Thursday, January 24th, 2008
What should we make of consumerism? Should we accommodate it as Paul accommodated some aspects of culture? We take for granted and no aspect of life is untouched by it. Shopping goods and services, specifically 3 characteristics –
1) Cultural phenomenon – framework of meaning. Consumerism is not just a behavior, it is an evaluative outlook of the world that is propped up and sustained by institutions. It is a worldview – unconscious worldview. It is an outlook. It is an ideology. They shop more than they use to because they are in the grip of the ideology that is transmitted to us unconsciously.
2) Desire to accrue status among one’s peers. Vebelen – most noted by sociologist, chief way to achieve status and leisure through conspicuous consumption. Connected to wealth by flaunting it as a culture. Juliet Schor – another sociologist – study done on rise and effect of consumerism. Number of social changes have caused middle income families to look upward to higher income families as a reference group. As a result, people have stopped using people in geographic neighborhood and looking at people at the next socio-economic bracket. These things sets off spending habits places a great stress on family and relationships at home.
3) Way in which products are not viewed for usefulness, but rather goods consumed in maintenance and cultivation of identity. Marx – goods in a capitalist society can be fetishized. Distanced tool from purpose, these products reveal particular place in our lives when production becomes less personal, empty receptacles we pour meaning into them. Commodities are shroud in a religious fog. Consumer goods are more than objects to what we wear and its usefulness. Goods are not valued for use, but they have meanings that send signals to others, define status, construct identities. Corporations spend lots of money creating value and meaning.
Five major concerns of negative effects of consumerism:
1) Creates an unsustainable lifestyle demolishes financial stability, family, etc. Competitiveness of spending: savings rate 8% in 1980s and 4% in early 1990s and 0% currently. Personal bankruptcy rates continue to set records. 200,000 people in 1980 and 1999 1.4 million people declared bankruptcy. It demolishes people’s financial stability. People are spending more and have to work more and less leisure activity.
2) Places severe financial pressure on all but extremely wealthy.
3) Social problems begin to arise when parents spend less and less time with children. Severe influence to mass media and negative ways.
4) The coarsening of pop culture. Lower standards to get people’s attention
5) Cost to environment and public health. Risky behavior, unhealthy lives to project a certain image.
Evangelical Christian Network: Environmental critique of consumerism. Within Christianity, there is a deep concern with money and how we use it.
Stewardship: we have to be wary of consumerism and poor stewardship. Spend it on the Kingdom of God, church, missions, mercy ministries. What does it mean to follow Jesus?
More troubling of these effects of consumerism – the ethos of consumerism affecting the Christian life and Christian belief. One of the features of consumerism is the cultural phenomenon. It advances a pattern of behavior. More deeply it advances an ideology and worldview. What makes consumerism work in this world is that it advances but not in an overt or conscious ways. It doesn’t have a belief or creed. Evangelicals can smell false doctrine, but the spirit of the age is so slight, it changes the way in we say and believe. The tunes have changed. Consumerism advances a narrative that advances a narrative that is deeply at odds with the narrative with the Gospel. What is the new consumerist story?
1) Consumerism tells us that meaning and satisfaction come through admiration and esteem of our peers. It tells us that if we have the right stuff, people will esteem us. People will view you differently.
2) Consumerism encourages us to see our life activities as preferences or lifestyles that are satisfying. Religion becomes part of our lifestyle. Lifestyle becomes an arbiter. Discrete lifestyle elements. Jobs, hobbies, and faith are on same level.
3) Consumerism is highly individualistic. It lets the individual as sovereign and detaches from communal activity and group activities. It encourages us to see ourselves as right and primary. Self becomes the center of person’s world.
The church and the world has been co-opted by consumerism.
First, it is a distinct worldview, be aware of the subtle yet powerful influence of consumerism.
Second, if consumerism is a cultural worldview, propagated by institutions. Christians need community and church to back non-consumerism worldview. Church must be important over life and light over individualism. Peace and shalom might be a deeper fulfillment over the shallow fulfillment offered by contemporary culture.
We are surrounded by a great need. All Americans except for the most impoverished are at the top 1% of the people that ever lived. The question of wealth and the poor cannot be sidestepped. To what extent can we ignore spending habits? Ethical side.
We need to be aware of the consumerist spirit of the age. Our worth does not come from things that we surround. We don’t need to replace the old with the new. We don’t deserve the trappings of American lifestyle. Biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation, God calls us back into revolution. Jesus promises to transform us to something we have yet to imagine. Inconceivable glories offered by God. We are far too easily pleased. C.S. Lewis.
Tags: church, consumerism, culture, habits, lifestyle, world
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