321 CHRONICLES OF CULTUREnretreated, leaving Rangoon for the Britishnto take without firing a shot. Althoughnit would not be correct to creditnMountbatten alone with these accomplishmentsn(air power and the maneuversnof General Slim did as much), henplayed a vital part in the victory.nAfter the surrender of Japan, Mountbattennentered the busiest phase of hisncareer. Being busy, however, is notnalways good, as Jimmy Carter was tonprove years later to the American people.nThe comparison of Carter andnMountbatten is apt. In a string of importantngovernmental and military appointmentsnranging from viceroy ofnIndia to Chief of the Defense Staff,nMountbatten contributed to the dismantlingnof the European colonial empiresnin Southeast Asia. A human-rightsnman, he spent his last months as SupremenCommander forging settlementsnbetween the colonials and the natives innDutch, French, and British holdings,nsettlements that stopped short of grantingnthe colonies independence butnweakened the governors just enough tonleave them vulnerable. As viceroy ofnIndia he was more an executor than anformulator of the policy of withdrawal.nBut it was a policy he endorsed. Duringnthe Suez Crisis, as First Sea Lord, hencontributed as much as anyone to Britishnvacillation (to him, Nasser was morallynright). And on Western policy towardnthe Soviets, he remained anproponent of the great liberal delusion,ncontainment. It is little wonder that innhis last months he spoke for “controllednreduction” of nuclear arms.nIn spite of his blunders, Mountbattennemerges from this biography a likablenman. He was an inspiring leader, handsome,nfriendly, courageous, and dauntless,nwho, in Ziegler’s words, “flarednbrilliantly across the face of the twentiethncentury.” Brilliant he was in mannernand style, much like John Kennedy.nBut brilliance of that variety doesnnot alone make great statesmen.nMountbatten lacked an understandingnof the central fact of 20th-century politics,nthe marriage of ideology and powernthat threatens the existence of the West.nThat deficiency insured his naivete innpolitical affairs. He was born a prominentnmember of the greatest empirenin the world; he lived to see that empirendestroyed, partly due to his influence.nIn that respect, Mountbatten wasnnot so much a man for the century as anman of the century; not so much whatnit needed as what it too frequentlynand sadly got. ccnCarl Curtis is assistant professor ofnEnglish at Liberty University.nMoney andnMammonnby Herbert SchlossbergnJacques EIIul: Money and Power, InternVarsity Press; Downers Grove, IL;n$5.95.nChristian moral thinking has alwaysnhad to harmonize with New Testamentntexts such as “the love of money is thenroot of all evils,” and “blessed are thenpoor,” At the same time. Christiannmorality is incompatible with the kindnof spirituality that decries the materialnworld and all that pertains to it as eithernnot quite real (Platonism) or morallyninferior (Manichaeanism). In the responsesnto this tension, it sometimesnseems that money questions are the rootnof all folly.nMost of the published work on thisnissue nowadays impales itself on onenhorn or the other of this dilemma. Onnthe one hand, the grinning faces of thenMammon society assure us that Godnwants us to be prosperous and thatnprosperity therefore carries with it thenmark of divine favor. Consequently, wenshould join the strivers of society andnenjoy our big bucks and their attendantnperks. On the other hand, we’re toldnthat God favors the poor, that if we’rennot poor we’re rich and therefore ipsonfacto contributors to the misery of thenoppressed. We have here the tawdrynremnants of a degenerate Calvinismnconfronting the tawdry remnants of andegenerate Anabaptism. We have alsonthe implicit convictions of a multitudenof those who mistakenly think theynare emancipated from all theologicalnpositions.nWho better to cut through the fog,nwe might think, than Jacques Ellul,nformer resistance fighter against thenVichy government in World War II,nretired professor of law and social institutionsnin the University of Bordeaux,nand author of some 40 books, includingnsuch triumphs of prophetic insight andnplain good sense as The Betrayal of thenWest and The New Demons. But wait;nhe’s also the author oiThe TechnologicalnSociety, a massive Luddite tract decry­nnning the prevalence of technology innmodern life. Is that book to be thenperspective informing his investigationnof the moral implications of the use ofnmoney? Alas, yes.nEllul’s treatise on technology concludednthat we’re unable to use it responsiblynbecause its very presencenchanges our environment in such a waynas to make it impossible to behave asnhuman beings ought. Using machinesnto accomplish tasks, we’re captured bynthe ethos of technique and thereby sacrificenuniquely human considerations onnthe altar of efficiency. There is in thisnanalysis no consideration of how wenmight use technical means more responsibly;nthat is out of the question.nEllul’s position in the present volume, anfreshly translated version of the worknoriginally published in French in 1954nand revised in 1979, is of the samenorder. Money, which he artificially separatesnfrom essentially economic goodsnand processes, is necessarily corruptingnin its influence, and therefore to speculatenon its responsible use is a waste ofntime. The only way to avoid the evil ofnMammon-worship is to desacralizenmoney, and the way to do that is to givenit away.nThus the temptation to allow moneynto become a god is for Ellul the certaintynthat one will do so if one keeps it.nThis means that savings are impermissible.nAll economic transactions arentinged with evil because they necessarilynsubordinate either buyer or seller,nemployee or employer. Profit, it goesnwithout saying, cannot be countenanced.nFor one who has this point ofnview. Mammon is not only the deificationnof material wealth but also its verynuse. We can only flee in horror from it,ngive it away, wash our hands of it.nAlthough Ellul is critical of Manichaeanismnand the false spirituality ofnscorning money, his own work leads thencredulous reader to those positions.nThis suggests the basic trouble with thisnbook, which is also true of the morenvaluable Ellul efforts: his consciouslyn”dialectical” approach continually fallsninto contradictory statements. Indeed,nEllul could point to passages in Moneynand Power that seem to refute almostnevery assertion made in this review.nDavid Gill’s foreword excuses this tendencyntoo gently by saying that “Ellulnhas never been one to place a highnpriority on systematic neatness and thenresolution of all ambiguity.”nThe tragedy in this and all quasi-nManichaean explanations of wealth isnthat it provides no guidance for thenresponsible use of money and possessions.nIt makes impossible the biblicaln