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Vol. 39, No. 7  We are familiar with materialism and clutter. But what is "affluenza"? One writer defines it this way:
affluenza. noun. A painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more (John de Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, 2nd ed., Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005, back cover). In their context in Australia, Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss provide this definition:
affluenza, noun. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness by dogged pursuit of the Australian dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth (Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss, Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough, Allen & Unwin, 2005, 3). Our human nature is such that, even as Christians, very few of us are like Isaiah and say to the Lord, "Here am I, send me." Rather, the vast majority of us tend to say, "Here am I, send someone else," because following God is costly in more ways than one. John de Graaf, Wann, and Naylor, sounding much like social psychologist David Myers, talk about the fact that we look to others for approval, talk loudly about what we have rather than what we know or what we believe in, and having what we want has become a more important goal than wanting what we have. Further, appearance very often has become more important than reality (de Graaf, 123).
Are you sick with affluenza? Perhaps the best way of self-diagnosis is to carefully distinguish what you don't have and what you don't want with what you have and want. For example, do you have your dream house? Are you planning or intend to build your dream house? Is your happiness heavily dependent on having a particular house? Do you consider it essential to have a private bedroom for each of your children? Do you have an SUV (sports utility vehicle)? Do you want one? Is there more than one television in your house? Would your children rebel against you if you didn't go on major vacation one summer, or if they did not receive some of the toys on their Christmas want list? When you are buying or building a home, is closet and storage space a key factor? Do you have things stored in one or more outdoor sheds, or at a storage facility? "Yes" answers are indicative of affluenza. The fact is, most of us are infected with it in one form or another, even thought we don't know it or won't admit it.
We have mentioned in previous issues of the Bulletin some of the many books that have been written by both Christians and non-Christians on doing away with clutter in the home and workplace. But, clutter is not the real problem, it is only a symptom of the problem. In Western culture, the basic problem is materialism, in the sense that we tend to be more preoccupied with material rather than intellectual or spiritual things. One side effect of our materialism, even for believers, is we tend to accumulate things, which leads to clutter. Randy Alcorn observes that even the advertisements in Christian magazines lean heavily toward materialism, greed, and affluenza. He writes:
"God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your bank account" read the bold caption of an advertisement in a Christian magazine. Another ad in several Christian magazines featured a stylishly dressed man, standing in front of a beautiful home, leaning against a brand new, shiny automobile. The text of the ad tells readers how they, too, can become wealthy in their spare time through a Christian ministry opportunity. When it comes to materialism, it is increasingly difficult to tell where the world ends and the church begins (Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions and Eternity, revised and updated, Tyndale, 2003, 59).
Some scholars have argued that our accumulative nature is a by-product of capitalism, which is based on competition in a free market. There can be little doubt that the abundance of goods (and, therefore, choices) feeds our acquisitive nature. But capitalism in itself is not the problem. Indeed, Christian economists argue that while capitalism can involve exploiting the poor, the fact remains the poor usually fare better in a capitalistic society (Alcorn, 225).
However, it is interesting that "consumer goods" are often defined as those items which directly satisfy human wants (as distinct from needs). One can conclude that materialism and capitalism often contribute to each other, and that each has both negative and positive aspects. However, one can be a capitalist and not be a materialist, and one can be a materialist and not be a capitalist. Wealth in itself is not synonymous with materialism. But, in a capitalistic society, it is often much easier to be tempted toward materialism.
Worse, materialism and easy credit tend to fuel the down side of capitalism. John de Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas Naylor recall a participant in Debtors Anonymous (a 12-step program) saying, "In my family money was used to express love, so I later spent money to show myself love" (de Graaf, 109, my emphasis). We can argue that showing love to family members is much more than spending money on them, but when it comes to anniversaries, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Christmas, etc., who of us does not give presents or, in lieu of presents, money? Even if we give only a card on a special occasion, most of us we feel we have to do that in order to really show our love and affection. Why do we think this way? Could it be affluenza?
There are several reasons we may be infected. One is because we live in a consumer society where advertising is a big business and a big part of our lives. Most people who are not involved in the business world of advertising, promotion and marketing do not know how deceptively complex it is. I do not mean to suggest that advertising and selling do not have a legitimate place in our society. Nor is there anything wrong with selling products or making a profit. But it is telling that there are very few texts that address marketing ethics beyond marketing to children, vulnerable or naive (Third World) people who are often not aware of marketing ploys, much less Christian marketing ethics. Indeed, we live in a world in which "ethics" is often used to market a produce or company. In the context of Christianity and the church, as Randy Alcorn and many others have observed, often the most effective appeals to the flesh are made under the guise of the Holy Spirit (see Alcorn, 64ff, also cf. George Brenkert's Marketing Ethics from Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).
Another reason why love and money are often linked is most of us, from our earliest years, have been given gifts on special occasions. What child or grandchild today would not be disappointed if he or she did not receive at least one gift at Christmas or for his birthday, not that we don't provide materially for them all through the year?
There is a long list of titles addressing some aspect of the overlap between materialism, capitalism, and addiction. Most of us don't want to admit that having "things" makes us happy, or more content. Relatively few people are "spiritual" in the sense they prefer to live with as little as possible. Such people we usually think of as being rather peculiar. For example, if you met someone who told you they didn't have a television, no microwave oven, or a dishwasher, you would probably assume they were a bit fanatical, or perhaps Amish.
Imagine you asked about their rationale for not owning a television, and they replied, "Most of what I have seen on it I don't like, besides, I prefer to read books and the newspaper." Then you ask, "Why don't you have a microwave and a dishwasher?" They answer, "I don't see that I really need them. I do have a stove, and I can wash the dishes by hand."
If we are honest, most of us are unwilling to do without certain conveniences. Need I point out that "convenient" is basically "freedom from discomfort"? "Conveniences" are appliances, devices, or services conducive to comfort and ease. One does not long study promotional strategy, consumer behavior, and modern advertising before learning that the idea of convenience is a key selling point, as is the idea of "luxury," which, like convenience, is related to comfort, ease, and pleasure. Who gets "pleasure" out of washing his own dishes? If we say we have better things to do with our time than wash dishes, then perhaps we should not admit to watching any television.
The fact is, with each passing year we encounter fewer and fewer people who actually live to some degree counter-culturally. Recently, while teaching a study on prayer, a student called and thanked me for the text, which was Eileen Crossman's biography of James O. Fraser. What was remark-able about Fraser was that he was intent on being totally dependent on God. Born in 1886, Fraser left a comfortable life behind in England to go to the mountainous regions of southwest China and the remote Himalayas to work with the Lisu people.
Eileen Crossman, the second daughter of Fraser, based her book on Fraser's journal, which she frequently quotes. Still early in her father's work in China, she relates:
When the spring came, James made his home at Little River with Old Five as his faithful companion. ‘A foaming river roars along, two thousand feet below, and the mountains all around run up to over eleven thousand feet.' His room in this ‘Lisu Hilton Hotel' was, he felt, quite adequate.
‘It is really an out-house made of bamboos and thatch, all tumbling to pieces,' James wrote, describing it. ‘But it has not come down on top of us yet.' It leaked badly, but Old Five patched it up by putting plantain leaves over the rotten roofing. The floor was, as usual, plain earth trodden hard, and there were a lot of old bins, baskets and things all over the ground. ‘But such as it is I am very comfortable in it and do not hanker after anything better.'
He had his Greek Testament and a few other books, a plate, a mug, and some bedding. Rice and vegetables were provided by his host, and his ‘bathroom' was a mere 2,000 feet below in the roaring torrent (Crossman, Mountain Rain, Authentic Media, 2006, 68-69).
James O. Fraser was not unlike the apostle Paul, who had much to say about being content in "any and every situation" (Phil. 4:11-12), and being content with simply food and clothing (1 Tim. 6:8). Similarly, the author of Hebrews warned his readers about the tension between "love of money" and being content with what we have, because God will never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).
Even so, unlike our Christian forefathers, even those in the early 20th century, we don't view the Christian faith and Christ as being counter-cultural. Pollsters like George Barna observe that even we evangelicals long ago left behind the biblical distinction between God and mammon (material wealth and possessions; Matt. 6:24), and have slowly, but aggressively, overlapped God and mammon, so that the two no longer stand in any real contrast to each other. Could this be why there are so few James O. Frasers today at home or abroad.
I well remember accompanying a school's financial administrator and fund-raiser to the home of a man who wanted to make a multi-million dollar contribution to the school. When we arrived at the man's home, I was sure we must be at the wrong address. After all, this was a very small home, built well before 1940. It had not undergone any renovation as had many of the homes around it. Inside it was sparsely furnished, at least from my perspective, and somewhat dark. About all that could be said for the home was it was clean.
Was this man simply an eccentric millionaire? Perhaps, as eccentricity is deviating from a so-called "normal" pattern. In our society, someone who doesn't own a television or computer would probably be defined as "eccentric." However, this man did not strike me as eccentric or peculiar. Rather, he was obviously not into our society's prevalent lifestyle. He was one of a select number of people I have met in my life who gave generously to the church and Christian institutions, and, while still retaining a great deal of wealth, that wealth was not in any way evident or visible in his lifestyle. He lived far below what he could afford.
One of the interesting things about the affluenza epidemic is most of us believe we need more money than we already have. There is some truth in this in terms of inflation, goods and taxes increasing. But many of us want more money because we believe having more will make us happier or, to use Paul's word, content. Hamilton and Denniss write:
Most people in consumer societies believe they need more money than they have, no matter how wealthy they already are. Their actions suggest they are convinced that more money means more happiness. But when people reach the financial goals they have set for themselves they feel no happier. Instead of wondering whether the yen for more money is the problem, they raise their threshold of sufficiency. This is a vicious cycle. In part, it continues because it is not the absolute level of income that affects our well-being but the relative amount: it's no good being twice as rich if everyone else is twice as rich too. Studies have shown that most people would prefer an income of $50,000 if the average is $40,000 to an income of $70,000 if the average is $100,000, that is, most people would rather be poorer, provided others are poorer still (Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss, Affluenza, Allen & Unwin, 2005, 58;
David Myers, in his book, The Pursuit of Happiness (Avon Books, 1992), evaluates the possibility of a link between wealth and well-being. Surprisingly, studies show that our happiness or well-being does not grow with our paycheck (cf. Eccl. 5:10-15). Myers is at his best when offering insight into how we spend the money we have, and the tendency of both the affluent and non-affluent to poortalk, or as we refer to it here in the South, poor-mouthing:
With my colleague Thomas Ludwig I first reflected on the money-happiness question in a 1978 piece in Saturday Review. We questioned middle-class "poortalk" - that grousing about how (despite the recreational vehicle in the driveway) one can't afford the rising price of milk and toothpaste. When our spending outstrips our income, we feel underpaid, defeated by inflation and taxes, unable to afford things we now define as necessities. And so we talk poor.
Such poortalk among the affluent is objectionable on two counts. First, it is insensitive to the truly impoverished, just as self-pitying "fat-talk" by a slightly overweight person is insensitive to the truly obese, or "dumb-talk" by an ‘A' student who just received a ‘B' is insensitive to the friend who longs for a ‘B.'
Second, poortalk sours our thinking. One of social psychology's maxims is that what we say influences what we think and feel. Positive talk promotes positive attitudes. Complaining magnifies discontent. Social psychologists call it the "saying becomes believing" effect. When the subjects of countless experiments speak or write on behalf of some point of view, they come to believe it more strongly. Cognitive therapists harness the principle, by getting people to talk to themselves, and to others, in more positive, less self-defeating ways.
Thus, one way for middle-class people to gain a healthier perspective on their situation is to cut the poortalk. "I need that" can become "I want that." "I am underpaid" can become "I spend more than I make." And that most familiar middle-class lament, "We can't afford it," can become more truthfully, "We choose to spend our money on other things." For usually we could afford it - the snowmobile, the CD player, the Disney World vacation - if we made it our top priority; we just have other priorities on which we choose to spend our limited incomes. The choice is ours. "I can't afford it" denies our choices, reducing us to self-pitying victims (David Myers, The Pursuit of Happiness, Avon Books, 1992, 44-45).
Myers does not deny that having money "buys" freedom in the sense of empowering us to choose our circumstances and use of time. Having more money than one really needs, spendable income, relieves us of financial stress and allows us to support those things we care deeply about.
But Myers observes his greatest pleasures and joy come...
as Garrison Keillor predicted, through more ordinary, ongoing moments of cheer - through identifying with my children as they ride their adolescent roller coasters, through laughter and tears shared with friends, through work created and completed, through daily games of pickup basketball with friends, through happy recollections of Scottish tearooms, of family beach fires back home on Bainbridge Island, of falling in love.
Realizing that well-being is something other than being well-off is liberating (Myers, 45-46).
Why? Because, as the Christian multi-millionaire that the financial supervisor and I visited seemed to know, one does not have to purchase and/or own this or that to be happy and find joy in life.
But have evangelical believers learned this truth? Sadly, most have not. We tend to view such a person as someone who hates to spend his money, or at minimum, who is very frugal. I do not mean to suggest materialist Christians are not genuine Christians. But most evangelicals today want not only the best Christ offers, they also want the best the world offers. When, as the hymn says, the things of this world grow strangely dim, we are free to give ourselves to, as Myers says, "traits, attitudes, relationships, activities, environments, and spiritual resources that will promote our own, and others', well-being (Myers, 46). But, again, the fact is, most of us have not reached the point where we truly love others more than we love ourselves.
In our society today, money is as intensely a personal subject as religion and politics. Although not all Christians are into the health and wealth gospel, relatively few believers are really interested in what the Bible has to say about money. But as a topic in Scripture, money is mentioned about 3x more often than sin, 4x more often than prayer, and 6x more often than the second coming of Jesus Christ (see Robert B. Clayton, What God Says About "Money", 1st Books, 2002).
Further, money, in itself, is neither good or evil. We can do great good with our wealth for God and others, if it is His will, but we must also be prepared to acknowledge that our wealth can destroy us (James 5:3; 1 Tim. 6:9).
In the Christian business world one of the hot topics today is profit. Again, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. But how much profit is ethical? Alcorn observes:
Some big-name Christian celebrities fly first class around the country charging ten thousand dollars for each speaking engagement or musical performance. Some have egos bigger than their bank accounts and are respected most by those who know them least. Some on the speaking and singing circuits are fine men and women of God, but others are sadly lacking in character. They foist themselves upon an undiscerning Christian community with nothing to commend them but an ability to speak or perform, a busy schedule, a CD they recorded, or a book they wrote (often a book they didn't write but that has their name on it).
In some circles, pastors routinely have mail-order and honorary doctorate degrees hanging on their walls and delight in being addressed as "Doctor." I saw a catalog of an unaccredited seminary where the faculty members average four "doctorates" apiece....
As a former pastor and someone with very close relationships with other pastors, I can tell you that Satan is delighted when pastors are underpaid and underappreciated - and he's just as delighted when they're overpaid and over-appreciated. For the devil's tastes, let pastors be crucified or worshiped. He cringes only when they are given the respect they're due and the accountability they need, no more and no less (Alcorn, 63-64).
There is no question that affluenza in the church is often part of the process of attracting a new pastor. Alcorn tells the often-repeated scenario of a pulpit committee approving a potential pastor after they have heard his sermon and interviewed him.
He may say, "Thanks for asking, but I've prayed about it and I believe God would have me stay in my present ministry." Then the pulpit committee comes back with a better offer, with an additional $10,000 in salary and promises of a new car and other benefits. Since this is using money to persuade a man to violate his stated conviction, what can it be called but bribery? The fact it happens among God's people doesn't make it better, it makes it worse (Alcorn, 64).
Alcorn also expresses his concern about the fund-raising techniques of evangelical churches and organizations, which "credit their success to the Holy Spirit, but often their real power comes from [the flesh] their mailing lists and the gifts of sincere but gullible people" (Alcorn, 63).
Randy Alcorn, like several other evangelical writers, has received criticism for what he has to say about multi-level marketing businesses (64-68), prosperity theology (the health and wealth gospel (75-90, "Paul seems to make a case for what might be called ‘adversity theology,' or the ‘sickness and poverty gospel," 80), and money, possessions, and lifestyle (281-303). He reminds us that Andrew Murray said, "How different our standard is from Christ's. We ask how much a man gives. Christ asks how much he keeps" (Alcorn, 281).
Affluenza is epidemic not only in Western culture, but also in our churches. One reason is because no one really wants to investigate what the Bible and theology have to say about money, possessions, and lifestyle. A subject even more forbidden is the relationship of Christian ethics to profit margin. How much profit on a service or the sale of a product is ethical or moral? It is difficult to suggest that a 20% markup or profit is "ethical," while a markup of 200% is not, because even businesses that produce basically the same product may have more or less operating expenses, taxes, etc.
I do not mean to suggest that there are not ethical issues involved in pricing. There are many. William Kehoe says:
Pricing is perhaps the most difficult area to examine from an ethical viewpoint of all the areas of marketing because of the complexity of the price variable. Pricing decisions are made at all levels of a distribution system. They are influenced by the profit goals of the firm and are constrained by federal and state laws. As Walton observed, "perhaps no other area of managerial activity is more difficult to depict accurately, assess fairly and prescribe realistically in terms of morality than the domain of price."
It may be because of the complexity of price along with the greater appeal of ethical issues in other marketing areas that there is limited literature on the ethics of pricing (William Kehoe, "Ethics, Price Fixing, and the Management of Price Strategy," in On Moral Business: Classical and Contemporary Resources for Ethics in Economic Life, ed. by Max Stackhouse, Dennis McCann, Shirley Roels, and Prest Williams, Eerdmans, 1995, 608).
It is interesting that quite a few of those who have written on the subject of affluenza argue that much of capitalism, but not all, is "unjust." Further, as I have noted here, often materialism and consumerism flourish in the context of capitalism. That our society is often described as narcissistic, self-centered, materialistic, and egotistical (self-loving) should concern us as evangelical believers. Affluenza fits right in with this list, implying our tendency to focus on and be more interested in material things rather than spiritual things, which is linked with our love affair with our possessions. In this context, the rise of the health and wealth gospel is not surprising. It is simply a mixing (syncretism) of cultural values or aspirations with Christian teaching, with no place for what Alcorn terms Paul's "adversity theology." Again, it seems we have a strong desire for the things of this world, and a rather weak desire, in contrast, for Christ.
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Vol. 39, No. 11 - November 2008 
Vol. 39, No. 10 
