A Christian's guide to consumerism
Tesco ergo sum
In the last decade in Britain the land space given over to retailing has increased by 20%. Shopping is now our national hobby. We have to consume things to live, but now we seem to live to consume.
It is estimated that the average person receives around 3,000 advertising messages a day from TV, radio, magazines, bill-boards and so on. We are now entering the age of Internet shopping.
As God's creation, the world is a blessing to us, but as a Fallen world it is also a threat to us. Our struggle was said classically to be with 'the world, the flesh and the devil.' But now it is a very different world from the one our forefathers knew.
What is consumerism?
We have been a materialistic society for a very long time. But consumerism is an exaggerated form of materialism (with a capitalist bent).
Like materialism, consumerism is focused on this world and our physical senses. Like materialism it promises happiness through material goods and services. As a promise of happiness, it can be seen as another gospel - the secular good news. But beyond mere materialism, consumerism majors on the power of personal choice making self the centre of everything.
With the abolition of retail price maintenance in the 1960s and the later introduction of the market economy, companies had to compete with one another as never before for customers. This brought about a shift of power. Instead of paternalistic producers dictating to the public what they should have, now they have to listen carefully to the consumer. As individuals we enjoy this power of personal choice. To walk into a shop with a credit card is to be god-like. We speak and it is done. We pursue the material promise of happiness. We express ourselves through our choices. This is the buzz, the thrill, the kick of consumerism.
Is it sustainable?
As Christians we need not be wholly negative about all this. Christianity is a materialistic faith. Unlike the ancient heretics who believed matter was in some way inherently evil, we believe everything created by God is good, and nothing to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. Further we believe that the whole material universe, including our own bodies, will be renewed at the resurrection and we are to look forward to that hope in Christ.
We also see enormous reasons to be concerned.
Ecology.
At present 20% of the world's population consumes 80% of its resources. If everybody wants to live with a throw-away, high energy, high-tech, high pollution lifestyle, there is no green technology which can possibly cope. Consumerism as we know it is just not sustainable.
Justice.
Recently there was a drought in Western Kenya. A story went about that a child had died, having dug up a dead dog to eat. At the Haagen-Daz ice cream stand we can choose from a vast variety of flavours, while people in the Third World are starving. Is consumerism just?
Spirituality.
Consumerism cultivates a way of looking at the world which can destroy Christian character and devotion. What stunts most Christian lives these days is not the so-called big sins of adultery, greed or hatred. It is usually that we just live such cluttered lives, distracted by all the different possibilities, all the banal trivia which consumerism offers to occupy our time. We are tired out by choice and robbed of truly being focused on living for Christ.
Christian character?
The consumer way of life fosters a number of values antithetical to many Christian virtues. Can we simultaneously seek and to some degree realise both instant gratification and patience? What about instant gratification and self-control? Is gentleness cultivated in an ethos that must become ever more coarse and gross to excite overloaded, jaded consumers, or joy cultivated by an economic system that deifies dissatisfaction?
Debt
From The Presbyterian Banner (magazine of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia) July 1997 issue.
'It has been reported that at the end of April personal debts in Australia have reached $237.04 billion. 'Low interest rates have encouraged people to borrow and many are now finding difficulty meeting repayments. The days when people saved for something they needed are long passed. Today, everything is 'instant'. Christians should make sure they are not part of the craze to amass material possessions. Let us be certain that our treasure is to be found in heaven.'
Possessions
It was back in 1978, just before Mrs. Thatcher came to power that John Stott published his superb commentary on the Sermon on the Mount entitled 'Christian counter-culture'. Having now lived through the onslaught of consumerism during the 1980s and 90s, some wonder where that counter-culture has gone. Money talks in our society. Are Christians really any different from others when it comes to possessions?
'Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and, where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also' (Matthew 6.19-21).
John Stott's comments on Jesus words in these verses are worth pondering. What Jesus forbids his followers is the selfish accumulation of goods (N.B. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth); extravagant and luxurious living; the hard-heartedness which does not feel the colossal need of the world's underprivileged people, the foolish fantasy that a person's life consists in the abundance of his possessions; and the materialism which tethers our hearts to the earth. For the Sermon on the Mount repeatedly refers to 'the heart', and here Jesus declares that our heart always follows our treasure, whether down to earth or up to heaven (verse 21). In a word to 'lay up treasure on earth' does not mean being provident (making sensible provision for the future) but being covetous (like misers who hoard and materialists who always want more). This is the real snare of which Jesus warns here.
Consumerism and popular psychology
It certainly proved convenient that, just as Western economies began to need consumers, there developed an ideology hostile to discipline, to obedience, and to delaying gratification. Selfism's clear advocacy of experience now, and its rejection of inhibition or repression, was a boon to the advertising industry, which was finding that the returns on appeals to social status and product quality were diminishing. Most of the short expressions and catchwords of self-theory make excellent advertising copy: Do it now! Have a new experience! Honour thyself! (Paul Vitz, Psychology as Religion, Eerdmanns.)
Joy in God
Christians are in favour of happiness, not against it.
'A great part of God's glory is his happiness. It was inconceivable to the apostle Paul that God could be denied infinite joy and still be all-glorious. To be infinitely glorious was to be infinitely happy. He used the phrase 'the glory of the happy God,' be-cause it is a glorious thing for God to be as happy as he is. God's glory consists much in the fact that he is happy beyond our wildest imagination. And this is the gospel: 'The gospel of the glory of the happy God.' It is good news that God is gloriously happy. No one would want to spend eternity with an unhappy God. If God is unhappy then the goal of the gospel is not a happy goal, and that means it would be no gospel at all. But in fact Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God when he says: 'Enter the joy of your master' (Matthew 25.23). Jesus lived and died that his joy - God's joy - might be in us and our joy might be full (John 15.11; 17.13).' John Piper
So our hope, the direction in which we look for happiness, is to be in God. This affects the way we look at the material world. When the material world gives us legitimate pleasure, we should add thanksgiving to God to our pleasure. But for our pleasure to terminate in the here and now is to worship and serve created things rather than the Creator.
Shop till you drop?
A consumer's identity
Between the second World War and the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989, West German car manufacturing had advanced radically in quality, but in East Germany they were still making the same model of car as they were making in the 1950s. Technology had not changed because there was no market in the communist state, no consumer power to press manufacturers to improve what they produced.
We are thinking about living as Christian disciples in a consumer culture. And one of the things we notice from the example of the two Germanys is that a consumer society is a dynamic, changing society. It is never static, but always on the move, with more choice, more rights, better products.
The reason we need to see this is because living in a rapidly-changing culture actually affects the way people see themselves. This in turn shapes how people behave.
Choosing who you want to be
Time was when people chose and behaved according to who they were. Choices in life were affected by social class, gender, occupation, religion and so on. To give a simple example, not so long ago, people who considered themselves 'working class' did not, in general, buy or drink wine, the middle-class drink; the working class drank beer. Similar generalities applied to where people went on holiday. Obviously, much of this was governed by levels of wages at the time.
But now, although the link between choice and identity is still maintained, in affluent, consumer society it is being reversed. Instead of choosing according to who we are, now we are what we choose to be. In a society in which everything is constantly changing and everything can be bought, you can shop around and try on a new identity. You can buy into a different lifestyle, and why not? All you have to do is purchase the appropriate status symbols. For your leisure time especially, you can be whoever you want to be. Just buy the clothes!
Image and reality
Such 'identity' being just another disposable consumer item, two things happen.
First, it is devalued. It is just an image or mask. (That is one reason why so many people today do not really know who they are and feel lost.)
Second, it also means you no longer take too seriously any moral demands which might be made by taking on a new image. (This vitiates clear-cut Christian conversion). How we see ourselves and how we behave is no longer obvious to other people.
Lack of thought
The consumer market fires a vast amount of options and information at us, its customers. In his recent book, Jesus for a New Generation, Kevin Ford wrote: 'My generation is so inundated with information that we don't know the truth any more. We suffer from information overload. We see the politicians on TV and we are confused. We will vote for the one who projects the most trustworthy or caring image, or the one with whom we most identify. We vote out of feelings, not convictions. Issues are complex. Image is simple.'
A pastor recently met a student who said: 'I have three beliefs which I hold to strongly.'
'Oh yes,' said the pastor, 'what are they?'
'Well,' replied the student, 'they are the innerrancy of Scripture, substitutionary atonement, and reincarnation.'
The pastor, trying not to look shocked or flustered and wanting to help, asked the young man: 'Well how can you hold three such doctrines together?'
The young man replied: 'Well, I don't try. I just like them all. They all feel good.'
Wesley's problem
Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Luke 6.34-36.
But there is another reason why we must not take Jesus's command to give as an optional extra in Christian living. You see without sacrificial giving, Christianity has a real problem.
That insightful saint, John Wesley, saw the difficulty. Wesley worried along these lines. Christianity must necessarily produce both industry and frugality and thence cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase so will pride, anger and love of the world in all its branches. He sees that the New Testament commands Christians rightly to work hard, yet, he observes, 'wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion.' Satisfied with riches, we tend to forget God, and so bring about our own downfall. What is the answer ? Surely, it is to be not only hard workers, but generous givers, not only for the good of others, but for our own spiritual good.
Valuing freedom
All the best heresies are half true - that is why they are so persuasive! Paul tells the Galatians that 'It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then' (5.1). Released from the condemnation of God's law and from bondage to sin, Christians are free - not enslaved or coerced. They are at liberty to live in love, choosing what is best and creatively expressing themselves in Christ.
Both consumerism and Christianity value that freedom of choice. Christianity sees people as uniquely made in God's image, with the ability to choose creatively. The heresy of consumerism has latched on to this emphasis of freedom as it parades before us a vast array of options.
Freedom of choice is a precious gift. But choice according to what criteria? What do we mean by 'choosing what is best'? And which 'self' is to do the choosing? When we ask such questions as these, for all their superficial agreement about freedom, consumerism and Christianity come into conflict at a very deep level. True freedom is the ability to express ourselves creatively in following Christ. The New Testament tells us that a Christian has an old self and a new self in Christ. True freedom is putting off the old self with its selfishness and corruption, and putting on the new self which thinks and acts like Christ. So Paul tells us: 'You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love' Gal. 5.13.
Failing morality
In our day, all kinds of minority pressure groups grab the headlines and get their way with hardly a word being raised in protest by the silent majority. Why are the majority silent? There are no doubt many factors, but one large one is consumerism. 'As long as my little privatised world of my personal life making my personal choices and having my personal experiences is not directly affected, then why make a fuss about what is going on in society? I am happy in my materialistic paradise which can approximate fairly closely to heaven from time to time. I just don't want to get involved.'
Marx was wrong. It is not religion, it is consumerism which is the opium of the people, stupefying the majority into a speechless slumber while society falls apart.
Consumerism and TV
Back in the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan became famous for the slogan 'the medium is the message'.
By that he meant that the means by which a message is communicated is a message in itself. With the rise of consumer culture in the last 40 years, TV has conquered the world. We live in a media age dominated by TV. And by the very nature of TV, there are subtle messages in it of which we need to be aware.
Visual.
TV and film rely heavily on the visual to communicate. In that very fact there is a hidden implication. The message inherent in TV is 'what you see is what is true,' or putting it another way, 'what you see is what you can believe.' That sounds spot on to the secular world, but what it is really saying is 'the apparent is the actual.' If we believe in a God who is invisible we disagree with this premise which TV inevitably conveys.
Instant.
TV and cinema concentrate on vision and hearing and leave little to the imagination. Naturally speaking the only things we can see happen at this instant - right now. You cannot see yesterday with your eyes, or hear next week. Because it concentrates on and grabs the instant, TV holds another message. It gives the impression that 'now is the only time that matters.' It tends to disengage people from the past and the future. But the Scriptures tell us that though 'now' is important, it can only be understood in the light of our origins and eternity.
Distant.
Though immediate and instant TV is also, in a sense, distant. We can watch the news of famine in the Third World or bullets flying in Bosnia, but we are distant, we are not actually involved. Isn't there another subtle statement here? TV is safe - perhaps the safest way to view the world. It cannot hurt you. But Jesus, by contrast, tells us to be careful with our eyes.
Entertaining.
TV has to make itself more interesting than the sitting room wallpaper. It has to continually attract attention and entertain the eye. It does this not only by using beautiful and gifted presenters, but in particular by forever changing the image on the screen. According to US Professor Neil Postman 'the average length of shot on network TV is only 3.5 seconds, so that the eye never rests and always has something new to see.' Being locked in to entertaining us, TV tends to trivialise all it touches. It reduces news to a sound-bite and politics to a beauty competition. It generally gives the impression that life is a fun house and must not be taken too seriously.
Optional.
Gone are the days when Britain had just two or even four TV channels. With satellite, cable and video, the variety of available TV shows is now enormous. TV puts a channel changer in your hand and says 'what option would you prefer?' What would you like to experience now? You can watch or not, or you can watch something else. You are in control of the screen world. Life is about choice.
Think about these messages in the medium; 'what is now is what matters and what you see is what is true' (materialism); 'what is entertaining is what is good and it can't hurt you' (morality is not an issue); 'life is about choice.'
We must be balanced. TV can be used well. But we have to say, putting these messages together, even apart from the adverts, if consumerism is the secular gospel, then TV is its prophet and preacher. According to 1993 statistics the British watch on average 15 to 20+ hours of TV per week.
American roots
Until this century, most American homes were sites not only of consumption but of production. Even as late as 1850, six out of ten people worked on farms. They made most of their own tools; they built their own homes and barns; they constructed their furniture; they wove and sewed their clothes; they grew crops and animals - producing food.
The Industrial Revolution changed all that, very quickly. As the factory system and mass production began to dominate, it displaced home production and forced millions into waged labour.
Rather suddenly, this economic system could produce many more goods than the existing population (with its set habits and means) could afford and consume. For instance, when James Buchanan Duke procured two Bonsack cigarette machines, he could immediately produce 240,000 cigarettes a day - more than the entire US market smoked. Such overproduction was the rule, not the exception throughout the economy.
There was, in short, a huge gap between production and consumption. How to close it? Industrial production's momentum had already built up, so cutting production was not feasible. Manufacturers decided instead to pump up consumption, to increase demand to meet supply. But they realised consumption was a way of life that had to be taught and learned. People had to move away from strict thrift towards habits of ready spending. They had to learn to trust and rely on a multitude of products and services manufactured and promoted from far away by complete strangers.
Indeed, advertisers soon recognised that they must not simply cater for existing needs, but create new ones. As Crowell of Quaker Oats noted: '(My aim in advertising) was to do educational and constructive work so as to awaken an interest in and create a demand for cereals where none existed.' And as The Thompson Red Book on Advertising put it more generally in 1901: 'Advertising aims to teach people that they have wants which they did not recognise before, and where such wants can best be supplied.'
Into the 19th century advertising and consumption were oriented to raw information and basic needs. It was only in the late 19th and then the 20th century, with the maturation of consumer capitalism, that a shift was made toward the cultivation of unbounded desire. We must appreciate this to realise that late modern consumption, consumption as we know it, is not fundamentally about materialism or the consumption of physical goods. Affluence and consumer-oriented capitalism have moved us well beyond the undeniable efficiencies and benefits of refrigerators and indoor plumbing. Instead, in a fun-house world of ever-proliferating wants and exquisitely unsatisfied desire, consumption entails most profoundly the cultivation of pleasure, the pursuit of novelty, and chasing after ever illusory experiences associated with material goods.
Rodney Clapp,
'Why the devil takes VISA', from Christianity Today, 1996. (Used with permission).
Consumerism and commitment
When we consider what we most want from life, Christians probably have similar ambitions.
We want to live lives that are significant, and make a difference for God and his church.
We want to live lives of Christ-like love, forging deep relationships with others.
We want to grow in Christ, to know him more, his joy and holiness in our lives.
We want to die well, leaving a worthwhile example for others.
These are worthy ambitions. Yet not one of them can be bought or attained in an instant. None can come true without patience, perseverance, devotion and sacrifice. In a word, not one of them can be attained without commitment.
Discipleship
Commitment is a strategic point in the battle for discipleship in a consumer culture. We have defined consumerism loosely as that promise of happiness through possessions pursued in a way which emphasises personal preferences and choices. If one thing begins to pall, there is always something new.
When people idolise choice, commitment withers. We are the mobile society, ever moving from town to town and civic roots are well nigh gone. We are the secular society, which does not want the commitment of what is seen as a religious straight-jacket. We are the divorce society, in which commitment to family and marriage is waning. And within the Christian sphere, clarity and conviction on doctrinal issues is out of fashion. Ambiguity is the name of the game for a pick-and-mix generation. And grass-roots commitment to local churches is sliding. Yes people attend, but they don't stick at it or get involved unless it is the style of church that exactly suits them. One recent survey in the US found that the average length of stay in a church is just four years. Many people treat churches as supermarkets rather than as God's family. The consumer mentality of coming to get only what they need has taken over their outlook, almost without them realising it.
Os Guinness in his fine book, The Gravedigger File, puts the central issue like this: 'What happens when choice becomes a state of mind? Obligation melts into option, givenness into choice, form into freedom. Facts of life dissolve into fashions of the moment. But the consequence we care about most is this: the increase in choice and change leads to a decrease in commitment and continuity.'
Dr John Benton
Home
Archives
Subscriptions
Adverts
Find a church
About us
Contact us
Site Map
Printable