Over dinner last night, we began to talk about consumerism and well, "consuming."
How do we consume ethically as believers?
Ron Sider points the way forward when he says that one way to combat the consumeristic society that we dwell in is to avoid buying cheap disposable crap. So when you buy, buy carefully as an investment.
Jethani is not advocating some kind of socialistic divorce from capitalism (for any of you who haven't read The Divine Commodity). He is pushing against the throwaway, live-in-the-moment life that we have mindlessly cultivated as USAmericans. We don't question what we purchase, how we purchase, and we don't realize that the very act of purchasing can sometimes cement consumerism into our souls, eventually effecting the way we see God, friends, even family.
all of life.
We constantly need to fight against this in our lives. Separating ourselves from the more subtle aspects of our culture that we don't think about.
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I would advocate that this is the role of community. When boundaries are solely monitored by the individual, I think they will eventually be broken. Empowering the individual to hold themselves accountable creates self-destruction. Empowering a community to hold it's members accountable may lead to legalism, but it also may lead to transformation.
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