Down, Down I Go, Where This Stop, God Only Knows.

I think that’s a limerick. Who knows though.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about just how much my life has changed in a few short years. I like to think most of it’s for the better, but I suppose it’s open to interpretation by those on the outside.

I hate even talking about this stuff sometimes because it either makes me seem whiny and nihilistic or that I’m just to focused on the negatives and sound like an ass. I promise you I’ve attempted to be more generous in my approach and instead of using the blogging medium to beat people over the head with it, to instead share personal stories and struggles as a way to inspire. I’m not sure if the latter is any better than just being negative all the time as the blogosphere has certain limitations with inter-personal relationship, which is really the only true and lasting way to effect change. That is to say it begins personally and relationally.

So just know that when I share my thoughts on this, I’m not accusing anyone but me. My accusations and provocative words (although they are more teeth than bite) begin and end with me. Please don’t take it as me sitting on a high horse like a pompous ass. I’m no prophet. Although I play one on TV.

But like I said . . . I’ve been thinking about where I’ve come from. Whether I’ve devolved into this or evolved into this is something I’m still yet unsure of. But all I know is that over the last couple of years my life has taken on more and more of a downward trajectory. And honestly, that scares me sometimes. It’s very unsettling. To go from where I was 3 or 4 years ago when nothing bothered me to being where I am today where everything bothers me . . . well, needless to say it’s worrisome to me. Because as I follow Jesus further and further down this sketchy little narrow road, it seems like more and more is asked of me. Or perhaps not asked, but at least presented to me.

I remember even a year ago, sitting outside on our deck wondering when exactly I’d get off this downward elevator down the rabbit hole and when it would all stop and I would just settle in somewhere. I remember thinking then, where am I not willing to go today that I might be willing to go a year from now. It seems like every week, every month, every year . . . I find myself further and further down this damn rabbit hole. Chasing after some wild vision of Jesus and a kingdom.

I don’t know. I suppose like with everything I’m taking it way more seriously than I need to. Which I’m sure gives the appearance of bipolar or depression. Although I’m almost sure that isn’t the case.    But I just know that I keep going further and further downward. Now I know this talk of “downward mobility” or “opting out” is ripe with all kinds of problems for people who aren’t firmly situated in affluence. To talk about downward mobility with someone who is already down in poverty sounds foolish. There aspirations are firmly rooted in moving up the social and economic ladder. For me to talk about my need to move down, no doubt seems like a spoiled yuppie trying to earn some street cred. I get that. I really do. But I wonder what trajectory the christian life is to have? Downward or upward?

I think of some of my house church friends, Britt, the Cash Money’s, the D10s, and others who have chosen to live intentionally with each other. Sharing a house, living space, and food. This is a downward trajectory by almost all standards.

I think of friends who have gone off to live or travel in other countries, seeking to experience life in a whole different realm. This is a downward trajectory by almost all standards.

I know I probably tend to overemphasize the economic and political stuff way too much. But I think there is something to be said that when you’re living the way of Jesus and practicing the kingdom of God where you are, that the shape and tone of your life inevitably begins to take on a more downward focus.

Meaning you give away more of your time and money to help others. You think creatively about how to best steward your resources. You begin to imagine new possibilities for how you live your life. You rent a house together and do life as family.

To put a really sharp point on it, I just don’t think I can be a follower of Jesus and continue in the status quo. Or worse yet, continue to move up the ladder. I know you can probably find examples in the story of God. And you can probably even convince me that you’re right with a good enough argument. And I’m not trying to demonize those who are moving up the social and economic ladders. But at some point . . . less has to become more. I know Joseph lived as royalty in Egypt’s palaces but he didn’t sit comfortably in his affluence. And even further, he didn’t choose that way of life. The king did.

Long story short, my point is that it scares the hell out of me what my life is going to look like a year from now. 10 years from now. 25 years from now. What am I saying to myself today that I’ll never change or that I “won’t go that far” only to eventually end up there? How deep is this freaking hole?

I have a hunch that we’re stumbling down the right path. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it. But it doesn’t make it any less scary. Or any less unsettling. I’ll admit, there are days when I long for the status quo. There are days when I look at our 1500 sq. feet, 3 bedroom, 2 bath house and realize that this is as good as it is ever going to get and I can be tempted to be envious.

Envious of safety . . . comfort . . . stability . . . security . . . freedom. I can see why moving further and further up the ladder becomes an enticing thing when you can solidify these things more. But there has to be a better way. It gives me great hope that we’re not the only ones.

The Consumptive Church: The Non-List List.

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, Appeasing The White Man’s Guilt

In the not too distant past I began working through some of my thoughts on consumption and how consumption fit into the larger role of the church. My main premise from the beginning has been that the community of God at it’s very nature is antithetical to the hyper-consumption that we have in our society today. It’s been a while since I posted. Due to the holidays (ironic that the most consumptive season of the year distracted my attention) and a busy work schedule since I’ve been back, I haven’t had time to develop my closing thoughts. Plus, I also have a short attention span and am trying to be more disciplined about using the computer less. All of this is a recipe for a close to a month pause between my last post and this one. But here’s to dramatic pauses.

Now that I’m done with my usual lengthy preface and done with the critique (even though critique is construction), I thought I’d share some of the solutions that I envision. These solutions may appear idealistic and simple, but I honestly think the easiest step to reverse our current situation is as simple as not consuming. And my fear is not that the problems are complex and systemic, but that we lack the audacity to live simply and the imagination to dream up alternative solutions.

So here’s my non-list list. It’s more personal in nature than comprehensive. In order to properly critique the consumptive patterns we are each going to have to practice simplicity as individuals before we affect change globally.

My Short List:

- Move from the transient and disposable to the lasting and good. To often we buy things that aren’t high quality and inherently good. We buy knock-offs, bad art, and cheap plastic. We need to rediscover the values of good & beauty in contrast to the disposable and transient so that when we do buy, we buy things that are lasting and are consistently and intrinsically valuable. As opposed to things that receive their value from transient culture and have very short shelf lives. We even need to rethink how we have come to arrive at our decisions about value.

- Embrace the community of God as the family of God. To often we attend church and our contact with other Christians out of proximity and location rather than it being because of our deep commitment to our well-being. Most Christians only see other church members on the days that they are at church. Church then becomes an event. But if we see the community of God as the family of God, then we will be connected by more than proximity and location, but by our deep love and genuine concern for the rest of our family. Making ourselves aware of the real needs of our family, thus making it easier to respond naturally and regularly.

- Re-evaluate and take seriously our stewardship of resources. To often we externalize the money coming into the church and forget that people are sacrificing and giving of their hard earned money. Where I used to work (a church) and where Anna used to work (a denominational office) we must have thought it grew on trees. It was like free money. If we wanted a new computer or to go to a conference or a meal, we just used the free money. We need to remember that it’s not our money. And to think twice about the value of a dollar here for our “accessories” and the value of a dollar to a family or nation with nothing.

- Live in close proximity and sensitivity to the other. To often we are not only unaware of other people, we blindly ignore them, not to mention indifferent. But when we live close to those who are different than us, we are able to see the real needs that other people have. It makes it harder to justify our exorbitant wants.

- Consume less. The answer isn’t cloth shopping bags. The answer isn’t recycling. The answer isn’t organic foods. These all have their proper place. The real answer is to simply consume less stuff. We should use what we need instead of having 3 of everything in 3 different colors.

What is on your list? What would you add? What is helpful to you?

Listening: Curious George Soundtrack by Jack Johnson

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

The Consumptive Church: The Medium Is The Message.

The Context For My Starting Point, Different Starting Points, The Religious Industrial Complex, Opium & 3 Legged Chairs, The Model Speaks Volumes

Yesterday, Derek had a great post about how the early church’s model was anti-consumptive in nature. Which led me to take a little rabbit trail in my thinking about Marshall McLuhan’s seminal essay The Medium Is The Message.

While McLuhan was only discussing the changing mediums in technology . . . this idea that there is more to the message than just the message is a formative thought. To assert that there is more to the message than just words given to an audience is huge.

As we explore this some more from a theological posture, we begin to see that all of life is theology, and not just the words that we use to describe it. Tony Jones has spoken of this idea in multiple places by saying that everything that we do and how we do it are just as theological as our doctrines and treatises. That our communities, architecture, spending patterns, meals, and politics, to name a few, are every bit as theological as our views on Jesus, the Trinity, salvation, the church, etc.

How we organize as a community . . . how we spend our money . . . how and where we live . . . all of these things are theological acts. And speak a great deal of how we view ourselves in relationship to God and to our world.

It is in this vein that I’m beginning to see things afresh.

If the medium is the message (as McLuhan proposes) and everything is theological (as Tony proposes) then perhaps we have a lot of rethinking to do.

In that light, what does meeting in a warehouse as a megachurch say about how we view God and people? Could the “theology” be that we see people as numbers and the church as dispenser of goods like the other warehouses (Wal-Mart, BestBuy, Costco)? Success is bottom-lines and the moving of mass produced products as quickly and as profitably as possible?

In that light, what does state of the art sound and lighting say about how we view God and people? Could the “theology” be that we believe God needs a show and the audience needs to be entertained? That it’s less about the long-slow process of becoming like Christ and more about the big, marketed “WOW” factor?

In that light, what does sitting in rows upon rows of lined chairs say about how we view God and people? Could the “theology” be that we believe the pastor is the dispenser of knowledge and the audience is for the simpletons who are supposed to “learn” knowledge every week as opposed to practicing wisdom? That sermons are more about passing information in lecture format from point A to point B as opposed to being conversational, relaxed, and authentic.

In that light, what does shopping and eating at franchises say about how we view God and people? Could the “theology” be that we care more about fueling up for the next few hours as opposed to eating healthy and holistically? That it’s more important for us to look stylish and trendy (and to do so cheaply) even if it means that the people who make the clothes we wear couldn’t afford them themselves and work 18 hour days to do so?

These are just a few rather obvious examples. But I could do this all day. The point is not to create some sort of guilt factor. But rather to point out the underlying theology that makes up each of our decisions. Everything we do, in one form or another, is directly related to how we view God and how we view the world.

I’m afraid that for so much of conventional christianity, the consumptive patterns go unchallenged and even unnoticed because there is such a huge disconnect between what we do and what we believe about God.

I’m not sure our lives are full of so much blatant disregard for God and his world as they are just blind to the reality that everything is theological, that everything is spiritual.

What makes it worse, is that this blind indifference plays a unique roll in reinforcing the same consumptive patterns that the larger culture practices.

Derek shared an excellent insight on this when he writes,

There’s also an emphasis in the New Testament on contentment. This drives right at the heart of consumption. Of course, you have to eat, you need a place to sleep, etc. There’s a basic level of consumption that we require. But the desire for consumption far beyond that is rooted in our nature of discontent – that no matter where we are at in life, or what we have, we always desire the next thing, the better thing, the bigger thing.

At the root of our problem is not our consumptive practices. But the lack of contentment that feeds them. And our discontent leads us to live in a culture that creates waste with temporary fads and transient products.

To this thought, Wess Daniels explains (in the comments of The R-I-C) that the logical outcome of a lack of contentment is a culture of waste.

Industrialization and modernity more generally, as they are built on capitalism, and in the business of creating and hoarding excess. How do we handle the excessive waste produced by our various industries? While consumerism is the driving force of what makes our country stay afloat, what the country is floating on is a huge trash heap. In order for capitalism to work, things have to be made and for things to be made energy and material are used and used up (excess), on the opposite side is the necessity for our televisions to stop working, cars to break down, PC’s to meltdown, and even clothes to fall apart. We need the products (that when made created so much waste) to themselves become waste. Now with that framework – think about what you said of the church. We continue to create a sub-culture of waste (books, music, waste) because we work off the same principles of modernity. It is no surprise then that the church, and the Christians within it have homes filled with excess. As one of your readers pointed out, how many of us will spend hundreds of dollars on excess/waste for Christmas? Until we practice counter-consumerism can we become a community non-excess – or better yet a community that lives “give us this day, the bread we need” as we see Jesus instruct in his disciple-forming (Lord’s) Prayer.

In many ways this is why the christian culture is just as full of waste as the larger culture. The music is transient and has very little lasting power or is inherently good as a work of art. The architecture is transient and has very little lasting power or is inherently good as a work of art. The sermons are transient and have very little lasting power or are inherently good as a work of arts.

Outside of guys like Billy Graham and some of the contributions from the more academic theologians, I’m not sure what of value and lasting worth has come out of the conventional model of church over the last 50 years. The best art we can muster is Thomas Kincaide. The best sermons that we can come up with our self-help lessons about how to have better marriages, finances, and kids. The best music (radio & worship) that we can create is a cheap knock-off of dated, candy-coated pop love songs.

The last 50 years of christianity has created a big pile of waste. Very little that will be remembered 500 years from now. Very little that will last and stand the test of time.

If the medium is the message, our message is dated, transient, temporal, plastic, shallow, and a knock-off of the larger culture.

Listening: The Ortolan by The Deadly Syndrome