Globalization has made Christians increasingly aware of America’s interdependence with the rest of the world. The internet and news media have provided technicolor pictures of the plight of the worlds poor unlike any other time in history. Beneath the thin veneer of the American Dream lies the grim reality that America’s consumerism comes at great cost to much of our poverty stricken world. In 2005, the United Nations Human Development Report concluded: “In our interconnected world, a future built on the foundation of mass poverty in the midst of plenty is economically inefficient, politically unsustainable and morally indefensible” (Human Development Report 2005 p.17). This essay will focus on this latter issue, and make the claim of value that Christians have a moral and ethical responsibility to how the marginalized people of the world are treated. Special attention will be given to address the following: how Christianity is affected by consumer culture, the unsustainability of our current consumption rates, as well as a practical model for life that redefines the “American Dream” in light of Christ’s example.
A growing number of Christians desire a holistic faith that does not compartmentalize the sacred and the state, and rejects the dualism between belief and actions. It is imperative that American Christians open up a discourse with one another in unity, reject our current tolerance for idolatry, and actively follow the prescriptive words of Jesus. The gospel is riddled with accounts that emphasize the importance of social responsibility for Christians. The story of the Good Samaritan is a great example of what it looks like to be a follower of Christ. “On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”"What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise“(NIV, Luke 10:25-37). This parable shows Jesus’ remarkable ability to lead us to a place where concepts and theologies intersect with responsibilities and actions. The question the Pharisee asked is still relevant today, who is my neighbor, and how should I love them?
The Christian Consumer Conundrum
Scientists warn of global warming, nation battles nation, and millions are dying of starvation, malaria, and AIDS. According to the World Bank census taken in 2007, 3.8 billion of the worlds 6.5 billion people live in extreme or borderline extreme poverty. At the same time, the richest 20 percent of the world possess 75 percent of the world’s wealth (UN, 2007, p. 25). Many Christians however, sit comfortably numb in America, pleasantly inoculated by our individualistic, me first consumer culture, which reinterprets a radical Gospel, and gives us a distinctly American middle class Jesus. This American Jesus we follow is not concerned with actively participating in the lives of the downtrodden, poor, sick, and dying people of the world, rather He is busy providing abundance for the few, if we only ask. One extreme example of this kind of teaching can be seen in the words of Joyce Meyer, a popular Christian Prosperity preacher who says, “Who would want to get in on something where you’re miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through until you get to heaven? I believe God wants to give us nice things” (Biema/Chu, 2006). Meyer fails to understand the big picture, the majority of the world is miserable, poor, and broke, muddling through a life on the edge of mortality. Are we so blind as to really believe that somehow the message and love of Jesus Christ, lived out in the Middle East, adopted by the English, and brought to America by the Colonists is for the United States alone? Our brothers and sisters, Christ’s beloved, are in desperate situations, and Meyer’s answer is that we focus on Americans accumulating “nice things.” Boston Universities Stephen Prothoro noted that, “The tragedy is that Christianity has become a yes-man for the culture” (Biema/Chu, 2006, p. 3). How lovely it is to have God on our side, bring on the bigger homes, faster cars, and mega-church stadium preachers who tickle our ears and tell us everything will all be alright. American arrogance and pride have infiltrated our most sacred institutions and our understanding of God and his message for humankind is heavily influenced by our greed cloaked in red, white, and blue consumerism. American Christians have adopted this ethnocentric (pro-America), consumer based version of Christianity. When we approach God as a consumer it affords us the benefit of reducing Christianity into a series of commodities, allowing us to pick and choose the teachings we will follow, and discard any that we find inconvenient. Vincent Miller, in his book, “Consuming Religion,” noted that he “[took] seriously the charge that one of the effects of a consumer society is that everything becomes a potential commodity, even religion” (Miller, 2004, p.12). More importantly, “Consumer culture is best diagnosed not as a deformation of belief, but as a particular way of engaging religious beliefs that divorces them from practice” (Miller, 2004, p.12). Our problem, Miller says, does not lie within a misconception of God, rather our social constructs and understanding of what makes our American life possible is at odds with the practices of Christianity. David Loy in his article, “The West Against the Rest” writes, “In place of understanding human life in light of a monotheistic faith that inverts the current world order through the economy of grace, the consumer culture fosters the notion that the answers lie in a “money-theistic” faith that baptizes the status quo and finds its redemption only through the economy of our current global system” (Loy, 2008, p. 132).
America’s Unsustainable Cost to the World
Another major issue that Loy addresses is that our fascination with consumption, this idolatry of commodities, is putting America at odds with the rest of the world. We are simply living unsustainably. Interestingly, a cross-sectional study done by Baylor University found that when Christians were asked what it means to be a good person, 62.9% replied that “taking care of the needy” was required, in contrast to 36.8% who sided with “actively seeking social and economic justice” (Baylor University, 2006). This disparity shows the disassociation Christians have between the needy and the social systems that continue to exploit them and keep them in their position of neediness. Wendy Corbin, in her essay, “The Impact of the American Dream on Evangelical Ethics,” writes, “Christian ethics has a voice in challenging the values on which our current economic system is based. Competition pits us against each other and dehumanizes us to one another: buying and selling based on wants created by economic privilege minimizes the real needs of basic sustenance for the majority of people harmed by the free market and benefiting from the labor and production goods made possible by exploitation and oppression received many a prophetic tirade from the prophets in the Hebrew Bible” (Corbin, 2005, p. 347). If our competing economic system breeds this “dehumanizing” effect here at home, then it is no wonder that we are not concerned with how our lifestyle affects those abroad. Take for instance the results internationally that our fast-food consumption creates in developing countries, “Intensive breeding of livestock and poultry for [fast-food] restaurants leads to deforestation, land degradation, and contamination of water sources and other natural resources. For every pound of red meat, poultry, eggs, and milk produced, farm fields lose about five pounds of irreplaceable top soil. The water necessary for meat breeding comes to about 190 gallons per animal per day, or ten times what a normal Indian family is supposed to use in one day, if it gets water at all” (Shiva, 2000, p. 70). William Rees, an urban planner at the University of British Columbia, estimated that it requires four to six hectares of land to maintain the consumption level of the average person from a high-consumption country. The problem is that in 1990, worldwide there were only 1.7 hectares of ecologically productive land for each person. He concluded that the deficit is made up in core countries by drawing down the natural resources of their own countries and expropriating the resources, through trade, of peripheral countries. In other words, someone has to pay for our consumption levels. Reese goes on to say, “Of the three factors environmentalists often point to as responsible for environmental pollution — population, technology, and consumption — consumption seems to get the least attention. One reason, no doubt, is that it may be the most difficult to change; our consumption patterns are so much a part of our lives that to change them would require a massive cultural overhaul, not to mention severe economic dislocation. A drop in demand for products, as economists note, brings on economic recession or even depression, along with massive unemployment” (Robbins, 1999, p. 209). This “cultural overhaul”, while unacceptable to most mainstream Americans, Christian or not, is the most logical solution to counter the impacts of our ever expanding consumerism.
Re-imagining Responsible Christian Life in America
To take any serious issue that impacts a multitude of people, especially one that is a claim of value, and draw prescriptive conclusions that require a lifestyle changes is an ominous task. To start, a dialogue must begin that crosses both denominational and national divisions, focusing on reconciliation, transformation, and redistribution. Shane Claiborne, founder of the Simple Way, an intentional Christian community writes, “There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of…I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end” (Claiborne, 2006, p, 114). Reconciliation is more than churches opening their doors to the poor, or giving some money to a homeless mission. Reconciliation is a hands on process where we meet people in their dirty, scary, meager places of existence and walking along side them. A transformation of heart and mind must take place in order for us to put loving like Christ loved into practice. A crucial element is that we take on a collective shift in values, loving the poor and denouncing our consumer theology in exchange for a holistic Christian life.
Finally, the American church needs to collectively experiment with models of community that reduce the duplication of efforts such as co-housing, food co-ops, and healthcare co-ops. We need to re-imagine what “church life” looks like. We need to question the spiritual worth of some of our most sacred cows, like buildings, and programs. This will allow us to provide the basic needs of all community members, and pool as much resources as possible for redistribution. Claiborne put it best, “So it’s important to understand that redistribution comes from community, not before community. Redistribution is not a prescription for community” (Claiborne, 2006, p. 163). This call is not just for the purpose eradicating our consumer Christian mindset, it is however, an opportunity to see past the social constructs that we have taken for granted and rediscover a new, vibrant, and authentic faith. This community lifestyle while creating closer relationships among Christians will also serve to further the great commission, in redistributive ways. Christians will not have to work harder to make more money to help those in need, rather they will be able to give out of their abundance created by simpler living. Claiborne writes, “Simplicity is meaningful only inasmuch as it is grounded in love, authentic relationships and interdependence. Redistribution then springs naturally out of our rebirth, from a vision of family that is larger than biology or nationalism” (Claiborne, 2006, p. 163).
I realize that to some, my ideas for practically living out our Christian faith will be labeled extreme. Some will worry that this sounds similar to a commune, or cult group. The fact is that I believe this experimentation in community will look different for each group, and can take place in each of our Christian faith settings. This message is less about how we go about reaching the marginalized, and more about taking on the plight of the worlds poor, and engaging in the social constructs that continue to exploit the “least of these.”
References
Claiborne, Shane, (2006) The irresistible revolution, p. 163. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Miller, Vincent, (2004) Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture, p. 12. New York, NY: Continuum.
United Nations Development Program, (2007) Human Development Report, p.25.
Vandana, Shiva, (2000) Stolen harvest, p. 70. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Robbins, Richard, (1999) Global problem and the culture of capitalism, p. 209. Allyn and
Bacon.
