Christ
and Consumerism: A Critical Analysis of the Spirit of the Age
(eds) C. Bartholomew & T. Moritz, Paternoster
Press, 2000, ISBN 0-85364-987-1
Reviewed by Robin
Parry
This wide-ranging
collection of essays is a serious attempt to give a Christian analysis of
consumer culture. Craig Bartholomew helpfully sets the backdrop to the
discussion by charting the rise and characteristics of consumerism. Colin
Greene considers models from church history for the interaction of church and
culture (church resistant to culture, church married to culture, church
capitulated to culture) and argues for the need to have a prophetic engagement
with culture and to recover scripture by seeing ourselves as participants in
its story which stretches from creation to redemption.
Gordon McConville sets out Old Testament perspectives on wealth
and concludes that material wealth (broadly defined) is a good given by God but
that God sets out clear ethical parameters within which it may be enjoyed and
outside of which an idol is formed. Thorsten Moritz,
in what was for me the most stimulating essay in the volume, considers how NT
texts address the consumer society. Moritz has written an essay that is a very
model of wise interpretational methods in applying the Bible to our context and
the challenge of the NT to consumerism is clear.
Craig Bartholomew
then draws attention to a recent danger facing the church. We desire to
critique our culture from the perspective of a biblical worldview but there are
streams within the academy that want to treat the Bible as simply another
product to be consumed, thus pulling its prophetic teeth. Alan Storkey’s analysis begins in the mode of economic theory
and then moves into a very powerful prophetic critique of consumerism. Good
stuff.
Gordon Wenham argues
that modern western societies have increasing tendencies to treat moral issues
in a consumerist way. His case studies are Sunday observance, marriage,
reproductive technologies, abortion and euthanasia. His message is that
Christians must not capitulate to consumerist ethics. Nigel Scotland’s essay is
a fascinating attempt to find a middle way between those who see any employment
of ‘consumerist’ tactics in the church as virtual apostasy and those who
uncritically employ marketing methods.
Finally Graham Cray
asks whether the Toronto Blessing is the product of a consumer culture. The
answer, he thinks, is no.
The organization of this
book is very helpful with some orientation, followed by biblical foundations,
followed by broader issues. The essays were all very readable and constructive
and the cover itself is worth the price of the book. Zak Benjamin and Gert Swart did one fantastic cover. Did the book achieve
its aim of contributing to the ongoing gospel task of discerning and
prophetically engaging the currents in Western culture? Oh yes.
(Robin Parry lives in
Published in The
Big Picture, Volume 2 Issue 2, page 27-28