in its influence from money to morality.\u00a0 \u201cSilk became an international currency as well as a luxury product.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 The power to monetize silk as a commodity, and a tangible currency, was sensible and brilliant.\u00a0 The Chinese could produce silk in great volume thus increasing its income that became unprecedented.<\/p>\n

Morally I had never considered the impact of silk as a purveyor of moral breakdown.\u00a0 \u201cThe increasing volume of this fabric available in the Mediterranean caused consternation among traditionalist.\u00a0 Seneca for one was horrified by the popularity of the thin flowing material, declaring that silk garments could barely be called clothing given they hid neither the curves not the decency of the ladies of Rome.\u00a0 The very foundation of marital relations was being undermined, he said, as men found they could see through the light fabric that clung to the female form and left little to the imagination.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

I repeat again, \u201cFollow the money\u201d<\/strong><\/span>. \u00a0Whether it is silk, oil, wheat, gold, proliferation of religion, etc., money seems to be the motivation.\u00a0 No nation is exempt from the demand and desire that permeates the human nature.\u00a0 Money and morality seem to be inextricably linked, whether good or evil.\u00a0 Scripture has it right, \u201cFor the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 (I Timothy 6:10 NLT) Beware how you follow the money and what \u201croad\u201d it takes you down.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads:\u00a0 A New History of the Word, <\/em>(New York:\u00a0 Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 1.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 12.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 504.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 13.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 13.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction \u201cFollow the money!\u201d\u00a0 Has anything really changed?\u00a0 In Peter Frankopan\u2019s book, The Silk Road: A New History of the World, he reiterates this very thought of money, currency, trade goods and the impact upon the world.\u00a0 Of greater interest is his shifting of the \u201ccenter\u201d of the world away from the \u201calluvial lowlands of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[762,907],"class_list":["post-9545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-frankopan","tag-silk","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}