CHRIST AND CONSUMERISM: A critical analysis of the spirit of the age
Ed. Craig Bartholomew and Thorsten Moritz
Paternoster. 177 pages
ISBN 0 85364 987 1
This book emerged from a conference entitled 'Seduction or Evangelism?' held at Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education in 1998. The papers on consumerism presented there have been edited for publication.
The book addresses perhaps the biggest challenge facing the church in Britain today, that is, how to live and witness as genuine Christians in our massively materialistic and choice-orientated society.
The result is rather a mixed bag. The topics include the Old Testament and the enjoyment of wealth, consumerism and ethics, consumerism and biblical interpretation, consumerism and the 'Toronto blessing'. Though there is much here that we can usefully learn, overall I was disappointed. Firstly, the book comes over as incredibly boring. Perhaps the lectures themselves were more lively, but I really had to struggle to get through it. Secondly, the authors do not seem to have conferred and come to a definite conclusion about consumerism from a Christian point of view.
Because they seemed dreadfully careful to appear 'balanced' and to play to the constituency of middle-class evangelicalism, there is little that is truly prophetic. I doubt if the Bible prophets were so overtly 'balanced'. In all this, the old biblical call to 'love not the world' seems to have been dumbed down or explained away. We are more sophisticated than our godly forefathers.
