Confessions of a Consumer Addict

admin June 15th, 2009

A comment was posted last week regarding my 6/5/09 post,The Church Abandoned Christ – Should We Abandon The Church? It raised an interesting issue, although not one I would have predicted. So I thought his comment warrented a broader discussion and decided to copy most of my response here.

At its heart, the comment asks how much, if any, of our social and political values we can read into the scriptures. Since we all have our preferred views on these matters, sometimes very strongly held, it’s easy for us to have a strong bias which we can then read into scripture.

The question for me becomes, “have I done that in presenting Christian Simple Living as a way of life Jesus would recommend or approve of?”

The reader felt I was interpreting the scriptures to mean that we should create a socialist government, state, organization, or lifestyle. This was based on my statements that if we are to follow Christ today we should “take care of each other” as a part of simple living. He felt that my use of the phrase “caring for others” was not to be found in the Bible (and the exact phrase is, in fact, not in the Bible as far as I can tell) and that in suggesting this, I was suggesting a socialist lifestyle or organization.

I don’t think Jesus advocated for any particular type of organization including a socialist one – or, for that matter, any type of social, political, or governmental ideology per se – nor did any of the OT scriptures I’m aware of.

My take on the Gospels, is that they were rather simpler and more direct than that. Both testaments call for us to do many caring things for each other’s economic, physical health, and emotional wellbeing. The many instructions, laws, prophecies, and parables make it clear to me that we are to do these things for whoever needs them, rich, poor, friend, stranger, or enemy. For me, and I believe for many other Christians, this is what is meant by “caring for each other” rather than suggesting a socialist program.

The books of the Torah, especially Leviticus and Deuteronomy, often focused on economic equity so that no one was abused either by individuals, particularly the rich or the prevailing leadership, ex., the practice of Jubilee restructuring (Lev 25), seventh year debt release (Dt 15:1-81), taking the gleanings (Lev 19:9; 23:22; Dt 24:19-21), as well as the many prophetic demands on the Israelite leadership and upper class that widows, orphans, the sick, and the poor be cared for physically and financially (ex. Is 3:14 and 5:8).

Jesus took those laws and teachings a step further by insisting that we all carry these things in our hearts, caring about each other’s physical and economic health (especially for the disenfranchised, abused, sick, and poor) out of love rather than simply because of the law (Matthew 12:1ff.; 22:35-40, and 7:12).

Jesus’ teaching that the new law is love and that everyone is our neighbor. This requires action or it isn’t love at all, and Jesus demonstrated loving action in his healing and caring for people of virtually every strata of society.

I interpret these Old and New Testament teachings as caring for each other.

Apparently how one is to carry them out today structurally or politically is up to each society. Neither Testament seems to have been much interested in forms of government or social organization, as opposed to religious structure and practice.

I don’t believe Jesus advocated for a particular social structure, but rather, insisted that all people care for others as much as they would for themselves (”Do unto others…”), while criticizing the Roman and Temple bureaucracies for their lack of compassion and flexibility, and their failure to adhere to the law and the prophets (Mat 5:17-20; 12: 1-8; Mark 11:15-19 and 12:38-40). His teaching often directly states or strongly implies that we cannot live or act in a “kingdom way” based on being powerful or rich either in the Temple (priests, et al.), government (ex. Tax collectors), or business (ex. “the rich fool”), or through inherited wealth or power.

Although Jesus didn’t specifically use the term ‘simple living,’ the breadth and depth of what he taught about compassion, caring, wealth, power, and The Kingdom, can be carried out pretty faithfully in what I’ve described as ‘Christian simple living’ (CSL). CSL doesn’t refer to a political organization or social structure and doesn’t advocate for or against any social or political ideology, but rather looks for ways to live in the caring, responsible ways Jesus taught.

I DO believe that our current First World cultures (including The Church, business, government, and individual citizens) are now doing exactly what the Roman and Temple leadership, and Roman/Jewish society as a whole, did that Jesus railed so strongly against, and I believe these practices should be opposed by modern Christians wherever we find them. That was the gist of my last post.

Again, however I don’t think Jesus ever preached a structural alternative to the politics of His day. Instead he preached that we should all act on compassion and caring – which can be done within almost any political or social structure. In our world, you can do it in North Korea under communism, Saudi Arabia under a King, Paris in a democracy, an urban commune, or a cattle ranch in Wyoming. I keep intending to write a bit on Christian Anarchy which speaks specifically to this point… stay tuned.

The very early Jerusalem church, as noted in Acts 4:32 – 37, believed that they could best carry out that teaching by living communally. Apparently this arrangement didn’t last a long time, and I don’t read these verses as a command that we all structure our lives this way. I’m not sure that I would have liked the arrangement very much myself since I’ve always been an independent sort. But Luke includes this, I think, to illustrate the kind of selfless caring that Jesus intended and that we should all aspire to whether we live communally in the mountains or independently in a modern single family suburban development.

• Faith and Politics
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admin June 5th, 2009

In my last post (It’s Time To Push Our Congregation’s Limits, 5/8/09) I was being too mild-mannered.

The truth is, I believe that most denominations and congregations long ago abandoned Christ’s principle message to live simply and care for others.

It’s about time that we call The Church on it.

A large part of Jesus’ message about The Kingdom was socio-political. It was designed to redress the horrible economic abuses and pervasive social injustice heaped upon the poor (read John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus for an excellent presentation on this) – not only by the Roman Empire, but by the Jewish temple leadership and bureaucracy. The Romans, of course, were intent on perpetuating and enlarging their empire no matter the cost to common people, but the Temple worked hand in hand with Rome to maintain a horrifically unjust taxation, economic, and slavery system contrary to the teachings of the Torah. It was against this apostasy that Jesus preached for much of his ministry, not to mention virtually all of the prophets.

We are at that point again!

It is this that pushes Christians to “live simply so that others may simply live,” but as far as I can tell, a large portion of The Church has at very least acquiesced to, if not willingly participated in the economic, social, and environmental injustices perpetrated by the first world’s Consumer Industrial Complex (CIC) rather than choosing to live simply. In today’s society, we almost all work hand in hand with globalized corporations that manipulate people and societies here and abroad without regard to their wellbeing, or for that matter, their very existence.

As I pointed out in my last post, corporate culture as a whole has morphed into a devil-may-care, profit-obsessed system in which the only considerations are profits, stock prices, and market capitalization regardless of the human and environmental costs incurred to reach those goals. Some of the abuses resulting from this has had, and continues to have, disastrous effects on the poorest people on earth – those who are least able to defend or help themselves.

The governments of virtually all Western nations have bought into this culture through the indoctrination of ‘Neoliberalism’ as promoted by Milton Friedman and the University of Chicago School of Economics. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are the First World’s acolytes to this approach – which has impoverished millions of Third World people while their leaders have been handsomely enriched, and their environments directly and indirectly decimated. The U.S. and most other industrialized nations fully fund and support these organizations as well as the economic and moral philosophy they espouse.

For an in-depth and chilling read on this, try The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. And for some extra spice, read Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty. Sachs is one of the villains in Klein’s book, but he claims to have seen the light and now proposes in this book to right the economic wrongs of the past half century.

I believe that the Consumer Industrial Complex, it’s corporations, consultants, and supporting governments operate with fundamentally un-Christian, un-Jewish, and un-Muslim values and principles!

To be fair, there are corporations executives and national leaders, who do not think or operate in this way, and my hat is off to them – they should be celebrated and we should patronize their businesses or help them get elected again – but they are few and far between regardless of the marketing hype corporations feed us.

So what does that have to do with The Church? Aren’t we above it all?

The Church is as much a part of the CIC as any other organization. Many, if not most, of our denominations and congregations (and we, as congregants) purchase goods and services from these multinational corporations, enabling their abusive practices. We put our financial reserves into stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other ‘securities’ (as it turns out they aren’t real secure!) that finance their operations around the world including the direct and indirect deforestation and pollution they foster, as well as the health, social, and economic inequities they cause.

The Church rarely speaks out against working for these institutions as a moral issue (and timidly when it does) and even more rarely warns us not to purchase products or invest in these companies.

Instead we work hard at being ‘nice’ and not bringing up these issues for fear of offending others or perhaps starting an argument. The Church has allowed us to become anesthetized to the human cruelty our economic theory and practice has produced in many places around the world – but hey, we kind of like it this way. We get to have our personal economic cake and eat it too. We get to stay comfortable – no hassle.

The Church’s anesthesia has allowed us to acquiesce to an extreme version of the profit principle to the neglect of people, their needs, and the world God has given us.

Again, there are exceptions. There are some congregations and a smattering of denominations that have, in good faith and on a regular basis, addressed these issues, but they are known because they are un-usual, not the norm. There are also brave-hearted individuals who have chosen not to participate in the CIC and the corporate/government organizations that support it, and who have pushed their churches to do likewise, but they are few.

If the church as a whole is defined as “those who follow Jesus,” then by and large we are no longer The Church!

Personal confession: it isn’t just “all you out there” who have done (or who are not doing) these things. It is me. This is an indictment of myself as well as others – for all the years I have spent not wanting to go out of my way to buck the system and help people who most need my help. I am guilty of not challenging the status quo and the authorities who maintain it. It is me who needs to start paying attention in order to see where I’ve left Jesus behind. But I’d like some company.

What should we do?

All of us can take some or all of the actions I suggested in my May 8th post, but there are more and more days when I wonder…

…If Jesus said that those who would save their lives must lose them, then isn’t that also true of The Church?

So if we are to make a leap into “Kingdom living,” then maybe we shouldn’t be afraid to let the Church, as we have known it, die!

Must we leave this unconscionable amount of money invested in buildings, bureaucracies, and banks to pad our comfortable backsides, or can we get rid of some or all of it and convert the money for use where it is truly needed?

Do we really need large congregations, members of which often attend services to enjoy the show or come simply out of life-long habit or guilt rather than to be disciples who are ready to challenge the CIC as Jesus did in His day?

At very least maybe we should make it difficult if not impossible for The Church to make things worse for others through its continuing support or lack of action toward the CIC and the damage it does.

If we still survive after that, then maybe there will be something of The Church still worth saving.

Tags: Commentary

• Consumer Culture and Economics , Fomenting Change , Social Justice , The Church and Simple Living
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