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Throughout the history of the Christian Church, theologians have sought to find ways to express the appropriate relationship between the Christian community and the culture in which it lives. In the New Testament, the "world" is seen primarily in negative terms: as the antithesis of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, James writes, "whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." Paul writes in Romans that we should "not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewal of your minds." We Christians are called to live "in" the world, but not "of the world."
Some years ago, Richard Niebuhr wrote a popular book entitled, Christ and Culture in which he described five ways various Christian traditions have related to the world or the culture in which they live. According to his analysis, we reformed Christians are in the category of "Christ transforming culture," for we have traditionally saw our mission, at least in part, as one of striving to transform the culture in which we live to more closely conform to our vision of what God intended the world and our life together to be.
In more recent years, Stanley Howerwas, Professor of Ethics at Duke Divinity School, has written a book entitled, Resident Aliens. He argues that the Christian community is a "resident" in this culture - we live here - but like national aliens or immigrants, in a sense we don't belong here. This is not our home. We are uncomfortable here since we have a different set of values than our culture and march to a different drummer. Rather than trying to transform our culture, we Christians should live different lives than those around us, and witness to an alternative life-style, a counter-cultural set of values.
I want to use yet another way of trying to describe this relationship between the Christian community and the culture in which we live, a way suggested by some contemporary theologians. Over the past several years, we have heard a lot in our seminaries about the value of "narrative theology" and "narrative preaching." I want to use that narrative, story-telling notion as a way to talk about stewardship. I want to suggest that there are two stories that compete for our allegiance and as Christians we live in the tension between the two. On the one hand, there is the powerful story of our culture, and on the other hand, there is the story of the Gospel. We are pulled in two different directions, haunted by two different versions of life, two different ways of living. And I further want to suggest that our stewardship is a test, an indication of which story has prominence in our lives, which version of life is the controlling one. That's my theme in these three presentations.
The Story of our Culture
The culture story that competes for our attention is told and lived in the modern world. It is the story and loyalty of what I would call the Money Story of hard work, of competence, of merit, of self-sufficiency, of radical individualism, radical freedom and power. The sign of that story is MORE, and its motto is "more is always better" - more goods, more influence, more clothes, more stock, more power, more trips to Europe, more capital gains, more money, more cars, bigger houses - "we want more!" It's a story that insists that no matter how much one has, it is not yet enough for our happiness and safety and security, but "more" will make us so much happier and more secure.
It's an assumption deeply rooted within each of us as individuals; it's part of our psyche. Most of us surely believe that we would be better off in life if we only had a little more. Surveys show that except for the very highest levels of income, we all share the belief that life for us would be so much better and fuller; we would be so much happier, so many of our problems would be solved IF we only had about 25 percent more income. A question was asked in a national research survey, "What would improve your quality of life?" and the most frequent response was "more money." Let's be honest about it: who of us wouldn't like a little more? Who of us would refuse a raise in salary or a little more in that pension check? "More is always better."
College students have increasingly bought into that story. In a survey of entering college students, the question was asked, "why are you going to college?" Those who answered "to make more money" rose from 50 percent in 1971 to nearly 75 percent in 1998. And the proportion of those considering it "very essential" that they become "well off financially" rose from 39 percent in 1970 to 74 percent in 1998. Those proportions virtually flip-flopped with those who considered it very important to develop a "meaningful philosophy of life." Materialism was up; spirituality down. College students today want to make money and make lots of it. A Duke University professor asked his students what they wanted out of life, and he reported, "With few exceptions, what they wanted fell into three categories: money, power and things — very big things, including vacation homes, expensive foreign automobiles, yachts and even airplanes. Their request to faculty was: "Teach us to be moneymaking machines." Little else mattered he reported, including concerns for one's family, spirituality, employees or ethics or social responsibility. It is obvious that more and more young people today have adopted the story of the culture, the money story, that more is always better.
Of course, that motto, that insatiable desire for more is at the heart of the American economic credo; its deeply rooted in our cultural mind-set; it's the basis of capitalism and its what makes our economic system run. In some ways, we have seen continued economic growth through this desire for more to be the messiah that would help solve all our social problems, including poverty and homelessness and unemployment. Indeed, if all us suddenly decided that we didn't need "more," our economy would stumble and a severe recession or even depression would result with unemployment rolls and homelessness and poverty skyrocketing. But, of course, there is not much danger in that, for that story has a tight grip on all of us.
It is, of course, the story of advertising that bombards us with that message hundreds of times every day with attractive seductions. Why do companies spend so much money advertising their products? Simply because it sells; it creates a need and a desire within us to buy their products with the promised assurance that we'll be more beautiful, more sexy, more successful, more contented, more whatever you want, and a whole lot happier.
Indeed, it seems that our cultural story has been adopted by the whole world today as we have moved toward a global market economy. All but a few countries today have adopted our free market system, however modified, in their search for a higher standard of living. Experience has clearly shown that the alternatives - centrally planned economies - have not worked very well. Capitalism has won; socialism has lost.
Now, what has been the result of this cultural story, this money story, this "more is better" story? Let's be honest: in many ways it has been quite positive. We enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world. Although population has doubled since World War II, food production has tripled and food is cheaper than ever before. Welfare rolls have been shrinking and joblessness remains relatively low in spite of our current recession. Would any of us really wish to have braved family life of a century ago when we were like a Third World country today? Without indoor plumbing? With less electricity generated each year than we now consume in a day? When trivial infections might take a life? When the life expectancy was only 47 years? When children were exploited, comprising, for instance, the workers in southern textile mills? When we had no social security system or safety net for the poor? When there were very limited educational opportunities? However great our present problems, the past is no golden age to which we would willingly return if only we could. Yesterday was not the best of times, in many ways, today is, thanks largely to this money story, this "more is better" credo, this cultural story.
Furthermore, this cultural story has helped create incredible wealth going into foundations and charities and churches and seminaries and colleges and hospitals and homes for children and the elderly and countless other worthy causes that we applaud. Yes, the cultural story has had some very positive results.
But there is another side to this story - a negative side. David Myers, professor at Hope College in Michigan, has written a provocative book entitled, The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty. He points out that in the last 40 years as we have experienced unprecedented material prosperity, the divorce rate has doubled, teen suicide rate has tripled, recorded violent crime rate has quadrupled, prison rates have quintupled, the percentage of babies born to unmarried parents has (excuse the pun) sextupled, cohabitation for adults has increased sevenfold, and the individual emotional depression rate has increased ten times. In a time of unprecedented material prosperity, one out of six children live below the poverty line, the highest percentage rate of all the other industrial countries, and 11 million are without health insurance. The Index of National Civic Health has plunged downward since 1960. Bertrand Russell once said that the mark of a civilized human is the capacity to read a column of numbers and weep. Can we weep for all the crushed lives behind those numbers? It is hard to argue with Al Gore when he said, "The accumulation of material goods is at an all-time high, but so is the number of people who feel an emptiness in their lives." One economist wrote that Americans are spending more hours at work, fewer hours sleeping and fewer hours with friends and families. "Traffic has grown considerably more congested, saving rates have fallen precipitously; personal bankruptcy filings are at an all-time high; and there is at least a wide spread perception that employment security has fallen sharply."
Ted Halstead, in a recent issue of Atlantic Monthly, wrote this: "Like the Roman god, Janus, America has two faces. Despite being the richest nation on the planet, we suffer from higher rates of poverty, infant mortality, (and) homicide and HIV infections than other advanced democracies. We have far more uninsured citizens and a lower life expectancy. We have the highest rates of teen pregnancy and among the highest proportion of single parents, and Americans have the least amount of free time to spend with their children. Indeed, the average American works nine more weeks each year than the average European. Our performance on many social indicators is so poor, in fact, that an outsider looking at these numbers alone might conclude that we were a developing country."
In addition to all that, this Culture Story has dramatically widened the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor. We used to take pride in our rather egalitarian society in America, but we now have the largest income inequality gap in the past fifty years, and the largest disparities in income and wealth of any industrial country in the world. Andrew Tobias recently wrote in Parade Magazine that "in 1980, the typical CEO was paid 42 times as much as his/(her) average worker; in 1990, it was 85 times as much; in 2000, it was 531 times. In 2001, corporate profits fell 35 percent, but the median CEO saw his/(her) compensation rise 7percent." In response to the gross disparities between CEO salaries and those of the average worker, John Leon wrote in U.S. News and World Report: "These are combustible numbers. How long can any sane society tolerate an ever widening gap between the average worker and a new, self-enhancing class of ultra-wealthy managers?" Kevin Phillips, a Republican, in his recent book, Wealth and Democracy, worries about the impact of such large concentrations of wealth on our democracy and our democratic institutions. He is not alone in that worry.
Now, how is it that things could have gone so well materially for so many of us in the past forty years and so poorly socially for so many others? How do you explain this American paradox: material prosperity in an age of spiritual hunger. Myer argues that part of the explanation lies in the radical individualism that is at the heart of our culture and economic credo. The very thing that has helped produce material prosperity has also helped produce social decline. What is it? We hear the mantras almost every day: "Do your own thing. Seek your own bliss. Challenge authority. If it feels good, do it. Shun conformity. Don't force your values on others. Assert your personal rights. Cut taxes and spending for social needs and increase executive pay. Be self-sufficient. Look out for number one. Expect others likewise to look out for themselves and make it on their own." That celebration of personal liberty and radical individualism lies at the heart of the old American dream. It drives our free market system. Yet, we pay a price: a social recession that imperils children, corrodes civility and diminishes happiness. When individualism is taken to an extreme, individuals become its ironic casualties.
And that often includes individuals who have slavishly followed the cultural story and become wealthy. Yes, the cultural story has the power to improve our material standard of living, but it also has the power to cheapen and numb our daily existence, and the outcome of this story, this way of living, is often increased anxiety and worry, restlessness and fatigue, stress and hurry - with two income providers in the family working long hours and often neglecting their children. It often culminates in greed and self-centeredness and isolation and sometimes in meanness of spirit. And that greed, that "infectious greed" as Alan Greenspan called it, that has infected American business leads to what happened to Enron, World Com, Arthur Andersen and the list goes on.
In a recent book that originated from a television show, the authors suggest that most of us in America have been infected with a virus they call, Affluenza, the title of the book. They define this disease as a "painful, contagious, socially-transmitted combination of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more." It's a disease that has resulted in dangerously threatening our global environment, with depleted ozone layers, toxic waste dumps, polluted lakes and streams, catastrophic oil spills, and the list goes on. It's a disease that has developed an addiction to oil, an addiction that we must satisfy.
Does "more" things bring greater happiness? Does money buy happiness? Most of us believe it would. In poor countries, it does. But in affluent countries, where nearly everyone can afford life's necessities, increasing affluence matters surprising little. One study showed that the correlation between income and happiness is virtually negligible. Yes, happiness is lower among the very poor, but once comfortable, more money often provides diminishing returns. The second piece of pie, or the second $50,000, never tastes as good as the first. Studies have consistently shown that "people who go to work in overalls .. .are just as happy, on the average, as those in suits." Someone once told me that "if you don't think money buys happiness, you don't know where to shop." Yes, buying something new - a car, a dress, whatever - does provide an immediate surge of happiness, but you know and I know that it soon ebbs and disappears, and we need something more to maintain it. Are we now happier than we were 40 years ago? We are not. Since 1957, after forty years of incredible material prosperity with bigger salaries and all the rest, the number of people that reported they were "very happy" in life has declined from 35 percent to 30 percent. And the number of people who said they were "pretty well satisfied" with their financial situation in life dropped from 42 percent to 30 percent. We are twice as rich than 40 years ago and less happy, less satisfied.
Isaiah asked the critical question long ago: "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" I believe Jesus' response to the cultural story, the money story, the "more is better story" came in his response to the rich man who wanted to build more and bigger and better barns. You remember what he said: "You fool!" Is that what he would say to us today?
Yes, in my best moments I know that and so do you. But still, I assume you are like me: you know the seductive power and attractiveness of that cultural story, and it's hard to resist it. In all honesty before God, we need to acknowledge that most of us live at least some of the time, and some of us live most of the time drawn to it, seduced by it, and too much of our lives are centered around it.
But as Christians we know about and take quite seriously another story, a quite different story, the Gospel story. And that's the subject of my next address.
[See Oldenburg's next sermon in this series] |
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