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Religious organizations

The history of religion includes numerous examples of religious leaders calling attention to the corruption which existed in the religious practices and institutions of their time. The Jewish prophets Isaiah and Amos berate the rabbinical establishment of Ancient Judea for failing to live up to the ideals of the Torah. In the New Testament, Jesus accuses the rabbinical establishment of his time of hypocritically following only the ceremonial parts of the Torah and neglecting the more important elements of justice, mercy and faithfulness. Corruption was one of the important issues which led to the Investiture Controversy. In 1517, Martin Luther accused the Catholic Church of widespread corruption, including the selling of indulgences.

In 2015, Princeton University professor Kevin M. Kruse advances the thesis that business leaders in the 1930s and 1940s collaborated with clergymen, including James W. Fifield Jr., in order to develop and promote a new hermeneutical approach to Scripture which would de-emphasize the social Gospel and emphasize themes, such as individual salvation, which were more congenial to free enterprise.

Business leaders, of course, had long been working to " merchandise " themselves through the appropriation of religion. In organizations such as Spiritual Mobilization, the prayer breakfast groups, and the Freedoms Foundation, they had linked capitalism and Christianity and, at the same time, they likened the welfare state to godless paganism.