In their new book, Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories That Shape Our Lives
, Steve Wilkens and Mark Sanford examine little cultural scripts that write themselves all over our life -- and they want us to see them for what they are. Today we look at Consumerism:"I am what I own" is the motto.
The authors, both at Azusa Pacific, say God made us to be consumers -- and this might need to be emphasized because for some "consumer" and "evil" are synonymous. They point to God's making the Garden and saying this was for pleasure and consumption.
The issue is the shift from responsible consumption to consumerism, from a good thing becoming a ravishing desire. Consumerism turns relative goods into absolute (or I'd say near-absolute) goods. It turns such things into that which gives us meaning and which brings us fulfillment. Consumerism is a little fox that can spoil the vines of the Church.
So what does consumerism look like? Where do you see that we are crossing the line? What keeps things in proper perspective? Big one: Where do you see consumerism in the Church and how has it impacted our understanding of the gospel?
Here are the marks of consumerism:
Accumulation brings fulfillment.
Money is power and status.
Just a little bit more because the more we have the better off we will be.
People become objects to consume.
Discard what ceases to meet my needs.
But we all have needs and we are all consumers, so we need to learn that we determine how to use our resources and that competition and development emerge from consumerism.
But.... consumerism reduces what we need to less than what we really need -- it reduces what we need to things, it turns people into commodities, and turns God into money (idolatry). Further, it reshapes our central values from the personal and spiritual and religious to the material.
God owns all; we are stewards and we consume only as stewards.
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Consumerism is evident in the Church through many of the programs and ministries and even worship services that seem more geared to fulfilling emotional needs in people more than the spiritual. Or in appealing to the superficial needs of entertainment. Often if we don't see readily apparent benefit to something we're doing, it often quickly gets tossed aside and unfortunately, we tend to deal with each other in the same way. If I can't bend your will to mine, well out the door you go, versus spending time investing in relationship and dealing with the difficult rather than sweeping it under a rug or out the door.
walls of books, tv in every bedroom, personal movie library, personal mp3 players, 5.00 coffee, closets of clothes, still don't have what I am looking for, see swollen bellies, hear crying children, vacant eyes starring, chains rattling, God crying.
I've sat and talked with people on three continents who had little to nothing, but they had love and that enriched them!
http://www.facebook.com/scottvolltrauer?v=photos&ref=profile#/photo.php?pid=679899&id=1051993639
mysilentscream.com
I think that the thing which I find most disturbing about materialism among Christians and in the church is two-fold; first the sense of entitlement and second the lack of value for not having or doing more. I was recently a bit taken aback by a Christian friend who was trying to convince herself that it was OK to take an expensive vacation she can't really afford by using this logic: "I work really hard. I deserve it. Everyone else gets to." The waitress at Denny's works really, really hard, but will probably never take a trip to Fiji, I told her. I think that there is a very strong attitude in the church and among Christians that because they work hard and they aren't doing anything too outside of the norm, that they deserve whatever they want or whatever comes their way. This is such a dangerous attitude because it rewards our own hard work while devaluing the work of those who will never have anything. It also paints what we do in terms that emphasize what we get rather than who we are. The reward for hard work is then things, rather than virtue and character or the contributions our work offers to society. It just skews things. And if the measure of what we have is how hard we work, it becomes very easy to make poor financial decisions as how hard we work and what we are actually able to obtain are often not as closely related to each other as we'd like to think.
The second problem I see is an inability to appreciate and benefit from not having or doing as much as possible. The "more is always better" mindset, I suppose you could call it. But bigger isn't always better and more flashy isn't always more effective. This is true in churches as well as in individual lives. I know that it has gotten less common, but not so long ago it was normal for a young couple to struggle financially when first starting off and this wasn't seen as a tragedy. It was just the way life works. And so couples had to get creative. They found inexpensive ways to entertain themselves and odd work-arounds to make do with less. If the lights got turned off one night, a candle light dinner might be in order, along with some tears and laughter. But looking back, many couples saw this time of relative depravation as good for them and for their marriage. It taught them what really mattered, how to roll with the punches and come together in uncomfortable circumstances. It was a period to live through rather than a problem to be solved. And I think we all miss that when we assume that more is always better. Having less and doing less has its own blessings and lessons to teach us that we are missing because we believe that having more and doing more is an unqualified good. I would love to see a mega church forgo their big holiday extravaganzas and do a candle light worship sing along and pot-luck dinner. I doubt the spiritual vitality of the community or the outreach opportunities would suffer in the least for the lack of glitz and having and doing more. But we don't value what having and doing less has to offer us, I think.
Amen to Pat's comments above. As a pastor, that's usually where I see consumerism in the church. I don't know if I'm using the term correctly or not, but I've always used "consumerism" in that way (i.e. approaching the church and the faith as a consumer of religious products and services that "meet my needs" or "feed me," etc.). Regarding the accumulation of stuff and buying more and more things, etc., I usually use the term "materialism" for that kind of thing, although I realize that it's all related.
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