For decades, any article by Christians about the evils that afflict modern society have included consumerism. For example, A Gospel Coalition author wrote this:
“None of us is a conscious convert to this religion of consumerism. We are discipled in it from childhood. It offers a story that attempts to rival the biblical story. In the consumer story, creation exists for our amusement and satisfaction. The perennial problem isn’t sin but lack. We don’t have enough—enough money, enough devices, enough experiences, enough entertainment. This cultural god has invited all to come and make sacrifices, promising in exchange material prosperity, comfort, and security. And this ‘salvation story’ has deeply shaped business in our world today…You cannot serve God and money (Matt. 6:24).”
How many people would recognize themselves in that description of consumerism? Not many. Would they see family or friends in it? Not likely. I don’t know of many non-Christians who fit that description, let alone Christians. Who do you know lives for nothing more than to acquire more? That depiction of consumerism is an example of the straw man fallacy.
The Bible doesn’t mention consumerism, but it refers to a more realistic equivalent, greed. What is greed? A common definition is the desire for more. Many Christians admire the Amish for their simple lifestyles and anti-consumerist mentality. But the Amish are grossly rich compared to most people in the world today, especially the hundreds of millions living on $3 per day. If we should be satisfied with the bare necessities for life, then anyone with more stuff than the tribes in the Amazon are greedy. After all, a lean-to for shelter, a cloth to wrap around our hips and an occasional meal of monkey meat is all we need.
The Bible makes clear through examples what greed means. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar (Luke 16), and that of the bigger barns (Luke 12), Jesus showed that greedy people refuse to help the poor. James condemned employers who refused to pay workers their wages (James 5). Jesus indicted Pharisees for refusing to care for their elderly parents by dedicating what wealth they might give them to the Temple (Luke 11). John the Baptist told soldiers not to extort money from people or falsely accuse them of crimes and warned tax collectors not to take more than required (Luke 3).
Can we distill a principle about greed from these? How about this: greed is the love of money so strong that one is willing to do something immoral to get or keep it? That’s why Jesus condemned those who served money rather than God (Matthew 6:24). Can Christians be guilty of such greed?
While we can’t live sin free, greed will not characterize the lives of Christians. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus contrasted the lives his disciples would lead with those of unbelievers. The parallel passage in Luke 16 shows Pharisees scoffing at this principle. The verse preceding his statement about serving money warns about envy. Paul defined greed as idolatry (Ephesians 5:5) and wrote that people characterized by a greedy lifestyle will not go to heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Greed like that of the Pharisees is a sure sign you’re not a follower of Jesus.
The issue of greed should cause Christians to ask why are Americans, and the West, so wealthy? But to answer that question, Christians must learn economics. In the 19th century, theologians like Francis Wayland considered economics to be part of natural theology or general revelation and necessary for informed Christians. Wayland was a Baptist pastor and president of Brown University. He wrote one of the best selling economic textbooks of his century, The Elements of Political Economy.
Economic history teaches that Americans are so wealthy because we have implemented Biblical principles of government. The theologians at the University of Salamanca distilled those principles from natural law with Biblical support during the Reformation. Adam Smith called them the principles of natural liberty. Marists referred to them as capitalism.
Those principles made the Dutch Republic first, then England, the U.S. and the rest of the West miraculously wealthy. See this graph for an illustration. In the past generation, slightly freer markets have lifted over 500 million people from starvation in India and China, according to the World Bank.
Still, some will say we should give all our wealth to the poor. That was the model for Europe for 1,500 years. Many of the nobility would give all their wealth, usually land, to the Church when they died or entered a monastery. As a result, the Church before the Reformation owned one-third of the land of Europe, which it used to help the poor. But such enormous charity never lifted anyone out of poverty; charity merely maintains life in poverty. Millions continued to starve to death in frequent famines. Only with the advent of capitalism, which gave the poor the tools to produce more, did poverty begin to decline in the Industrial Revolution.
Those who refuse to learn economics, which include most theologians and philosophers, often believe that the West is rich because the West stole the wealth of poor countries. Some will point out that the West consumes 80% of the world’s production, which is true. But the West produces 80% of the world's output, too.
Economics teaches us that consumption and production are two sides of the same coin. Consumption without production is impossible. Production without consumption results in waste. So, demands that we consume less are also demands that we produce less. And producing less means that we will be poorer.
So where does that leave American Christians, the poorest of whom are among the wealthiest on the planet? Should we give all we have to the poor until we are as poor as Haitians? Should we keep our wealth and live in perpetual joyless guilt? How can we have the joy of Jesus if we are burdened with guilt from so much wealth? Guilt seems to be the only emotion Christians should have according to the many theologians who write about consumerism.
We need a better theology of wealth and The Good of Affluence: Seeking God in a Culture of Wealth by John R. Schneider provides one. He wrote that God created the world in part for us to enjoy. Any wealth acquired honestly is a blessing from God. We shouldn’t despise such a gift. We should give a portion of our wealth to the poor, but we should never assume we can eliminate poverty through charity; that would be the sin of pride. Nor should we attempt to eliminate poverty by impoverishing ourselves.
Solomon offered practical advice for wealthy Christians in Ecclesiastes:
“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God . . .” (2:24–26).
“There is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man . . .” (3:12–15)
“Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him . . .” (5:18–20)
“I commend joy, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.” (8:15)
“Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do . . .” (9:7–10)
“If a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. . . . Rejoice, O young man . . .” (11:8–12:7)
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