The dominant worldview of most North Americans is now “Consumerism”. Three central forces of Consumerism are commodification, alienation, and branding. This essay reflects on the intersection of these forces with the Christian faith, claiming that it can have a powerful and perverse effect on our view of God, Scripture, and the mission of the church. Commodification causes us to believe that God has no inherent value apart from his ability to satisfy our desires. Alienation permits us to ignore the context of Scripture and instead allow our faith to be defined by personal experience. And branding pushes Christian identity away from character transformation in favor of superficiality.
What does the Bible say about today’s housing crisis? Land, Limits and Jubilee Hospitality
From beginning to end, Scripture speaks of land and a place to dwell. The first sins resulted in a marred land. Joshua is about equally dividing the land. Leviticus and Deuteronomy reveal the rhythm of Sabbath and Jubilee Laws—a plan to prevent poverty. The prophets often spoke of housing disparities as symbols of injustice as they warned Israel that it would lose its promised land if the Sabbath laws were not obeyed; thus Israel grieves over its loss of land in Lamentations. Jesus entered history proclaiming Jubilee for those who would believe on Him. The early Church practiced a form of communal life, selling land and homes so that “there was no one poor among them.” Jill Shook’s cultural reflection article shows how these biblical foundations may help point us toward solutions to the present housing crisis. The article substantiates its claims with inspiring examples of how churches and cities are currently applying biblical principles of justice and Jubilee to preserve and create affordable housing.
“Ubuntu” and Mother’s Old Black Bible
In his essay, Amon Munyaneza addresses the individualism and self-interest that pervade contemporary Western and African society. He contrasts the African term Ubuntu, which signifies the interrelatedness of personhood, with the dehumanization and eventual conflict brought on by so-called ‘enlightened’ principles of individualism and self-interest that have been embedded in the modern cultural marketplace. Munyaneza notes that self-interest and the exaltation of ‘choosing for one’s self’ has even infiltrated the church—to the point where churches often resemble supermarkets as much as they do places of worship in their attempts to offer services and products to attract potential customers/worshippers. In contrast, Munyaneza cites the example of his own mother and the truth he learned from countless times reading to her from her ‘old black Bible’. Though illiterate, she understood the truth God communicates though the Bible, the truth of Ubuntu, that our personhood, our humanity, is intimately bound up in our relationships with one another. Munyaneza states his case in conclusion: “…life with one another is more important than our individual or group preferences. Choosing the former over the latter is literally a matter of spiritual life and death.”
I’m Glad My Brother Died
Charlotte Graham begins her essay confessing that she is glad her brother died as an infant. She explains that the place (Laurel, Mississippi) and context (the Civil Rights era) within which she and her family lived, promised nothing but hardship, humiliation, and hatred for blacks like her. She recounts humiliations suffered both by her father and herself, which taught her to devalue herself in order to succeed in newly integrated (yet still prejudiced) schools. Graham admits that she grew to hate whites for driving her to such self-degradation. She traces her transformation from nominal, to genuine, Christian faith through recounting later interactions with people who showed her the love of Christ: including two white teachers in junior college who cared for her as a person and encouraged her talents, as well as Dr. John Perkins, who showed her the meaning of reconciliation through his own ministry. Graham concludes with a brief commentary on Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign and the light it shed on America’s cultural transformation since her childhood. Though Graham maintains her opening confession regarding her brother’s premature death, she adds in her conclusion the wish that her father were alive to witness how much things have changed.