Lent: Giving Up Consumerism

If you keep up on my wife’s blog then you know that we’ve chosen to not spend money for the Lent season this year. Check out her posts for all the “hows” and to get the details on the boundaries we’ve set up. (Yes, we’re still buying food and gas.)

In our journey over the past year or so, our eyes have been opened to how deep consumerism and consumption runs in our culture. And we’ve become aware of what this is doing to people in other parts of the world. Facts like these have made us increasingly uncomfortable with the average American lifestyle:

• The average U.S. person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago.
• In the U.S., we spend 3–4 times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in Europe do.
• Average U.S. house size has doubled since the 1970s.
• Each person in the United States makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day. That is twice what we each made thirty years ago.
• We [The U.S.] has 5% of the world’s population but we’re consuming 30% of the world’s resources and creating 30% of the world’s waste.
  [taken from The Story of Stuff- a short film you should watch]

All that, not to mention the fact that when our government wants to “stimulate the economy” they send us all checks and encourage us to buy stuff. And after September 11, one of the worst tragedies in our nations history, our President tells us to get back to life as usual by shopping. By consuming. (Which isn’t really a knock on Bush. I think any president would have done that.) This runs very deep in our American identity.

So out of a desire to remove ourselves from finding our identity in consuming, we asked a few questions:

• What would happen if we just stopped buying stuff today?
• Would we be content with only the possessions we have right now? Really?
• If not, then what does that say about where we find our joy?
• What do we really need?

We felt that we couldn’t really know the answer to these questions unless we really gave up spending for a period of time. And we have a feeling that God will be uprooting some of the deep-seeded greed in our hearts. There is a passage in 1 Timothy that says it very well:

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” -1 Timothy 6:6-10 (emphasis added)

I think this Lent season will only give me a glimpse into my heart and where I’m at with being content. Because even as I write this, I have well over $2,000 worth of possessions within arms reach (iMac, digital SLR camera, keyboard, guitar, etc.).

Simply put, I think we desire to have “godliness with contentment” and to be content with food and clothing. And as we prepare for Easter we want to put ourselves in a place where we might suffer at least a little bit to become more like Christ. Because his suffering, death and resurrection is what changes everything.

~ by Dave on February 7, 2008.