t was a slow afternoon trailing shoppers among the boutiques of inner-city Toronto. We were assured it was the last stop, and so we seated ourselves and watched the thronging customers coming and going from that particular European-inspired fashion retailer. The store drew a wealthy clientele-a quick look at a few price tags assured us of that; the racks were laden with couture supposedly of the highest quality and style; energetic music pumped across the space, goading the mostly young women toward the cash registers. One of our companions turned to me with the comment, "If this were a work of art, I would title it, 'Attractive Girls Who Don't Smile.'"
It was a perceptive observation: shopping is serious business. In fact, shopping has become a national and international pastime, and the accumulation of things is among the greatest foolishness of contemporary society. It's not a smiling matter: "We are engaged in a mania of consumption. . . . More and more people own houses that are larger and larger, and ever more crowded with stuff."1
Absurdly, we are encouraged to this excess by our societies as a whole, led by our governments. Contemporary economies have evolved to the point where the report of consumer spending is one of the most anticipated economic indicators. The focus on such information as important to economic health has inverted the historical emphasis on carefulness in times of hardship or emergency. For example, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, shoppers-particularly in the U.S.-"were encouraged to think of their purchases as a blow against terrorists."2 So now-we are told-we can go shopping for the good of our country: it's shopping as a patriotic act.
But, as it is, that's how the system works. "Most people are able to convince themselves, at least temporarily, that it is absolutely crucial to buy items they don't really need. Indeed, our economic health depends on shoppers' ceaseless lust for the inessential."3 In this regard, the primary role of advertising is to manufacture insecurity, the lurking suspicion that our lives are somehow incomplete and that the particular product promoted is just the answer to that lack.
As such, we are taught and encouraged to chase a dangerous and self-destructive illusion. Sadly, it is a malaise from which we Christians are not immune, and perhaps to which we are particularly susceptible. An emphasis on education, lingering echoes of the old-time Protestant work ethic, some useful teaching on stewardship, increasing denominational respectability, and many examples of God's material blessing have combined and conspired to propel us into a steady upward mobility across successive generations. With increasing wealth and position come increasing opportunities for and temptation to further accumulation and consumption.
But one of the greatest risks for us as Christians is to assume that what we are doing is somehow Christian, simply because we are Christians and we are doing it. When it comes down to it, capitalistic consumerism is not only a-Christian, but in the broader context of the economic and social inequities across the world (and even across our own societies) and the finitude of the world's resources it may well be unchristian and perhaps even anti-Christian.
Jesus was very definite in His teaching that our lives do not consist of the things of the world around us (Matt. 6:25-32) or the "stuff" we might accumulate (Matt. 19:16-24; Luke 6:24; 12:13-21). He pointed out the danger of being distracted by "stuff" in place of the more important things of the kingdom of God (Matt. 6:19-21; 33).
Responding as Christians to the "mania of consumption" with which we are surrounded may not always be straightforward, but to minimize our participation as much as possible is a first step. Dallas Willard suggests a useful attitude: "a gentle but firm noncooperation with things that everyone knows to be wrong."4 To buy less, to go shopping less often, to buy carefully when we must, to get some of the "stuff" out of our lives, and to use our resources to help others are an important beginning.
Don't just buy it!
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1 Thomas Hine, I Want That: How We All Became Shoppers-A Cultural History (HarperCollins), p. 158.
2 Ibid., p. 170.
3 Ibid., p. 190.
4 Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (Fount), p. 313.
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Nathan Brown is a freelance writer and graduate student in Townsville, Australia.
