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"My son keeps asking why, why, why at every step. Why did they have to move? Why can't he visit his bedroom at the old house? Why are his toys in storage? Why do they have to live apart? Why did he have to leave behind the playground that he and his father had just started building?"
- Susan Brooking, near Charlottesville, Virginia, on the effect of foreclosure on her 5-year-old son. (Source: The Washington Post)
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This Thanksgiving, Enough is Enough
The political ads are finally off the air. (We can all give thanks for that!) But now there is a new wave of advertisements hitting all of us. Each one will give us a different reason to consume. Each one will put pressure on us to show our love, compassion, and thankfulness through buying more stuff with money we don't have on things we probably don't need. I've already heard a barrage of commercials on TV and radio telling me that I don't even have to wait for Black Friday to start my spending this year. "Those who care, consume," they say.
That message is clear -- and clearly wrong.
The pervasiveness of our consumer culture has been met with some backlash. "Buy Nothing Day" has grown into movement that competes with the sometimes deadly crowds of "Black Friday." "The Advent Conspiracy" has challenged Christians to take Advent as an opportunity to show the world the compassion of Christ and not be conformed to the consumptive patterns of the world.
I wrote in my most recent book, Rediscovering Values, about our need to replace the maxim of "greed is good" with the value of "enough is enough." This is a challenge because the advertisements we see telling us to consume are often fundamentally at odds with the teachings of Jesus. The relentless pressure of advertising tells us that "there is never enough," and that you should "worry" constantly about what you eat and drink, what you wear, whether your future is secure, and more. But Jesus says the exact opposite. They say, "Worry all the time!" But Christ says, "Don't worry!"
The pressure we feel doesn't just come from the ads we get in our inboxes or see on television. All of us have family and friends who are going to be doing a lot of shopping. If a friend goes out and spends money on us, we feel guilty if we don't reciprocate at roughly the same level. What's worse is if someone gets us a gift and we don't get them anything at all. The problem is not giving gifts. Giving gifts becomes a problem when the exchange of stuff replaces building relationships.
How should we respond to these pressures during this season? Here are a few thoughts:
First, try and make decisions about gift giving with friends and family. Get everybody on the same page before all the spending happens. You could try sending around this column to get the conversation going. Your values, not commercials, should inform how you show your gratefulness to those you love.
Second, try some alternative gift giving this year. Sojourners magazine has a new Christmas Giving Guide that you can use to help make those decisions. These are businesses and non-profits that are committed to a mission that makes sure each dollar you give or spend has a positive impact on the world.
And finally, as we think about Thanksgiving and look forward to Christmas, let's take stock of our lives and priorities and make sure they are being driven by our values and relationships and not just our culture of consumption.
Pass the DREAM Act
The U.S. Senate has the opportunity to give almost one million young people a new start by passing the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for immigrant students who have grown up in the United States if they attend college or serve in the U.S. military. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released the statement announcing that he plans to bring up the DREAM Act as a stand-alone bill for a vote during the lame-duck session.
+ Encourage your senators to vote for the ratification of the DREAM Act
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ON THE GOD'S POLITICS BLOG |
+ See what's new on the blog of Jim Wallis and friends
Study Finds White Evangelicals Believe in American Exceptionalism
by Evan Trowbridge
More than eight in 10 white evangelical Christians in the United States believe that God has granted the United States a special role in history, according to a study released Wednesday.
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Are Mennonites Taking Over the World?
by Sheldon C. Good
Not likely. But Mark Tooley wonders in The American Spectator magazine whether Mennonites are taking over a big enough part of Christianity to be dangerous.
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Walking the Talk in the Fight for Fair Food Practices
by Megan Grove
Advocacy is hard work and no one knows that better than the members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). After all, how often does an activist group demand change from big-name food establishments -- and win? The modern-day David has met his Goliath.
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Preaching on Truth and Conscience
by Logan Mehl-Laituri
Studies show that there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. These veterans struggle with the expectations of heroism while wrestling with the demons unleashed within them as a part their service.
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One Year Later, I Remain Against Football
by Ernesto Tinajero
Posting an unpopular position in a blog post online can be a bone jarring hit to your ego. Many people will come out of the woodwork to claim you have brain damage. Such was the result of my post last year about no longer supporting football on Christian grounds.
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Preparation for the Poor: Why Climate Funding Can't Wait
by Katherine Philipson
The effects of climate change -- coastal flooding, stronger storms, spreading vector-borne diseases like malaria, and changes in rainfall patterns -- are already taking their toll on marginalized people from Pakistan, to Malawi, to New Orleans.
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What Celebrities Can Teach Christians about Simple Living
by Valerie Weaver-Zercher
In her Living More with Less chapter on doing justice, Doris Janzen Longacre stressed the government-level changes needed to address the hunger and ecology crises. She pointed Christians toward several ways to work for such change.
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Do You Know Where Your Food Comes From?
by Andrew Wainer
A half-century ago, on the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, the CBS Reports television program broadcast legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow's final documentary. "Harvest of Shame," a one-hour investigative report, examined the lives of migrant farmworkers.
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Political change requires a new 'moral center'
National Catholic Reporter
Jim Wallis of Sojourners is right on target again in a blog series he has written, titled "It Takes a Movement: The Next Steps."
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Estate Tax: Justice or Theft?
ABC News
Jim Wallis, founder and editor of the progressive evangelical magazine Sojourners, is against a complete repeal of the estate tax. He said reinstating the estate tax is a matter of justice.
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"Sojourners in the news" articles are the most recent news clippings that mention Sojourners in any way - whether favorably or unfavorably. Though we provide the text on our site for your convenience, we do not necessarily endorse the views of these articles or their source publications.
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