Recent polling brings to mind ancient scripture: Wealth and religion remain far apart. Alas, it has always been thus. However, it is not the latter that excludes the former, but the other way around.
Earlier this month, Gallup released polling showing: “The percentage of Americans who say religion is “very important” in their lives has leveled off below 50% in recent years, including 47% in 2025. The reading has been gradually declining from 58% in 2012 and was as high as 70% to 75% in the 1950s and 1960s.”
This sad, low level of belief is even worse in the rest of the OECD. Noted Gallup last November: “Attitudes in the U.S. are drawing closer to those in other advanced economies. Across the 38 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries in 2024, a median of 36% of adults said religion is important to their daily lives. The gap between the U.S. and the median for these countries is now narrower than at any point in Gallup’s trend.”
As I pondered the decline, I recalled Matthew 19:24 from the New Testament: “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Matthew’s gospel follows Jesus’ pronouncement with: “When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished…” When I recalled this in light of the polling I had just seen, I was not astonished. I understood it perfectly, just as the disciples had misunderstood it completely.
If you recall, Jesus’ statement about the camel and the eye of the needle follows the query of the rich young man who approached and asked, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” Jesus responded with “Keep the commandments.” The man had replied “All these I have observed; what do I lack still?” Jesus’ final answer to him was, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Matthew tells us, “When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.”
It is at the young man’s departure that Jesus makes his pronouncement of the camel and the needle.
The disciples were “astonished” because they, as did the rest of the Jewish people of the day, believed that your present circumstances were indicative of God’s favor toward you. Recall John’s recounting (John 9: 1-41) of the healing of the man born blind when the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The Pharisees do likewise when they question the blind man after his miraculous healing: “You were born in utter sin, and would teach us?”
What Jesus was saying about the camel and the eye of the needle is not that riches prevent a person from entering heaven (as many who seek to twist the scriptures for secular purposes insist); it is that riches can prevent a person from seeking heaven.
It was thus two millennia ago; it is no less true today.
When things are going well, people tend to take solace in the things of this world. Happy here, they do not raise their sights beyond this world. We imagine ourselves invulnerable and God unnecessary. We believe in ourselves and not in God.
We take the credit for our circumstances when things are going well. Feeling we can fend for ourselves just fine, we believe ourselves justified. We can save ourselves because, after all, have we not already done so?
The ultimate error is of course the rejecting of God. As the Book of Proverbs (1:7) tells us: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” The reverse is equally true. Again, as Jesus states: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36)
It is when we are in need that we go to God most intently. When we are stripped of the things that interpose themselves between ourselves, we acknowledge our need.
Devoid of “things,” we see our true helplessness in all things. Stripped bare of things, we are also stripped bare of the illusion that we are self-sufficient.
When his disciples heard Jesus’ pronouncement about the camel and the needle, Matthew tells us that they said, “Who then can be saved?” To which Jesus gave the final answer: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
It is not by ourselves that we are saved but only by God. This is true regardless of our condition or our circumstances. However, it is easier to understand it when we have less between us and God. That we do not have the illusion of self-sufficiency but the clarity of “His sufficiency.”
This brings us back to today’s polling. It is telling where today’s lack of religiosity lies. As Gallup points out, the 38 OECD countries are the world’s “advanced economies.” In contrast to the low polling on “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” in the U.S. (49% yes) and the OECD (36% yes), the global median, which sweeps in the less “advanced economies,” the “yes” answer is 83%.
The rest of the world is not under the illusion that the so-called “advanced economies” have deluded themselves into. The delusion that wealth is sufficiency is not new. It lies where it has always lain. Right where Jesus told us it did two millennia ago.
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.
