{"id":139,"date":"2014-04-16T22:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T22:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=139"},"modified":"2014-08-11T21:53:22","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T21:53:22","slug":"we-shop-they-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/we-shop-they-drop\/","title":{"rendered":"We Shop; They Drop"},"content":{"rendered":"

The way I see it, there are two problems with consumerism. Actually, there are a lot more than two, but for the sake of this post I will only focus on two. First, \u201cConsumerism is a type of spirituality\u2026 it is a way of pursuing meaning and identity, a way of connecting with other people.\u201d[1]<\/a> Most Christians will either roll their eyes at such a statement or agree with it but quickly point the finger to others in the Christian community. As Christians, our first desire is to make Christ the center of our lives. It\u2019s hard for us to admit that in fact we gain our identity and meaning from the things we own.<\/p>\n

Second, consumerism has caused us to be \u201cdetached from the producers, the people who actually make our things.\u201d[2]<\/a> Those people are are invisible to us, therefore we can continue to sustain our consumer habits because we are blind to the consequences. We are detatched from people and things. Detatchement takes away value and importance. It\u2019s easy to throw away the things you don\u2019t value\u2026 things, or people.<\/p>\n

A few years ago Voice of the Martyrs held a conference in Portland. I took my youth group because I wanted them to hear the stories of what Christians go through around the world. A young woman from China told her story. She was imprisoned in a work camp for being a Christian. She told us of how for years she was made to work in a factory for 14 hours a day making Christmas tree lights that were later exported to America. \u201cMy fingers were bleeding as I was putting these lights together,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you look at them, you see beautiful things\u2026 when I look at them I see pain and sorrow,\u201d she continued. That year I was determined not to buy Christmas lights made in China\u2026 but do you know how hard it is to find Christmas lights not made in China?\u00a0 It was impossible\u2026 Our tree went without.<\/p>\n

Consumerism is evil packaged in beauty. It\u2019s sorrow packaged in joy. It\u2019s my freedom at the cost of anothers.<\/p>\n

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, \u201cSilence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.\u201d\u00a0I think that God will hold us accountable for our relationships with those that make our stuff\u2026 the people that go without so that I can have the freedom to throw things away.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire <\/em>(Grand Prapids, MI: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), 36.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Cavanaugh, 43.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The way I see it, there are two problems with consumerism. Actually, there are a lot more than two, but for the sake of this post I will only focus on two. First, \u201cConsumerism is a type of spirituality\u2026 it is a way of pursuing meaning and identity, a way of connecting with other people.\u201d[1] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[64,65,9],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cavanaugh","tag-miller-cavanaugh","tag-millercavanaugh","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1456,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/1456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}