A strict monotheist, Soubry wants us to worship the god of finance on a Sunday. All other gods must be smashed, smeared, ridiculed. Only the god of money deserves our true and unquestioning obedience. Well, I do wish she\u2019d stop ramming her religion down our throats. I don\u2019t want to be more productive. I want to lie about on the sofa watching rubbish TV. Or chat aimlessly to the people I love. Or just sit under a tree and do nothing. These are perfectly respectable things to do.<\/p>\n
So why is Sunday special? The Christian answer is more complicated than expected. Early Christians moved their \u201cday of rest\u201d\u009d from the seventh day of the week to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday. Despite the fourth commandment mandating Saturday, ie seventh day, sabbath observance, this move was partly a way of honouring the resurrection, which happened \u201con the first day of the week\u201d\u009d; partly about distinguishing Christianity from Judaism; and partly a way of colonising the posh Roman sun-worshipping day.<\/p>\n
But it also conveniently distanced Christianity, and its new imperial friends, from all that dangerously redistributive stuff about the jubilee, to which the sabbath is fundamentally connected. For the seventh day of the week corresponded to the seventh day of creation, when God rested \u201d\u201c and from this derives: 1) rest on the seventh day; 2) rest for the land on the seventh year (which on the Jewish calender is this year); and 3) the forgiveness of all debts \u201d\u201c the jubilee \u201d\u201c on the seventh times seventh year.<\/p>\n