IAmJoshBrown.com
The Consumptive Church: Appeasing The White Man’s Guilt
The Context For My Starting Point, Different Starting Points, The Religious Industrial Complex, Opium & 3 Legged Chairs, The Model Speaks Volumes, The Medium Is The Message
I suppose I’m close to finally wrapping this thing up. At least from the critique side of things. Although as I’ve said before, critique is a form of construction . . . so hold off on the “Josh is always negative comments”.
I was reading Eugene Cho’s thoughts the other day on Buy Nothing Day and he makes some good points. His basic premise was that it’s easy for guys like me (white, affluent, etc) to support Buy Nothing Day once a year. I can afford to be “holier-than-thou” on the day after Christmas, because my lifestyle affords me the opportunities the rest of the year to buy what I want to when I want to. Whereas, for a lot of people, standing outside in freezing temperatures on the day after Christmas for electronics and children’s toys is more of a necessity.
For me it’s just as much a privilege not to buy something that particular day as it is for me to buy something on any other day. I can afford to opt-out of Black Friday. I can afford to opt-out of mass consumerism for a day. Because my lifestyle still affords me the luxury of opting-in on other days.
In hindsight, choosing to buy nothing like I did, had less to do with my critique of consumption and more to do with the privilege that has been afforded to me as a middle-class American. It had more to do with me wanting to appease my guilt for my consumption throughout the rest of the year than it did with me challenging the systemic injustices of hyper-consumption itself.
I get that. I really, really do.
While I think The Consumptive Church is only possible in an affluent white man’s world, I am also becoming painfully aware that critiques like mine are only possible because of the larger framework of that same affluent context. Perhaps these critiques really are more rooted in appeasing my guilt than they are in deep fundamental change.
In these critiques of mine . . . these “opting-outs” of conventional consumptive patterns, I’m afraid that the larger myths of consumption to satisfy might still go un-critiqued.
My favorite stanza of lyrics of all time comes from Ryan Sharp in I, Obstruction:
Just get rid of all your crap now
Just give it to the poor
So that they can have your crap now
So that they can want some more
What scares me more than anything about my life, is that my critiques will begin and end with nothing more than a shifting of my crap and affluence from me to someone with “less”. That I will do nothing more than shift my consumptive patterns from me to the third world.
At some point my critiques have to be more than economic restructuring. More than a shifting of politics. More than a reallocation of resources. At some point they have to challenge my hyper-consumption at it’s roots.
I don’t think consuming is a bad thing. If I don’t consume food and drink I die. If I don’t consume wood and gas, I don’t stay warm in the winter. If I don’t consume cotton and polyester, people will laugh at my hairy chest and I will freeze in the elements. Consumption is a part of life.
It is the hyper-consumption that has to be critiqued. It is the hyper-consumption that has to be challenged.
The question is not whether or not I need food and drink, but whether or not I need as much food and drink as I do. It’s not whether or not I need clothes to cover my body, but whether or not I need a closet full of overpriced, transient clothes made by 14 year olds. It’s not whether or not I need oil to get from place to place, but whether or not I need oil ensured by war and for my decadent disposal.
The question is not whether or not capitalism is a valid economic system, but whether or not capitalism as a consumption-based system where spending, owning, and hoarding are the leading virtues is better than capitalism as a production-based system where saving, sharing, and the common good are the leading virtues.
I need a better critique. I need a better alternative. I need to move beyond appeasing my guilt and towards embracing the common humanity that I share with everyone else. A critique that comes from below as opposed from the top, or worse yet . . . in the middle of.
Then I listen to the last lines of I, Obstruction:
It turns out I am the obstruction
Turns out I have been one
To loose them or enslave them
And just leave them all undone
Listening: But I Tell You by The Cobalt Season
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Perhaps these critiques really are more rooted in appeasing my guilt than they are in deep fundamental change.
that, my friend is the perennial question. we need to ask it more often. i know i do at least. i often don’t, i think because i’m too afraid of what my answer might be. but its an important question nonetheless. and that’s why i think its so important that we create intentional, empathetic dialectics, like we are now, so in the midst of all our critiques (which are good, we need them), we never forget to come back to the personal examination that is so vital to the larger transformative and restorative process.
this is my favorite post of the series. and apparently i need to check out the cobalt season…
I’ve often wondered this about “Liberation Theology”. If God is on the side of the poor and we alleviate poverty, whose side is God on then? Sometimes I think poor people need to alleviate us of our wealth.
Got here via the pingback on Eugene’s blog. I don’t always agree with his thoughts but they certainly make you think. The dialogue that we must have is so essential. To his credit, I was compelled by a decision that he and his wife made to give up a year’s salary to fight global poverty.
http://eugenecho.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/fight-poverty-a-vision-of-redistribution/
In my journey of financial learning and unlearning, it’s been significant to realize that there are spiritual considerations besides those related to giving to those in need. So even if there were no poverty or need on earth, it still would not be right for Christians to live as most Americans live; I need to consume less not only so I can give, but also so that I can put my trust and my focus where they should be.
Then when I apply this insight to giving, it makes me want to provide for needs like food, water, and medical care, but to try to avoid perpetuating “hyper-consumption.” I’m still wondering about some applications of this, though. For example, if I don’t indulge in fast food, should I indulge beggars in it? Why not, “ok, well can you walk back to my dorm with me to eat some oatmeal?”?
This is off-topic, but related. In the same way, the only reason we can be concerned about the environment is because we can afford to. Something I’ve been thinking about lately.
[...] link of the day comes from iamjoshbrown.com ::The Consumptive Church: Appeasing The White Man’s Guilt. I wish I could quote the whole thing for you, but here is a bit to whet your appetite. In [...]
Josh,
why are you always so negative?
corey. there’s no need to be snarky just because people are giving you crap over on your site.
you’re nothing but an inquisitor.
Josh — Thanks for sharing these great thoughts. I wandered in via Eugene’s blog, by the way. I appreciate your self-awareness; that, for many of us, our privilege is so great that even our most scathing critiques of it can be done comfortably, without sacrificing anything really.
I have also been seeing the Cobalt Season being mentioned all over the place. And, thanks to your quote from their song, I finally checked them out. Fantastic stuff!
Do we need to be quite so absolute in our statements?
Derek said, “the only reason we can be concerned about the environment is because we can afford to”
And Josh said, “I am also becoming painfully aware that critiques like mine are only possible because of the larger framework of that same affluent context. ”
Josh, you qualified that absolute statement well when I consider the larger context of your full post, but I’m not sure if the qualification was intentional or unintentional.
I would take issue with both of you guys’ statements. In a deeper sense, poverty-stricken folks in our society can tend to accept what our society gives them (cheaper processed fast food and big box marts, etc) and slot right into the poor stereotype in the capitalist system. But do they have to? Can’t they subvert the system in simple ways like maintaining a garden or valuing relationship over getting more crap or model a lifestyle for their children that shows them (forcefully, because of their situation) the difference between “want” and “need”?
It’s almost laughable to me to suggest that environmental concern is something for those who can “afford it,” when having a larger vision of reality that rejects the goals of capitalism and consumerism will cause us to alter our means in response to new goals. So if the poverty-stricken aren’t hell-bent on getting more crap and we aren’t hell-bent on getting more crap, then maybe they can be empowered through relationship with us to give up the goals our society feeds them with and live into ours. Which causes all of us in this equation to consume less and thus take care of God’s good earth more.
It’s all contingent on relationship. Am I willing to take the risk of intentionally lowering my economic class for the sake of sharing life with my poverty-stricken neighbors? And in pursuit of that relationship (where I’m putting my money where my mouth is), am I modeling the “good life” of dependence on God’s providence rather than what capitalism can give me?
This sort of thinking should lead us to the subversive yet constructive sort of thinking you’re doing, Josh. Buying local isn’t really that expensive if a lot of folks are on board…and poverty-stricken folks then don’t have to eat processed food from Timbuktu (they’re already excluded from Whole Foods)…reducing and re-using the stuff we obtain and already have will free up more of our resources for the sake of the poverty-stricken, which raises their standard of living.
If it’s really all related like you’re suggesting Josh (and I believe that with all my heart), we should believe this with all that we are and pursue it.
Sustainable living for all (especially in the spirit of raising the standard of living for the poor) requires those with abundance shedding that abundance to meet the needs of the poor…then giving them a vision of what is “good” in relationship with them.
To offer a bit of concrete grounding for my thought, as I was writing, the example of a follower of Jesus I know named Cliff Kindy came up.
He’s been in Iraq with a group called Christian Peacemaker Teams since before the war started, and he’s an organic farmer and war tax resistor, and he cares about these things enough that every cent he makes over the poverty line is given away so he doesn’t feed the war machine.
As I think about wants/needs, Cliff always comes to mind. He has rejected affluence in favor of relationship and discipleship…think about the resources he’s freed up by choosing to live like this! I know this is more of an extreme case, but it should illustrate for us all that we can free up massive amounts of resources if we’re willing to significantly alter our lives.
Here’s his blog from Iraq:
http://www.cliffiraq.blogspot.com/
An interview with him:
http://belinda_subraman.podomatic.com/entry/2006-11-04T08_10_16-08_00
Very interesting and thought-provoking series, Josh. Take a look-see at my full comments at this entry on my blog.
http://davidcurtin.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/the-church-as-an-industrial-complex/
[...] which these peoples find themselves and help to highlight the need for justice in their lives. What I don’t want to do is bring the God of materialism along with the God of Christianity to the [...]