But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For: Consumerism and the American Church

One of my students gave me this article by Derek Webb. It is a good analysis of our American culture. What I like about it most is that he does not leave us with his analysis. He also demonstrates how the Gospel is the answer to our significant cultural problem. Derek writes:

“(American entertainment and media) is a campaign of fear and consumption. And that’s what I think it’s all based on: it’s the idea that (you) keep everyone afraid and they’ll consume.” -Marilyn Manson

“At root...we see that the fundamental need is for our churches to be colonies of the kingdom of God, an alternative society—not possessed by possessions, not consumed by consumerism, but alive to the gospel and generous in sharing it by being the Church.” -Marva Dawn

I recently saw a movie called “Bowling for Columbine,” by renowned documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. In the movie he explores the issues of gun control in America and the fear driven American culture. Moore goes on to look at the way that the collision of these two issues was manifest in the events of April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School. At the forefront of the controversy surrounding this horrifying event was shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, as the boys who committed the crime were said to have listened to Manson’s music. As Michael Moore interviewed Marilyn Manson and asked questions about the Columbine shooting, I was struck by the truth of Manson’s words. He spoke about the ways that our culture, especially driven by media and advertising, is constantly working to keep people in fear. And once you have a group of people afraid, they will consume whatever they believe will make them feel safe again. This puts the advertising companies who create many of these fears (or “needs”) in a unique and dangerous position to then market their products to the now worried public. Are you afraid of having bad breath or getting ‘gingivitis’ (whatever that is) and therefore making a bad impression on friends or colleagues? Buy this new toothpaste. Are you afraid of getting acne, not being able to get a date and therefore having bad self-esteem? Buy that acne medicine. Are you afraid of all of the computers in the world shutting down as the clock strikes midnight on January 1st 2000, resulting in mass chaos? Buy insurance, buy water, buy gas masks, hire computer consultants, buy EVERYTHING. The idea that they’re selling is that there is both a fear and a product for every circumstance and for every stage of life, and while some are legitimate, many are simply manufactured by those hoping to turn a dime.

The significance of all this lies in the parallels to our own Christian communities here in America. We are also driven by fear. But what are we afraid of? More importantly, what’s being sold to us and where are we going for relief from these fears? As I begin to think about the ways that these questions resonate even in our churches in this country, I think of lyrics written by U2 in the late 80’s. Bono wrote, “You broke the bonds and you loosed the chains. (You) carried the cross of my shame, oh my shame. You know I believe it, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for.” Even as believers, why haven’t we found what we’re looking for? What’s wrong with that emotion and yet what’s right about that longing?

For starters, we must realize that we’re no different than the wandering and idolatrous Israelites. We seem to seek satisfaction for our needs everywhere but in the Gospel. As John Calvin said, our hearts are “idol factories,” searching day and night for things that we might worship. In addition to this fundamental corruption in our hearts, people always seem to be telling us about all the things we need and must do for a deeper spiritual life and more abundant spiritual blessings. Everywhere you look there are 10 or 12 steps offered or some clever acrostic to guarantee us a right relationship with God. The problem is that it’s much more complex than that, and yet much simpler. Our God is not running from us. He is not illusive. He is not hiding in 10 step programs any more than the abundance of His blessings are hiding in the repetition of obscure Old Testament prayers.

So maybe we’re afraid of our own spiritual immaturity. We look to those who seek to sell us their books about the new secret to victorious living and blessing or even to those around us in our own church communities, and their piety (at best) or their down right spiritual condescension (at worst) does nothing but make us feel somehow spiritually inferior. Someone has created for us a need and then seeks to fill it with trendy religion or legalistic living. But just like a revolutionary new toothpaste or acne medicine that can’t possibly fix our problem with poor self-esteem, these things can’t satisfy our longing. That’s because the very thing that those 10 steps are trying to help us achieve is that which we already possess in Jesus.

So that being said, perhaps there’s something sadly right about the fact that we “still haven’t found what we’re looking for.” Maybe that’s the bad news. Then again, maybe that’s the good news. For a believer to still have such longings is nothing more than the evidence of what’s known as the “already and the not yet.” It’s the idea that while we are already justified and secured in Christ, that we are not yet glorified and completely free of our flesh and corruption. I think this was well expressed in the 18th century by hymn writer Augustus Toplady, who wrote:

My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impressed on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace.
Yes, I to the end shall endure,
As sure as the earnest is given;
More happy, but not more secure,
The glorified spirits in heav'n.

The truth is, being a Christian isn’t about having it more spiritually together than the next guy, or even necessarily sinning less. Rather, the Christian life is about repenting more. We must learn the language of repentance. We should pray that the Lord would grant us repentance—repentance from our failings and for the wagging of our finger in God’s face, and also repentance from our strivings and our self-righteousness. But mostly we must repent from our belief that anything but Jesus is sufficient to save us from any of it. The longer we live the more aware of the trappings of our own sin we should become, and therefore more aware of our need for our Savior. We need to have our paradigm of sanctification, our very framework, turned upside down. Whether we’re puffed up by our own righteous living (outward law keeping) or beaten down by our own undisciplined failures (inability to keep the law) we need to hear the Gospel (that Jesus perfectly and yet humbly kept the law for us). The gospel exalts the humble and humbles the exalted. It first bring us all to an awareness of our need for Jesus, and then it gives us Jesus. The Gospel not only meets our every need but also ruins the plans of those who would seek to sell us the idea that we have needs that are not met in Christ, because in Him we are truly free. We are free to do as Martin Luther once said, to “sin boldly so that we might repent boldly,” and all because we believe the Gospel.

But how could a holy God possibly love us the same in the moment of our greatest righteous work as He does in the moment and in the midst of our most despicable sin and struggle? There is only one way—Jesus. We can be confident that God’s love for us is constant and unchanging because the basis for His love is the same. How should such knowledge change us and the way we live? What would we then have to fear? Let us look where this question has been asked before:

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be
slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Oh that the Lord might save us from living like orphans, that He might save us from living like freed slaves marching back into our prison cells, that He might save us from being consumers in our places of worship, that He might save us from setting our hearts on cheap clichés rather than on our only Reality, and that He might save us from ourselves.