Here is an excerpt from one of my history lectures:
If we are to take Jesus at his word, then the primary contenders for human devotion are and have always been God and Mammon. People either submit to God as the one with total control and true authority or worship mammon in effort to manipulate him to their own purposes. It matters little if they call mammon Baal, Zeus, Jupiter, Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Chairman Mao, Stalin, Hitler, George Bush, Barak Obama, or that great impersonal fixer of all human problems science and his mate technology. The names have changed, but in the end humans are always looking for someone or something to fix the world in our own favor. It is only the revolution that is genuine faithfulness in Jesus Christ that has ever produced a group of people totally willing to give up life to save their enemies.