I recently had an article published in the Newfrontiers magazine. I thought I’d share it here. It’s much longer than most blog posts so I’ve broken it up into four sections over the next four days:

“In 2008 Charles Tate was being interviewed by a national newspaper and he was clearly very excited. He was a witness to an event he thought was historic, in describing the occasion he said, “Now I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren that I was here on the first day…” So what was this historic event that deserved passing on to future generations? It was the opening of the Westfield Shopping Centre in London. As I read it I double-checked for irony but couldn’t find any.

Now Westfield is an impressive shopping centre with 4000 parking spaces, 285 shops, 49 cafes and restaurants plus a 14 screen cinema spread over 43 acres in London; but at the end of the day it is still just a shopping centre.

What we hope to pass on to our children says much about our values and our worldview; the values expressed by Mr Tate were the values of the consumer. No heroic war stories, no stories of exploration or great achievement instead he will pass on his thrill at the opening of some shops. If this was an isolated incident then you might be justified in shrugging it off as exaggeration but the truth is that consumer values (or consumerism) shape much of how western society functions.

Consumerism goes further than simple materialistic delight in gadgets and expensive toys; it shapes our thinking, our dreams and our sense of identity. It’s easy to think this is just the sort of dead-end that non-Christians fall into but be careful because the values of consumerism surround us everyday, it is the cultural air that we breathe and it poses a huge challenge to the church. Author Skye Jethani writes, “Many Christians believe the greatest threat to the church today is post-modernity. Others zero in on relativism. Some believe the enemy is secular humanism. Others think it’s Islam. I disagree with all of these. In my view, the greatest challenge facing the contemporary church is consumerism.”

The challenge comes because consumerism is more than credit card debt and social inequality, it’s a false religion. It seeks to give people what they have always wanted – beauty, life, happiness, purity, contentment and belonging but always at a price. Thankfully the gospel makes a counter-offer, meeting the same needs much more abundantly and by gift of grace alone. Here are just two of the many ways consumerism shapes lives and how the Gospel makes a better offer.

Photo by Ben124.