A Ham And Cheese, Please

Each year at this time, Judas’ betrayal of Jesus for thirty pieces of silver reminds us that the “sell out” is not a new phenomenon on the human scene. Promises broken, loyalties betrayed, principles abandoned–these are not the inventions of our Age. What is new, however, is contemporary society’s easy acceptance of the “sell out” spirit.

Oscar Wilde once wrote that, in modern society, “People know the price of everything but the value of nothing.” Someone else has characterized our time as the “Age of the Sellout,” in which “Everything is for sale. Every person has his or her price. Honesty and integrity are traded off, like chattels, for money and power.” Although this assessment may be an overstatement, nevertheless it contains more than a grain of truth–enough truth, in fact, that it should be a matter for our deep concern. Whether it is the “Age of the Sellout” or the “Age of the Fallout” or the “Age of the Blowout,” it is our…