Posted by Benjamin on: 12.02.2007 /
Yes, I know, Christmas is some 22 days away. As in “Only 22 shopping days left.”
A few years ago I heard one of my favorite preachers, Dave Sellers, preach a Christmas sermon which I’ve remembered all these years (which is saying something, as far as most sermons go). It was about the dark side of Christmas. He talked about how we focus on baby Jesus at Christmas–the whole 3 wise men, camels, sheep, angels, shepherds, stable, etc. But what we don’t realize is this other darker thing that was happening. It’s from Revelation 12 (hang with me here. I know people can get pretty freaking wierd with John’s Revelation).
Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.
So how about that? A dragon hanging around in the birthing room to gobble up baby Jesus the moment he’s born? That’s not so happy or pretty, is it? And then what about 2 year old Jesus? His existence is implicit in the mass murder of a bunch of 2 year old babies, ’bout to be toddlers. From Matthew
Herod, when he realized that the scholars had tricked him, flew into a rage. He commanded the murder of every little boy two years old and under who lived in Bethlehem and its surrounding hills.
So why don’t we see dragons in nativity scenes, or the bodies of murdered children? I posit that we don’t because such things wouldn’t exactly help retail sales. I was walking through Fred Meyer not longer after Thanksgiving, and I overheard a manager speaking to three employees. She said “We rocked on Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving). Now we just have to keep that level of sales up for December.” Or how about this from a recent Reuter’s news story.
Holiday sales are expected to rise at their slowest pace in five years as the weak housing market and a credit crunch temper consumer spending, the National Retail Federation said on Thursday. Total holiday retail sales are forecast to rise 4 percent to $474.5 billion this year, the trade group said.
That would mark the slowest holiday sales growth since 2002, when sales rose 1.3 percent, and it would fall below the ten-year holiday sales average of a 4.8 percent increase.
Hey, look! We’ll spend enough money on stuff during this one month to pay for a full fourth of the estimated final cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Kewl.
What would it look like if all 300 million Americans decided to … say, figure out what their budget for retail spending in the month of December is, and then give a full 25% of that to make the world a better place (MTWABP)? Let’s see (pulling out trusty windows calculator … 474/4 …) Hey–look! That’s $118 Billion dollars. Enough to fund the Iraq war for a whole nother (yes, I realize I incorrectly split the word “another” up there) year.
Beyond funding the Iraq war, what else could we do with that $118 Billion?
Ideas …
But we won’t. Because we want to focus on sweet baby Jesus in the manger, and avoid the dark side of the holiday season, past and present. And part of how we do this is by buying. Lots and lots and lots of stuff.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all they way. Oh what it fun it is to ride in a 300 horsepower 2008 model minivan”.
Merry Christmas.
So what are *your* ideas for the $118 Billion we’d have to MTWABP if we cut our holiday budgets by 25%?
And would *you* consider doing it? I dare you.
Leave a Reply
Comment by: Tonya Sargent
1 12/2/07 9:55 PM | Comment Link |I’ve been thinking a lot about this stuff lately. There’s so much talk about “giving” these days. Charity is hot! Just ask Bill Clinton and Bono. But why isn’t there more conversation about not just giving more, but taking less.
On the last page of Ode Magazine’s December issue, Moniek Zegers weighs in on this subject: “Charity is part of a sick system that is barely even up for discussion. Corporations exploit farmers and labourers in developing countries and political leaders pretend development aid ends up with the people who need it, while donor countries often actually profit from it.”
I believe it is our voracious consumerism (a.k.a. “affluenza”)that fuels poverty, environmental degradation, and the ensuing world crises of hunger, disease, even war. No amount of our “giving” will make up for this destruction. Instead we need to start thinking about how to use less and take less from our earth and it’s inhabitants. I would argue that those few in our society who have chosen to live simply, avoiding unnecessary consumption and caring for our environment, are much more effectively practicing justice and changing our world, than those who give large amounts to charity but have not curbed their consumption habit.
Comment by: Randy
2 12/2/07 10:00 PM | Comment Link |Here’s some ideas I thought were cool. I mentioned them over on my Randy’s Rants page, called “Advent Conspiracy”. The link hasn’t been working (it’s on their end, apparently), but you can keep trying by going to http://www.adventconspiracy.org until you get through. I was totally inspired. Not sure how this will play out at our home this year, but the basic idea is to curb the consumerism and support clean water (or other life giving projects) in third world countries…which seems a lot more honoring of Jesus than what we usually do.
Hope the link works soon!
Comment by: benjamin ady
3 12/3/07 12:05 AM | Comment Link |Tonya,
I think you draw a very important and salient distinction here. Claudio pointed out that if 20% of the people are using 80% of the planet’s resources, and we raise the consumption of another 10% of the people to that level, then we’ll be consuming 120% of the planet’s resources, which is hardly a great plan for accomplishing justice and compassion.
I love your “More effectively”. You don’t seem to be arguing *against* charity, but rather saying there’s a more effective, more broad scoped change in thinking and behavior we need to make. Am I getting that right?
How can we begin to implement this change you are talking about specifically during this holiday season. If it’s not about giving away more, what then must we do?
Comment by: Eliza
4 12/3/07 1:01 AM | Comment Link |Seems like changing people’s expectations must be a big part, and an early step - their (our) expectations about how much energy, money, time, & effort to spend on buying-buying-buying, and their (our) expectations on how much “stuff” we want to, or should, receive.
Advertising tries to ramp up our spending. Companies pay marketing firms & the media alot of money in order to encourage consumers to buy more, & we’re also told that it’s basically the American thing to do (keep our country strong by buying stuff). There’s no concerted force pushing in the other direction, combatting the “buy more, give more, get more, need more, want more” mantra, and it’s not clear to me what it would take to accomplish this.
I’m thinking shame could be a good motivator. Make it un-cool to buy alot or expect expensive gifts. Turn shopping into an embarrasing thing to be caught doing. Urge people to do good for the planet by giving personal services, handmade items, and love - not more “stuff” - and attach a stigma to the “stuff”.
Think that would fly? Think it has a snowball’s chance in hell of catching on??
Comment by: Meg Ady
5 12/3/07 1:37 AM | Comment Link |consumption is an ugly yet abstract concept, isn’t it? Tonya, your ideas are good and thought provoking. I think I disagree with you - i don’t think living simply is THE most effective way for EVERYONE to practise justice. i think that’s too proscriptive. Rather, it’s a lovely way people can be - it’s a way i am, by and large. but it’s not helpful to generalise. i know people, for example, who are influential businesspeople and politicians whose message of justice and compassion are AMAZING, and who don’t live a life of simplicity, and they are right on track and following their calling and doing what they should be doing. i think making generalisations about what others ’should’ be doing gets dangerous. there’s this eerie left wing legalism, where people end up having to PROVE to themselves and others how great they are at not consuming, caring for the environment, changing the world, whatever the fashionable currency happens to be. i think that proving ends up being harmful and un-otherly. i think resting in the grace and love and freedom of Jesus loving me and having done everything that has to be done for me is (for me!) the starting place for reaching out to the world in love and compassion and justice. if the acts of compassion and justice are compelled by having to prove how good i am, it just doesn’t work. possibly your comments weren’t from a proving paradigm at all, but they evoked that kind of a response in me - i guess you sounded quite judgemental towards people’s ‘consumption habits’.
Comment by: Meg Ady
6 12/3/07 1:54 AM | Comment Link |how funny! i didn’t see Eliza’s comment until now - it’s funny how the blogs do that …
Eliza, i really like your idea. there’s so much power in social perceptions, which the media has so much capacity to influence. DANG the advertising industry! i can’t imagine they’ll take too well to your fabulous idea! what can we do, living in this consumeristic, capitalist society which is SO driven by money money money?
Comment by: Meg Ady
7 12/3/07 1:58 AM | Comment Link |Perhaps we could have an advertising campaign of our own - huge pictures of people in different cultural contexts around the world, celebrating love, joy, hope, connectedness, without things … and a catchy phrase to connect them - something like … hmmmm. catchy phrases are hard to think of… perhaps … give love not stuff…
but that’s not clever… any suggestions anybody? p’haps we could launch this campaign right here on J&C!
Comment by: joe
8 12/3/07 2:53 AM | Comment Link |I flippin hate christmas.
Comment by: joe
9 12/3/07 6:37 AM | Comment Link |The weird thing is that if we actually lived the words we say at christmas, the world would inevitably be a different place.
In church yesterday the preacher was talking about how God looks after the weak and lifts up the poor, brings down the mighty. Which, although not mentioned, is pretty much the Magnificat.
Given the state of the world, I think it is legitimate to ask whether this is actually true, although I’m not sure I want to contemplate a God who is unmoved and not bothered about the poor.
Then he said the startling comment that maybe God was going to start judging us (ie western countries) for our behaviour around the world.
Then we sang a song which has the first line ‘there must be more than this…’ (WOOHOO! at last a song I agree with) and another which asks God to come and have his way among us (which I can’t help having a little snigger about. There was also a rolling projector notice about ‘The Taste of Christmas: Trinity Women’ which made me smile. The wife wasn’t impressed).
Are we actually saying that a) the world is messed up b) we’re responsible and c) God needs to come and dismantle our wealth and prosperity? Because that is what it sounds like.
Given that this was an horrific-nightmare of a charismatic church experience for me, I thought that was pretty good…
Comment by: Helen
10 12/3/07 8:11 AM | Comment Link |Joe, I’m glad you heard some things at church yesterday you agreed with.
I’ve read two books lately The Real Mary buy Scot McKnight and Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren) in which the authors point out what a strong justice them is in ‘the Magnificat’ i.e. Mary’s song of rejoicing she sang about being the mother of Jesus. (Brian actually parodies it with a this-is-not-what-she said four-spiritual-laws type of song/poem which I quoted in this post)
I remember reading that song/poem a few years ago and noticing it had lots of great stuff in. Great in the sense of, yes, this is what really needs to happen.
Since my children were tiny I’ve thought about “how can I convey the real meaning of Christmas to them?” I’ve realized kids love ritual and festivity and special times - which isn’t necessarily ‘wrong’. I never wanted Christmas to be all about ‘presents’ even though I know lots of retailers would have it otherwise. My own idea of what the real meaning is has changed over time. I love that right in the middle of the Christmas passages there’s a poem about addressing global injustice.
Comment by: Randy
11 12/3/07 10:42 AM | Comment Link |Ok, the link to the advent conspiracy project is working (as of today anyway). Check it out for ideas on reducing consumption, creative giving ideas (ie, homemade items), and how to redirect resources to the poor without becoming a Scrooge. You’ll need to click around, but a lot of it is video stories from real people who are doing stuff like this. Very encouraging.
Comment by: Rachel
12 12/3/07 10:55 AM | Comment Link |Good point, Tonya! And welcome to Justice and Compassion!
Thanks for the great link, Randy!
Eliza, that reminds me about how after 9/11 our President told us all to go shopping.
Now that is a wonderful, radical, counter-cultural idea! Eliza, are you out to destroy our economy? ;-)
Beautifully said, Megsie! “Rest” - ah, what a lovely word! I think that it is hard to find the balance between being an apathetic, insulated consumer and being a pissed-off, prideful activist. I find myself pulled in both directions. But I love what Shane Claiborne says, “Redistribution is what happens when people fall in love across class lines.” Honestly I’m not always sure I want to fall in love with people across class lines. (I posted a bit about this on my personal blog.) But the love of Christ compels me.
Comment by: Rachel
13 12/3/07 11:08 AM | Comment Link |Oooooo, yes! Awesome idea! Let’s do it!
Joe, I think that’s about right. Yesterday in church our Old Testament reading was from Isaiah 2. “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” I wrote in the margin, “When, Lord?”
Then during the sermon, our priest told about a Christian ministry in Mozambique after the civil war there. They set up a program where people could trade in their armaments for tools useful for making a living. One man exchanged his gun for a sewing machine. One tiny picture at least of that beautiful vision coming true.
I love that too, Helen!
Comment by: Tonya Sargent
14 12/4/07 6:44 PM | Comment Link |Meg-
I think you misread me. I certainly made no claims that “living simply is THE most effective way for EVERYONE to practise justice”, I only suggested that it was perhaps one way that is more effective than giving lots of money to charity but making no attempts to be more responsible in how the world is impacted by how one’s money is spent.
Also, you’ll notice I used the words “OUR voracious consumerism” including myself in that category as this is a deeply felt struggle in my own life. It wasn’t intended to be judgemental or smug, but an honest question about how we can really live the revolutionary life-giving not life-taking way of Christ in our society.
After returning from Congo recently I have been confronted on every level by the injustice inherent in our American way of life… from the clothes I wear, to the food I eat, to the fuel in my car, and even the land once stolen from Native Americans that my house sits on…I am realizing that I am funding suffering, injustice, and environmental destruction even while I claim to work for justice and peace in Congo. I can’t help thinking that my lifestyle cancels out any “good works” I am involved in. It is a difficult tension to bear.
I realize that we are all called in different ways and from various experiences, backgrounds, and economic classes. Some people may be involved in great works of justice for the world and because of that have to spend more money on travel, or equipment, or whatever… but I still don’t believe that lets any of us off the hook from taking serious account of how and where our money is spent and making as responsible choices as we can to “do no harm” (or as little as possible anyway) with our pocketbooks. I’m sure that looks different for each person.
But in a country that consumes more than any other country in the world, it’s no longer a matter of “should” it’s a matter of love. Being pregnant with my first child I feel this very deeply…If we love our neighbor, if we love ourselves, if we love our children and hope to leave them a world a little less broken…something must change in our ways. How to go about that with integrity and intelligence is the challenge I am facing.
Comment by: Tonya Sargent
15 12/4/07 6:57 PM | Comment Link |Rachel-
Thanks for the welcome!
I too was thrilled to hear that OT reading from Isaiah last Sunday.
I am currently involved in a project in Congo called “Swords into Plowshares” in which weapons can be exchanged (by the general public or by the myriad of roaming militias) for bicycles or tin roofing (both highly prized items in Congo). The weapons are then sent to a foundry to be melted down and reformed into agricultural tools which are then reinvested into the communities. It is a beautiful act of peace-building!
Comment by: Meg Ady
16 12/4/07 10:03 PM | Comment Link |Tonya,
Wow, I see what you mean! Thanks for taking the time to explain. I think what you’re saying is wise.
Congratulations on being pregnant with your first baby! It does change the way you view the world, doesn’t it, becoming a parent? My lovely little 3 year old is hugging me tightly as i write.
i wish the world were a more beautiful place for our babies - they certainly make it more beautiful!!
Meg
Comment by: leslie davidson
17 12/5/07 12:04 AM | Comment Link |A very old quote says, “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”
Something done right is good. I am not an earthshaker, but I can do some thing to tilt things toward the light. That is my goal. It is easy to dream and hard to do. So, for this Christmas I will find something good to do “across cultural lines” and I won’t let anyone else know I’ve done it. I’ll try and remember to tell you what it is after Christmas, but not tell anyone who actually knows me. That makes it better. =)
Comment by: Benjamin
18 12/5/07 12:10 AM | Comment Link |Leslie,
Great idea! I look forward to hearing about it.
Comment by: joe
19 12/5/07 5:29 AM | Comment Link |Tonya, thanks, great to hear your perspective.
My own perspective from visiting vulnerable people in developing countries is that in large part, we are responsible for their poverty either by our actions or our inactions.
Sure, there is an element of self inflicted problems, and like anyone in trouble it is a mix of bad choices and bad circumstances.
But overwhelmingly, I feel guilt because of the state of the world and my part in the oppression of the poor.
The problem is how to deal with that without becoming completely paralysed. As my friends are tied into an unbreakable cycle of poverty, it sometimes seems like we are also stuck in a cycle of wealth. I don’t think that is trying to let myself off the hook, but facing reality.
Too often all our actions seem like rearranging deckchairs on the titanic whilst the world dies.
Comment by: Justice and Compassion
20 12/6/07 1:50 AM | Comment Link |[...] recently commented on this thread: I am currently involved in a project in Congo called “Swords into Plowshares” in which weapons [...]
Comment by: jeff
21 12/8/07 8:55 PM | Comment Link |I recently just watched What Would Jesus Buy, a new movie produced by Morgan Spurlock. It is a documentary about Rev. Billy and the church of Stop Shopping traveling the country preaching about the dangers of consumerism, and warning about the Shopocalypse. It seemed odd that my wife and I paid $17 to see the film. It was portrayed in humorous yet thought provoking way, and I think it will influence the way some people shop. As we were leaving the theater there were 3 high school girls in front of us, and one of them commented “I am going to go home, tear up my Christmas list, and watch the movie again tomorrow.”
Comment by: Justice and Compassion
22 12/9/07 9:25 AM | Comment Link |[...] Benjamin’s The Dark Side of Christmas thread, Helen posted this comment: I’ve read two books lately (The Real Mary by Scot McKnight and [...]
Comment by: benjamin ady
23 12/10/07 10:13 PM | Comment Link |Jeff,
yeah–I’ve heard of the movie and want to see it myself. Glad to hear it’s having a bit of an effect.
Truth be told I hate Christmas–the whole season, and it’s related to the shopocalypse. Somehow all the bright merriment of the season just reemphasizes for me the fact that so many people are stuck in dark horror. Maybe I’m just a bit of an old grump
Comment by: Eliza
24 12/11/07 2:15 AM | Comment Link |I hope the movie comes here - I’d love to see it.
Looking over the info at the movie’s site, I thought of giving copies of the DVD (if it were out on DVD, which it isn’t - yet) for Christmas…but, would that violate the spirit of the message…?