2013 SOMA SCHOOL PHOENIX – How does the Biblical story shape a contrast community in a consumer culture? | Rev. Dr. Michael W. Goheen
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Mike Goheen | Saturday, November 10
Romans 1:16-32 - How Does the Biblical Story Shape a Contrast Community in a Consumer Culture?
Why do we need to know, understand, and live the Biblical story?
- We're going to live out of some story and we need to decide if the Bible contains the true one.
- The Bible as one story will shape our understanding of who God is and why He is revealed to us in Jesus.
- The Bible as one story will help us understand who we are as God's family and what we need to do to join His mission.
- If we don't understand the Biblical story, we are most likely to be shaped by and live out of the cultural default.
What is the cultural default story of the 21st century Western American Christian? As God's church, we need to not only listen to our fellow followers of Jesus across the world today, we also need to listen to the family of God who has lived hundreds to thousands of years before us. With this in mind, our weaknesses as 21st century Western Christians include:
- We're too rationalistic. We often value reason more than faith.
- We're too individualistic. We often value self more than community.
- We're too dualistic. We often separate the "sacred" from the "secular."
- We're too spiritualistic. We often talk about leaving for heaven instead of the kingdom coming to earth.
Collectively, these are not only the criticisms of the current Western church from the church of the past, but also Asian, Hispanic, and African brothers and sisters of the church today. When they read the Bible, they see community, that the body and material things do matter, that we are supposed to be with and care for the poor, and that the kingdom is coming to earth. We are often too blind to how we are impacted by the dominant society we live in.
Humanity was never meant to be a community of volunteering individuals, nor especially the church. But we see this approach predominantly in the West. Compare how a Westerner bathes her child versus how a Japanese mother bathes her child. A Western mother separates the baby as an individual and cleans the baby in the tub whereas the Japanese mother lies down, places the child on her, brings the baby into the water with her and washes together. Our individualistic approach to life begins very early. This spreads into our faith as well. Western Christians not only focus on reading the Bible as individuals, they read the Bible individualistically. The "you" in the New Testament is almost always the "you all" of the community. Christians are actually being de-Christianized by the individualistic and consumer-oriented institutions of Western culture without even realizing it.
"Every style of culture is in turn related to the religious question of how people view the ultimate meaning of their life and society" (Bob Goudzwaard). Consumerism planted its seeds in the 18th century Enlightenment. The Enlightenment began to focus on progress, paradise images, and material prosperity reached by scientific reason and translated into advanced technology. Society became reorganized according to reason and rational organization of economic life for more growth. Mercier de la Riviere wrote in 1767, "The greatest happiness possible for us consists in the greatest possible abundance of objects suitable for our enjoyment and in the greatest liberty to profit by them." This led to the Industrial Revolution which reshaped all of Western life around economic growth, which in turn led to the growth of the consumer society in the 20th century which produced a gap between production and consumption and then pumped in advertising to increase consumption along with planned obsolescence (i.e. designing stuff to break down or be unusable quickly) and perceived obsolescence (i.e. instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary). Now it seems we have a deification of dissatisfaction as a society. "Fulfillment and lasting satisfaction are forever just out of reach ... Insatiability itself is as old as humanity, or at least the fall of humanity. What is unique to modern consumerism is the idealization and constant encouragement of insatiability – the deification of dissatisfaction" (Rodney Clapp). "We cannot fully appreciate the depths of materialism unless we understand how economic behavior supplies us with meaning, purpose, and a sense of the sacred order" (Robert Wuthnow). "Consumerism appears to have become part and parcel of the very fabric of modern life ... And the parallel with religion is not an accidental one. Consumerism ... is arguably the religion of the late twentieth century" (Steven Miles).
What is the ultimate meaning of our culture – the 21st Century West?
Can we see how often we find our sense of meaning and worth in economic growth, material prosperity, consumption of goods, and individual experiences? And then can we be honest with ourselves and observe how much of this story has shaped our view of God's story? And if this predominant "Western cultural religion" has infiltrated the Western 21st century church to be too rationalistic, individualistic, dualistic, and more often than not consumer-oriented, what then does the church community in a consumer culture need to be like to declare and display the gospel according to Scripture?
As Paul writes in Romans 1, the gospel is the power of God for salvation that enables us to turn from our worship and service to created things and turn back to the Creator who gave us life and His creation to subdue and cultivate for His glory and the good of others. We are not to be subdued by the created things. We do not want to be given over to the creation of wealth and a consumer society with all of its temporary joys and growing ills. And we don't want to mix the gospel with it, turning faith in Jesus into faith in something else where He gets combined with the culture.
What does a contrast community look like in a consumer culture?
For the family of God to be a witness to the gospel of Jesus as a contrast community in a consumer culture, by the Spirit, we can and need to be a:
- A community of contentment in a world of insatiable desire, greed, and envy
- A community of patience, self-control, and rest in a world of instant gratification
- A community of gentleness and kindness in a world whose ethos is becoming more increasingly violent, coarse, sex-saturated, and extreme to excite jaded and overloaded consumers
- A community of joy and thankfulness in a world of dissatisfaction
- A community of accountability and mutual sharing and appreciation in a world of individual autonomy and self-fulfillment
- A community of selflessness and sacrificial service in a world of selfishness, narcissism, and entitlement
- A community of stewardship in a world of waste
We also need to remember that when we humbly challenge the idols of a culture and of individual people within and outside of the church in their idolatry, we will suffer. But according to Scripture, the suffering that comes with challenging those idols for the glory of Jesus is a good thing for us – His church individually and collectively – and for those He calls us to share His gospel with. All of the New Testament tells us that when we begin to challenge the world system, we will suffer for Jesus. The question we have to ask is "Is it worth the sacrifice for Him and others?" and "Do we really want to become a glimpse of His new creation by the power of His resurrection?"
"If the gospel is to challenge the public life of our society, if Christians are to occupy the 'high ground' which they vacated in the noon time of 'modernity,' it will not be by forming a Christian political party, or by aggressive propaganda campaigns. Once again it has to be said that there can be no going back to the 'Constantinian' era. It will only be by movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. But that will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument, and foretaste of God's redeeming grace for the whole life of society." – Lesslie Newbigin (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society)
Next post: Soma School Notes 5 | What is a Missional Community and How Can a Church Be a Network of Missional Communities?
– Sully
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