In the past fifty years, we have consumed more goods and services than in all previous generations put together.

September 2007 is when I posted an idea I had to start sharing things.  It was called ATIC and the basic concept was that people could post items that they had for other people in their community to browse to borrow.  I wanted to get my Sarnia church on board.  No one used it.  I’m sure there was a hundred reasons why, but as reality set in I started realizing that this was an up hill battle of helping change people’s habits of how they viewed their possessions.  Different people loved the idea and it was replicated in a few different churches in Canada and the States.  Sarnia is a tough city to experiment with anything new as it is.  It’s a blue collar town and people are generally happy with the money they make, the things they have and their pace of life.  The idea of changing habits isn’t welcomed as much as I hoped.  However, this idea started to spread quite rapidly and now there are hundreds of different sites and companies started around the world to help facilitate this kind of sharing.

The world has been changing quite rapidly.  The way that people view their things is changing as well.  A few months ago I stumbled on this video by Rachel Botsman about the rise of collaborative consumption and started to see that she has made a case for projects like ATIC all over the world.  Sharing is starting to become as natural as buying things and people are using the Internet to do it.

I found her book What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman, Roo Rogers and have been enthralled by the amount of data they have collected on how the world is changing this way.  From sharing cars to rooms to children’s toys, the shift is exciting.

However, the disappointing part of all this is that this is yet another example of how the church is not really leading culture at all.  We are far behind in learning to appropriately respond to culture and lead an alternative lifestyle that models the kingdom of God.  Where are churches in this shift?  We are probably just moving at the same pace as everyone else as I am starting to see communities pop up around of Christians learning to view their things differently.  We should be leading the way.  Showing the world what it means when the kingdom of God is present.

Nevertheless, it’s exciting.  It’s exciting to see more tools available to share and more ideas spreading so that we can replicate them in our local communities.

And when it comes right down to it, what most of us really want is, as legendary designer Victor Papanek put it, “the hole, not the drill.”

For a while I thought that I would want to go get a Masters in Economics of some sort.  After seeing the kind of impact that economics has on all of our lives, my interest in political systems and monetary systems improving the lives of many people, I thought it was a great direction to head in in terms of being educated.  I read Adbusters quite a bit as well, and they definitely tote Economics the most as a a field of study.  A lot of responsibility in their magazines lies on the Economist for either the good or the bad in the world.  If I’m going to be honest, if I want to help shape systems of the world to be more just and more like the Kingdom of God, then I thought economics is a perfect field of study.

However, I’m becoming less and less convinced that shaping systems is the role of the Christian.  Furthermore, I’m becoming more disenfranchised with the idea of money at all as having any hope to make any positive change in our world.  If I think that shaping the way of how we use money is going to somehow fix things, then I am sadly mistaken.  I wrote a post a bit ago entitled Money, and Why God doesn’t Care, and that post has lead me to eventually a post like this.  An education on money, good or bad, ends up still promoting money as a an idol and a central role in our lives.  I am just not interested in that.  I do not think that a perfect political system, or a perfect economic setup will fix anything at all.  It isn’t possible.  I joke about being a communist or a socialist, but really I do not think any of these systems is the answer.

I just finished Hauerwas’ memoirs and I’m even more convinced now than before that the church really is the hope for the world.  Not because the church helps change the world, but because the church live so radically different than the world that the world is left realizing it’s own demise.  If the world wants to live truthfully and fully, than it will have to join the church.  There is no other option.  A better economic system is not the answer.  A people committed to the death and resurrection of Christ, each other and the Kingdom of God is the way we need to be.  I believe that God is brining about a new world, and he wants to use the church to do so.  So I think that if I’m going to further my education, it’s probably going to be in theology of some sort and not economics.  I no longer hold a sense of awe for techniques on how we distribute money.  I am in awe of  a group of people who live so radically different with their money (if they have any) that no economic system can make sense of it.

Economics then is no more than the world’s version of theology.  It is a study of a god.  I do not follow that god, nor am i enamored by it.  I am committed to a way of life committed to a God which is vastly different than a way of life committed to money will be.  While I think we need good economics and those that study it, I am pretty sure it’s not for me.

This Post will get added to my ongoing collection of thoughts of Money and the Church.

All my life I’ve been raised that I should never spend money if I don’t have to, always look for a deal and save money for when I’m older.  These aren’t necessarily things I learned in a test, but these are values that I picked up from the culture around me.  Getting a deal is congratulated.  Getting in free or something for free is looked as a sign of superiority.  Saving money is a sign of responsibility and commended in all respects.  Money is put on this pedestal, and if you have a lot of it you are secure, you can be happy and you made good decisions.  I’m just not sure that I buy it anymore.

What is money anyway?  This is a question that was asked on one of the latest episodes of This American Life that I found to be some of the best journalism and storytelling of all their episodes.  Money is fiction.  Money exists in our heads.  Money is a value system that we create, destroy and perpetuate depending on how we feel (or how those in powerful positions feel).  Money doesn’t even really exist.  Nowadays, it’s just ones and zeroes that change every second.  Just a number on a screen.  This number changes our moods, ruins marriages and generally represents our happiness.  Money is powerful because we’ve allowed it to be powerful.  So inevitably we allow money to give us security, value and respect.

Now, I don’t look at money so reverently.  I get pumped when I hear stories of Claiborne unloading ten thousands dollars on Wall Street.  When people disrespect money, I get excited like someone finally gets it.  When someone doesn’t follow the rules, it’s like a breath of fresh air.  I realize part of me lives it because I love to rebel against authority.  However, I can’t help but think that it’s more because money is finally being put in its place.

Christians generally spout of things about being a good steward of what God has given us, which they generally interpret as having a savings account or hunting for a good deal on what you want.  Somehow money has become synonymous with blessing and the money that we have in our possession is treated with the utmost respect and reverence.  We see being cheap as a virtue.  I guess I should have expected the such widespread acceptance of deep cultural values such as the use of money in the church, the church these days is pretty much unrecognizable from the rest of the world.

What I want to suggest is a different use/perspective on money from the church.

As Christians, we believe, like Abraham, Israel and Jesus, that we are blessed to be a blessing.  We believe that life is found in dying.  We believe that we should spend ourselves on behalf of our neighbour.  We believe that our treasure is not in earthly things, but in eternal things.  We believe that we should love all and become a servant to all.  How does our current way of looking at money exemplify these beliefs at all right now?  I don’t think they do.  In fact, I think the way we view and use money now is completely contradictory to a Christian worldview.

I’d like to propose three different proposals as to how I think Christians should handle their finances.

1. Focus on Who is Getting our Money Rather than What you Are Getting For Your Money –  This means that we are more conscious about where are money goes because we see that every dollar we spend perpetuates a system, whether it’s oppressive or freeing.  If we start to shift our focus about where money ends up rather then what we get we open up all sorts of doors that never would have been open before.  It becomes a lot easier to be generous.  I can give $5 a day to the deaf, blind, mute guy who knocks on my door and care less about if I’m getting a good return on my investment (ie. he is not buying lotto tickets and buying bread instead), and care more that I’m giving it to someone who is asking because they are asking.  I then start to be more conscious on the multiple levels of industry that leech onto all products bought and start to make purchases that are more local because you trust, are part of and participate in the local economy.  So spending 50-200% more on something isn’t nearly an issue because it’s not about the cost, it’s about who is getting the money.  If who is getting the money becomes the most important factor in a decision to spend money, I think we would be become a community who sees the ramifications of our decisions and makes those decisions in light of that.

2. Spend Money, Don’t Save It – As opposed to saving money, I suggest we spend it.  Not just spend it to benefit ourselves and for selfish gain, but spend it on behalf of others and to use it for their good.  Saving money becomes an obsession and we end up getting our security in what we have accomplished and what we can guarantee for ourselves.  We never learn to trust each other.  We never learn to depend on something else rather than money.  We end up hoarding it, building bigger barns for ourselves all the while people everywhere would benefit from it.  We tell ourselves that we’ll do more with it once we’ve grown it and earn some interest.  We never do.  It’s just a ploy so we don’t have to be generous.  I don’t think it’s wrong to spend money.  In fact I think it’s good to spend it and spend it well.  Taking my first proposal into light, and my third one, I think that spending money is important.  Just spend it.  Give it away.  Stop hoarding.  I think as soon as we begin saving, as long as we are holding onto something, we start to lose what being a blessing looks like.

3. Stop Using Money to Fulfill Emotional and Relational Gaps in Your Life – This probably sounds redundant but I think a lot of us do this without thinking.  We feel drained, so we need a vacation, so we spend a hell of a lot of money taking us somewhere else so we can relax.  We feel down, so we buy something.  We feel happy, so we celebrate by spending even more money.  Money becomes just a tool to fix or extend a feeling.  See money for what it is; a man-made value system that holds no real power rather that what you give it.  Learn to fill gaps through other means without needing to spend money just to satisfy whatever longing your feeling.

I’m sure there is more that will come to me.  Any that you would add?

Maybe I’m skeptical, ignorant, or taking way too much liberty in writing a post like this. I’ll never know if I don’t post it though. Here is my thought; giving to the poor in our society should no longer be the primary Christian response to seeking justice for the poor. I think there is a higher calling for Christians to partake in, and I don’t think it is throwing money at people. For the record, this is strictly speaking about first world countries, not third world situations.

Here is a problem we have right now in North America. We live in the richest society on earth. There is so much excess it’s nauseating. The issue is certainly not that we don’t have enough to go around. With the statistics on food waste alone in our country we can be sure that this is not the issue. There is plenty of food available and ready to be consumed. I’ll even go out on the limb here and say that I don’t even think distribution is the problem in this continent. There is plenty of food that makes it to the supermarkets, farmers markets that could easily be distributed into those that need it. Most people that we know that are in any kind of dire or poor condition live in cities and cities always have lots of food. These are the same folks that have multiple TV’s, satellites, Internet, vehicles and roofs over their head; the working poor some call them. You know people like us. I’m not trying to insinuate anything, they are like us, their values are similar to us middle-class folks in terms of where we spend our money and our wants of entertainment and luxury. I’m just trying to make a simple point, that even the most poor in our society are able to live a lot better than people in the same shoes three hundred years ago. The problem in our society is not that we don’t have enough money. I don’t even think it’s that we are not distributing it out well enough. There is so many safety nets, and social programs and frankly so much money available in our society that it seems ridiculous to simply throw more money at it. We’ve tried to fix all sorts of things like this, but more money just seems to complicate and make things worse.

I know the system is lopsided. But even those that are worse off still get money coming in from somewhere. I’m generalizing here, I know, but hear me out. The main issue in North America isn’t that we are poor and we need to help the poor be not poor anymore.  I do think that giving to the poor is a good discipline and shouldn’t be stopped, I just don’t think that can be our goal.

The issue of the poor in our society, or who we would call poor is not that they don’t have enough money to live beautiful and sustainable lives. The issue is that those who we would call poor try to live like those we would call wealthy. This is why we see those that live below the poverty line with most of the amenities of those who live well above it. Society in general has elevated leisure, entertainment, speed and mind-dulling activities. Those with extra cash at their disposal just have more of all these things. The poor are no better than the wealthy, and the wealthy are certainly no better than the poor. The church generally has just fed into this system in an unhealthy way. We give money to those that ask, we setup food banks so the poor can come and get groceries, we do missions trips into the poorest neighbourhoods and try to up the living conditions just a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, these are all valiant efforts. Unfortunately, these efforts are way to integrated with the systems of oppression that got them there in the first place. The church is just giving handouts so the poor can last longer in an already messed up system that is just destroying those at the end of it. The money and aid that we give helps temporarily, but our mission needs to be a bit more permanent than that.

The Christian response thus far is to help people scrape by in this kind of lifestyle. We give out money and groceries for them to take home and spend and use at will on whatever need or want they run into. All the while we live in our bigger homes, with our needs taken care of and we are constantly reaching out from a place of privilege to help them get to where we are. This is an elitist and unhelpful approach to the poor and it certainly isn’t modelling a sustainable and equitable lifestyle that I think the kingdom values.

The proper Christian response is not to make them middle class or to keep giving them money, but to model and include them into a way of life of contentment that says simplicity and living off less is a better way to live. Dan wrote about this a bit ago and his response was that we must become poor. I’d like to expand on this a bit. I don’t think the response is becoming poor (even though it probably will lead you to be poor), but rather model a life of contentment, peace and joy while being poor. Christians should be living healthy lifestyles, taking care of their neighbours, seeking peace even while having no disposable income to partake in the luxuries of our culture.

“Jesus is the story that forms the church. This means that the church first serves the world by helping the world to know what it means to be the world. For without a “contrast model” the world has no way to know or feel the oddness of its dependence on power for survival. Because the church the world can feel the strangeness of trying to build a politics that is inherently untruthful; the world lacks the basis to demand truth from its people. Because of a community formed by the story of Christ the world can know what it means to be a society committed to the growth of individual gifts and differences. In a community that has no fear of truth, the otherness of the other can be welcomed as a gift rather than a threat.”
– Stanley Hauerwas

If the church is to become this “contrast model” to the world, then this won’t look like setting up new programs, shuffling poor people through them, throwing money around and hoping that the poor become middle class and then assuming everything is fixed. The contrast model in this situation I think is the church needs to become a poor community of folks that are committed to simplicity, sustainability and contentment in the face of the lies and pressures of our culture. We don’t need money to be happy. We don’t need tvs, cars, fast food, alcohol or craploads of material good to be living well. The church can live well because we don’t derive our strength from these things at all. When the church can model this, and then when the church can successfully bring others into this way of life, then I think we will actually be taking care of the poor. Taking care of the poor will no longer be helping them not be poor anymore, but modelling a way of life where you can be poor and be ok with it.

We spend quite a bit of time pursuing, collecting and naming all of our possessions. We work hard so we can buy more things. We take vacation so we can get a break from all those things. We play hard so we can use those things. We spend an unhealthy amount of time sorting, labeling, cleaning, collecting, shopping, seeking and dreaming about our things. Our entire lives are consumed by the next thing that we get or that we want.

I’m beginning to wonder if we started to think more like this post I wrote a few months ago, that we could start to have a different perspective on material possessions all together?

I think we have a major flaw in the way we look at the world. We see everything in the world as something that we can own. So over centuries we have mined and moved around and cut down and built things so that we could use the world for what we think it should be used for. We see the world through one lens, and that lens is dominantly selfish one. If everything, everywhere is meant to be owned and possessed by someone. If that someone gets to choose the fate of whatever they own, strictly because they own it based on whatever laws in their society. Then the world has become nothing more than a large shopping mall, that instead of cash, it’s first come, first served and people can take and do whatever they want. Ownership and possession become key to the language we use when we talk about material possessions.

May I suggest an alternative? What if instead seeing material things as something to be possessed and owned primarily we look at material things as something to be shared first? What if as soon as you found yourself with the responsibility of any item, your first instinct was how do I share this rather than how do I guarantee my ownership of it? This takes a completely different shift in the way that we look at everything, but I think it is possible.

If we truly see the earth as God’s and everything in it, then it is unnecessary to see these things inside the world as ours at all. We use ideas of stewardship and responsibility to help us spend what is ours more wisely but there is one flaw in this type of thinking. It presupposes there is anything that is ours in the first place. What if material possessions could only truly be experienced when shared, not when owned? What if we can only truly experience what God has for us in this world through sharing and giving away? I think that if we can move away from a type of thinking that tells us that to enjoy something we have to own it and use it up that we might be better off. The best things in life only become a reality when they are shared with others or given away. The kingdom works this way as well. Why should it be any different with material things?

I’ve been playing around with this thought for a while.  After thinking about collections and how I think that they are in many ways anti-kingdom, James sent me this quote:

All of the computers on Ebay are mine. In fact, everything on Ebayis already mine. All of those things are just in long term storage that I pay nothing for. Storage is free.

When I want to take something out of storage, I just pay the for the storage costs for that particular thing up to that point, plus a nominal shipping fee, and my things are delivered to me so I can use them. When I am done with them, I return them to storage via Craigslist or Ebay, and I am given a fee as compensation for freeing up the storage facilities resources.

This is also the case with all of my stuff that Amazon and Walmart are holding for me. I have antiques, priceless art, cars, estates, and jewels beyond the dreams of avarice.

The world is my museum, displaying my collections on loan. The James Savages of the world are merely curators.

As I am the curator of their things, and thus together we all share the world.

While realistically this is not how we have setup the world.  Our culture and deep greed make this unthinkable, and in many ways, it makes this entire way of thinking pretty stupid.  I think however, that there is an argument for this that needs some more air time.  In fact, I think we are one of the first cultures where present leading Christian thinkers talk about this very little.  Ask a Christian leader to sell his library of books today and he will accuse you of all sorts of things and give you plenty of excuses.  However, Origen got to the point in his journey of following Jesus that lead him to sell even his books.  Why are we so afraid?  What are we really holding on to?

I’ve said things like this before to friends while playing around with this idea of common possessions for all.  Typically the response is “ok fine, give me your Ipod.”  Which only tells me that the reason we don’t like a belief system like this is because it means we have to give up the possessions we value far too much to anyone who wants it.  They think I don’t actually believe in this system because I am selfish like the rest of them.  It is true that I am selfish, but it doesn’t follow that I don’t really believe in this, or that it is not true.  If you don’t see the world with private possessions, then someone taking your Ipod wouldn’t mean much to you.  Also it would mean that you could take it back whenever because it’s not theirs either.  I realize, because of the culture we are in, that this is a highly idealistic way to see the world.  However, I don’t think that prevents it from being true or real or good.

If we are working along side of God in the realization of the kingdom of God, I have a feeling it looks a lot more like the commonality of all things rather than everyone having their own private possessions.  Private possessions are for those who have not learned to share.  Private possessions are for those who see something they have not created as their own.

I picked up a book called Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance and Use of Money by Justo Gonzalez and I realized I am not alone.  Most early church fathers had lots to say about money, possessions and ownership.  Most of them agree that the idea of private ownership is pretty far from the gospel.  Instead of making a case for it myself, here is a bunch of quotes from different early church thinkers.  I wrote a few quotes from this book already here, but these ones are going to focus more on the commonality of goods.

According to Clement, the commonality of goods–or at least of their use–is not a strange notion taught by some philosophical schools or fanatical groups.  It is part of the original order of creation.  Clement’s argument is that whatever we own we possess only for use; that any use beyond the necessary is superfluous and a burden to the Christian life; that the only way in which we can truly possess what we do not need is by giving it away; and that therefore the best management of private property is to make it available for common use.  God created humanity for sharing and began this process by sharing the divine logos.  Is is our sharing in this logos that makes us human.  Therefore, not to share is inhuman and goes against the verykoinonia that is the basis of our creation (ouk anthropinon, oude, koinonikon).
- Clement of Alexandria

God created our race for sharing (koininia), beginning by giving out what belonged to God, God’s own Word, making is common (kinos) to all humans, and creating all things for all (panta poiesas yper panton).  Therefore all things are common (koina oun ta panta); and let not the rich claim more than the rest.  To say therefore “I have more tha nI need, why not enjoy?” is neither human nor proper to sharing (ouk anthropinon, oude koinonikon)…For I know well that God has given us the power to use; but only to the limit of that which is necessary: and that God also willed that the use be in common.
- Clement of Alexandria

To own things is to be indebted to Caesar–or, in some of the passages, to “the prince of the world”–and therefore the closer one is to being free of material possessions the less hold Caeser has on one.
- Origen

Why do you (the rich) drive out of their inheritance people whose nature is the same as yours, claiming for yourselves alone the possession of the land?  The land was made to be common to all, the poor and the rich.  Why do you, oh rich, claim for yourselves alone the right to the land?

The world has been made for all, and a few of you rich try to keep it for yourselves.  For not only the ownership of the land, but even the sky, the air and the sea, a few rich people claim for themselves…Do the angels divide the space in heaven, as you do when you set up property marks on earth?

When you give to the poor, you give not of your own, but simply return what is his, for you have usurped that which is common and has been given for the common use of all.  The land belongs to all, not to the rich; and yet those who are deprived of its use are many more than those who enjoy it.

God our Lord willed that this land be the common possession of all and give it fruit to all.  but greed distributed the right of possessions.  Therefore if you claim as your private property part of what was granted in common to all human beings and to all animals, it is only fair that you share some of this with the poor, so that you will not deny nourishment to those who are also partakers of your right (by which you hold this land).

Greed is the cause of our want.  The birds have abundant natural food because they have received in common that which is necessary for their nourishment, and they do not know how to claim private ownership.  By claiming the private we (humans) lose the common.

Why do you consider things in the world as possessions, when the world is common?  Why do you consider the fruits of the land private, when the land is common?…Birds who own nothing, lack nothing.

Nothing graces the Christian soul so much as mercy: mercy as shown chiefly towards the poor, that thou mayest treat them as sharers in common with thee in the produce of nature, which brings forth the fruit of the earth for use to all.

But this is not even in accord with nature, for nature has poured forth all things for all men for common use.  God has ordered all things to be produced, so that there should be good in common to all, and that the earth should be the common possession to all.  Nature, therefore, has produced a common right for all, but greed has made it a right for a few.”
-Ambrose

Let no one regard anything as theirs, or as private.  On the contrary, to all of us were given, as gifts from the same Father, not only the same beginning of life, but also things in order that we might use them.  We must emulate God’s goodness poured upon us, following the excellent example of the Lord who has given us all these things.  Therefore, in order to be good, we must consider all things as being common to everybody, and not allow ourselves to be corrupted by the pride of luxury of the world, nor by greed after wealth, nor by seeking after vainglory.  On the contrary, we are to submit to God and remain in the love of every common life, living in communion.
- Hilary

Let us not be more beastly than the beasts.  For them, all things are common: the earth, the springs, the pastures, the mountains, the valleys.  One does not have more than another.  You, however, who call yourself human, the tamest of animals, become fiercer than the beasts and shut up in a single house the sustenance for thousands of poor people.  And even so, it is not only our nature that is common to us all, but also many other things: the sky and the sun, and the moon, and the choir of stars, and the air, and the sea, and the fire, and the water, and the earth, and life, and death, and growth, and old age, and sickness, and health, and hte need to eat and be clothed.  Also common to us all is the spirutual, the sacred table and the body of the Lord and his precious blood, and the promise of hte Kingdom….Is it not then absurd, that we who have so many great things in common….will be so greedy when it comes to riches, and rather than maintaining that commonality we become fiercer than the wild beasts.

Whence, then, does such great equality arise? It arises from the greed and the arrogance of the rich.  But I ask that in the future you act in a different manner: closely bound together in those things that are common and most needful, let us not be rent asunder by those that are earthly and lower, such as riches and poverty.”
- John Chrysostom

Any who wish to serve the Lord must not rejoice in the private, but in the common.  The earliest Christians made common property of their private good.  Did they lose what was theirs? … It is because of our private possessions that there are disagreements, enmity, dissension, wars…”
-Augustine

It’s pretty clear to me that one of the chief reasons the world is in the state it is in is because of a poor view of commonality of things.  How we determined that certain people deserve more than others is beyond me.  The only way we could get to such a massive unequal distribution that we see today is to allow a system of greed and privatization to run rampant.  If we seriously insist in following Jesus, and his most earliest followers in ushering in the Kingdom of God we should begin to uplift and support more commonality.  I don’t know what exactly this looks like in reality but I do know its a direction we must go.  We need to loosen our grip on our possessions and let them flow in and our of our lives more easily to constantly be ready to be used by anyone in need.  We need to be in more relationships with those that actually need the things that we have.  We need to remember that we all came from the same place, we all have the same destiny and none of us has earned any extra favour beyond the grace of God, and to act like we have is to forsake our humanity.  We need to remember that when we give and share, we are not sharing that which is ours, but that which is in common to all of humanity.