Contents
1.
Introduction
2.
Forms
of religious asceticism.
3.
Consumerism's
Instability: Loss of time, Satisfaction, and Security
4.
Consumerism's
inhumanity: alienation and fear
5.
Virtue:
the cure for consumerism
6.
Christian
Asceticism: The Path to Freedom
7.
Conclusion
8.
Bibliography
Introduction
Asceticism and
monasticism are two religious disciplines designed to de-emphasize the
pleasures of the world so the practitioner can concentrate on the spiritual
life. Both asceticism and monasticism have been adopted by worshipers of various
faiths. In general, asceticism is the practice of strict self-denial as a means
of attaining a higher spiritual plane. Monasticism is the state of being
secluded from the world in order to fulfill religious vows. While most monks
are ascetic, ascetics do not have to be monks.
Asceticism comes
from the Greek word askesis, meaning "exercise, training, practice."
Ascetics renounce worldly pleasures that distract from spiritual growth and
enlightenment and live a life of abstinence, austerity and extreme self-denial.
Asceticism is common in Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam.
Asceticism is not to be confused with Stoicism. Stoics believed that holiness
can reside only in the spiritual realm, and all physical matter is evil.
Ascetics do not necessarily believe that the flesh is evil, but they do go to
great lengths to deny the flesh in order to transform the mind or
"free" the spirit. Historically, asceticism has involved fasting,
exposing oneself to heat or cold, sleep deprivation, flagellation, and even
self-mutilation. Asceticism is usually associated with monks, priests and
yogis.
The voluntary
Nazarite vow could be seen as a mild form of asceticism. People of the Old
Testament who took the vow consecrated themselves to God and refrained from
drinking wine and cutting their hair (Numbers 6:1-21). Modern Christian
ascetics use passages such as Matthew 10:28 and 1 Corinthians 9:27 to support
their lifestyle, and they exhibit their austerity in different ways. Some
choose to be celibate. Others practice religious disciplines such as
meditation, keeping vigil, and fasting.
Monasticism is
similar to asceticism, but with a slightly different focus. Whereas ascetics
practice extreme self-denial, monks seclude themselves from all earthly
influences in an attempt to live a godly life and to keep their personal
religious vows. Christian monasticism is based on an extreme interpretation of
Jesus' teachings on perfection (Matthew 5:48), celibacy (Matthew 19:10-12), and
poverty (Matthew 19:16-22). Monks and nuns attempt to control their environment
and surround themselves with like-minded devotees. Many followers of Eastern
religions also practice monasticism, the Buddhist monk perhaps being the most
recognizable.
Christian
monasticism draws from the influence of Judaic tradition. The Essenes, a Jewish
mystical sect, were similar to monks. They were as devout as the Pharisees but
lived in isolation, often in caves in the wilderness. It's possible that John
the Baptist was an Essene, and many scholars believe the Dead Sea Scrolls were
written by Essenes. Monasticism in Christianity became popular during the time
of Constantine. With the government's endorsement of Christianity, many
believers found it more difficult to live a godly lifestyle. Some of them
turned their backs on society and fled to the desert, where they believed that
quietude and self-induced hardship would make following Jesus easier. Today,
most Western monks and nuns are Catholic, although there is a movement among
Protestants for individuals and families to live communally.
Followers of
Christ are told to deny self (Luke 9:23), but asceticism takes this command to
an extreme. The Bible never suggests that a Christian should purposely seek out
discomfort or pain. On the contrary, God has richly blessed us "with
everything for our enjoyment" (1 Timothy 6:17). The Bible warns of those
who "forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain
foods" (1 Timothy 4:3); thus, it is erroneous to believe that celibates
who abstain from certain foods are "more holy" than other people. We
are under grace, not under the law (Romans 6:14); therefore, the Christian does
not live by a set of rules but by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Christ has
set us free (John 8:36). In many cases, the ascetic practices self-denial in
order to earn God's favor or somehow purge himself from sin. This shows a
misunderstanding of grace; no amount of austerity can earn salvation or merit
God's love (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Forms
of religious asceticism.
In all strictly
ascetic movements, celibacy has been regarded as the first commandment. Virgins
and celibates emerged among the earliest Christian communities and came to
occupy a prominent status. Among the earliest Mesopotamian Christian
communities, only the celibates were accepted as full members of the church,
and in some religions only celibates have been permitted to be priests (e.g.,
Aztec religion and Roman Catholicism). Abdication of worldly goods is another
fundamental principle. In monastic communities there has been a strong trend
toward this ideal. In Christian monasticism this ideal was enacted in its most
radical form by Alexander Akoimetos, a founder of monasteries in Mesopotamia
(died c. 430). Centuries before the activities of the medieval Western
Christian monk St. Francis of Assisi, Alexander betrothed himself to poverty,
and through his disciples he expanded his influence in Eastern Christian
monasteries. These monks lived from the alms they begged but did not allow the
gifts to accumulate and create a housekeeping problem, as occurred among some
Western monastic orders, such as the Franciscans. In the East, wandering Hindu
ascetics and Buddhist monks also live according to regulations that prescribe a
denial of worldly goods.
It has been my
experience through fifteen years of priestly service that the personal and
familial problems facing Christians are greatly intensified by the consumerism
that characterizes much of contemporary American life. As I have come to
appreciate the psychological and religious aspects of this influence I have
also become increasingly convinced of the social and economic instability which
consumerism is fostering. Although I am not an academic theologian or social
theorist, my training in theology and pastoral experience suggest to me that it
is becoming imperative for the Church to develop a concrete response to the
spiritual and temporal danger that is spreading. In the present article I
propose to examine the structure of consumerism's destructive hold and to
indicate some particular strategies from the Christian ascetical tradition
which can help to break that hold.
Consumerism's
Instability: Loss of time, Satisfaction, and Security
Given the
limitations of my training, I cannot provide an economic analysis of
consumerism, but must approach it existentially, examining its effects from a
philosophical and theological perspective. By "consumerism," I do not
mean a "free-market" or "capitalist" economy (although
these might take a consumeristic form). I mean rather a social and economic
order based on the systematic creation and fostering of the desire to possess
material goods and personal success in ever greater amounts. Consumerism promises
"a better life" to all who work hard enough, but I believe that it
actually leads to a social and economic instability which tends to destroy the
consumerist system and its adherents.
One of the
dominant complaints expressed by my parishioners—a complaint which spiritual
counseling has generally confirmed to be real—is their lack of time. Married
couples and families find there is little time to be together interacting with
one another because they are so busy pursuing the hectic schedules of their
lives. They rush from bed to work or school then to evening activities then to
bed again. They work overtime, participate in numerous extra-curricular
activities at school, and attend as many other social events as they can manage
to squeeze into their calendars. The result is that they often rob themselves
of an hour or more of sleep each night. They are chronically tired and when, on
rare occasions, they find free time they are likely to "veg out" in
front of the TV, VCR, or PC. This lifestyle is instantly recognizable to almost
all of us. It is a lifestyle inhospitable to the type of time and personal
interaction that is truly restful and restorative. It is a world in which
prayer, the spiritual life, the Church, and God are often numbered among the
myriad of events that must be fit into daily life instead of taking their
rightful place as the hinges upon which daily life turns. Many parishioners
sense that there is something amiss in their lives, but they seem unable to fix
the problem. Why?
A significant
part of the answer, I believe, lies in the way consumerist society plays upon
the inherent weaknesses of fallen human nature. Consumerism creates and
nourishes human desire for temporal goods and for the sense of well-being that
the acquisition and possession of those goods can provide. We are conditioned
never to be satisfied with a sufficiency, but to "be all that you can
be" through the endless development of talent and productivity. Of course,
this conditioning tends to feed the selfish desires of the body and the soul.
We like the feel of "the good life" and the satisfaction that comes
from being the center of the world we have created. Our selfishness and love of
comfort make it all too easy for us to accept the dictum that "more is
better." Our disordered wills are readily trained to internalize the
principle of "planned obsolescence" by which we learn to be
dissatisfied with what we already have and to want more. Thus we cannot rest
with the good, but find ourselves always striving for more. We tend to view
"settling for less" as lazy, defeatist, irresponsible behavior and to
equate it with personal failure. Spouses or parents who settle for less are
considered to be guilty of failing to love as they should because they are not
providing as "best as possible" for the family. "Good
enough" is by definition never enough.
The consumerist
lust for a better life is inherently destabilizing of our personal and economic
lives. Since we are not satisfied with the good we possess and since our
self-worth is connected to never settling for less, we must always be earning
and acquiring more. Hence we work longer hours, fill our days with more
self-actualizing activities, and increase spending so that we can have the
better life now. In this way we become slaves to dissatisfaction, time, and
money—harsh task masters who allow no rest. This consumerist imperative to
acquire, I believe, explains another disturbing characteristic of contemporary
American life: decreased savings and increased debt. In a consumerist economy
disposable income is expended to satisfy desire and self-image by artificially
inflating one's lifestyle, worth, and status when it is properly meant to
provide for the future needs of the family and for the poor. For the
consumerist household the budgetary question is no longer how much one can
afford to pay for a car, house, vacation, or clothes, but how much of a monthly
installment payment one can afford to make toward their purchase. In this
process privately owned property shifts from being a repository of accumulated
wealth providing a modest degree of economic security to being collateral for
loans used to sustain a lifestyle that exceeds the limits of one's actual level
of productivity. Thus, in addition to being a slave to dissatisfaction, time,
and money one becomes a slave to their offspring: credit and the financial
system built upon it. In a tragic paradox the more consumeristic a person
becomes the more he has, but the less he owns and the less satisfied he is.
This is radically destabilizing to personal and communal life.
Consumerism's
inhumanity: alienation and fear
Consumerism
gives rise to truly fiendish lifestyle. Labor and the use of capital are
supposed to yield personal and familial financial stability through ownership.
The consumerist system drives its participants through labor and financial
speculation (credit or investment) to sustain artificial lifestyles they
"have" but do not "own," thus preventing on principle the
minimal stability accorded by private property. They cannot rest or be secure
in the fruit of their labor because they do not yet own that fruit. Today's
consumerist is like yesterday's coal miner who could not answer "St.
Peter's call" because he owed his soul to the company store. Many modern
Americans owe almost their entire lifestyles to the workplace and the
marketplace: their salaries and health care come from their employer, their
money and property are tied up in debts, and their retirements are invested in
mutual funds or other portfolios. Financial security arises from having
something to fall back on during a bad economy, yet much of what they hope to
posses depends on at least a modestly improving economy. If the economy
collapses they have nothing left—nothing but debts they cannot service. How can
such people hope to experience financial security or stability? Add to this the
nomadic wanderings of businesses and employees across the nation that have left
many neighborhoods without longtime residents and few family members living in
proximity to each other and one can readily understand the growing fear of an
old age spent alone or as a financial and personal burden to family and
community.
Those who have
given over to a consumeristic lifestyle cannot give proper priority to rest,
recreation, joy, or prayer. They simply do not have the time, energy, or
security to do so. They live with an inner fear that compels them forward in an
endless effort to secure what is not securable: their unrealistic lifestyles.
Even if they manage to place God somewhere into the scheme of things they are
still trapped because God is not to be treated as one good among many: He is
the one God, the transcendent source of all good. We simply cannot serve the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob unless we love Him with our whole heart—not
merely place Him first on a list. Neither can we properly love ourselves or our
neighbors if we do not love God. The consumerist therefore is unable to adequately
love and serve God, himself, his family, his Church, or his community because
he is enslaved to the acquisition of a better life. The pitiable religious
consumerist thinks if he just works harder he will be able "to make
time" for God and others, but he is afraid that any "slacking
off" his hectic schedule is a failure to use God's gifts in providing for
the self-fulfillment of his family. By some demonic alchemy, love of God has
come to mean giving thanks for His gifts by maximizing productive "self-actualization"
while love of neighbor has come to mean providing them with consumer goods. One
need only examine the finances of a typical Christian family in America during
the aftermath of Christmas to see how pervasive this mentality has become.
Far from
attaining a better life, consumerists experience alienation and fear. Always
wanting more, their sense of accomplishment is ephemeral and they are strangers
to contentment. Always in danger of losing what they have but do not own, a
sense of urgency and futility are their constant companions. In their minds,
the peace of "accepting one's lot" is purchased only at the price of
a humiliating surrender to limitation and failure. It would be more accurate to
call this a "grudging resignation" rather than an act of acceptance.
It is a profoundly alienating experience, not at all life-giving.
The reader
should note that in offering this critique of consumerism I imply no nostalgia
for a "golden age" of agricultural or industrial society in which the
ownership of land or a share in the means of production could be a hedge
against "hard times." I am simply stating that as a matter of fact
the unique structure of consumeristic desire for a better life creates
particular types of alienation and instability. These characteristic desires
and fears conspire very effectively to enslave many modern Americans to time,
money, and the consumerist system. The result is destructive of human
contentment and of religious sensibilities.
Virtue:
the cure for consumerism
What is the
Church to do in such a situation? Well meaning people, baptized into the death
and resurrection of the Lord, are becoming ensnared by the "elemental
powers of the world" when they should be enjoying the freedom of the
children of God (see Gal. 4:1-9). If they could see and understand their
plight, they might follow the path of grace out of the trap, but their
consumerist lifestyles keep them in such a heightened state of activity and
anxiety that it is all but impossible for them "to be still and know that
I am God." Advocating that people spend more time with God in prayer is
unlikely to have any significant impact since adding God and prayer into the
consumerist pantheon of activities is not enough to restore genuine piety.
Personal communion with God must be acknowledged as the source and summit of
life, not reduced to the first on a list of "things to do." To be of
any measurable assistance, the Church needs an effective way to confront
consumeristic behavior so the daily life of her members may become once again
centered on God.
To find a way
out we must confront the moral roots of consumeristic behavior. Consumerism
functions by arousing desires and encouraging them not to be satisfied, which
in turn leads to alienation from personal accomplishments and to fear of loss.
According to a classical Catholic anthropology (such as found in Augustine and
Aquinas) there are two basic types of appetites: the spiritual appetite
expressed in the will and the bodily appetites expressed in instincts/responses
associated with comfort (concupiscibility) and struggle (irascibility).
Consumerism trains a person to unjustly will to have more than he has earned or
achieved, to intemperately indulge in creaturely comforts, to blindly fight
against contentment in the status quo, and to unreasonably fear the loss of
that status. Therefore, if we would free people from consumerism, we must first
help them discipline their appetites so they can be satisfied with a
sufficiency in spirit and body. In terms of Catholic anthropology, this means
inculcating the virtues, especially those of justice (by which one wills toward
himself and others that which is due) and temperance (by which one takes
appropriate comfort/pleasure in material goods). A just and temperate person is
not mastered by consumeristic manipulations of his will and concupiscible
appetites.
However, more is
needed than these two cardinal virtues. Catholic theology teaches that as an
existential fact no man succeeds fully in living virtuously by his own power.
He is in need of grace. Moreover, the consumerist is in need of an antidote to
his alienation and fear since he cannot rest until he can experience proper
satisfaction and security in the true goods of human life. He is in desperate
need of the virtues of love and hope by which he finds authentic human
fulfillment in relations with others and has appropriate confidence in the
future. In the person of Christ we encounter just such a source of grace, of
Love, and of Hope. Significantly, Christ reveals the truth that love is a total
commitment of oneself to God and others realized in a radical self-emptying (or
kenosis). Rather than preach fulfillment through "self-actualization"
or the "good life," Jesus pours Himself out for us on the Cross. Only
through communion with Christ's loving death and resurrection does man receive the
Holy Spirit and the grace to live a just and temperate life animated by the
theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love.
Christian
Asceticism: The Path to Freedom
To confront
consumeristic behavior effectively, then, the Church must inculcate virtuous
behavior lived in the power of Christ's Spirit. The difficulty with formation
of the virtues is that they cannot simply be taught by prescriptions. Different
personality types and different circumstances of daily life make it impossible
to provide a detailed list of "how to" live the virtues. Of course
one can describe the virtues and show how they differ from their contrary
vices, but one needs models of virtue and time to practice them in order to
become virtuous. Ultimately, one needs God's grace to advance in virtue. Here
is where the Church can play a pivotal role: by providing instruction,
modeling, ongoing formation, and the grace of Christ. Experience teaches that a
community can be a very effective means of mediating virtue and in fact Christ
established the Church precisely for this purpose: to make disciples.
The Christian
Tradition provides us with specific behaviors which foster the temperance and
justice needed to overcome the false desires aroused by consumerism and which
simultaneously nourish the Love and Hope required to heal the wounds of
consumerism. These behaviors are the spiritual disciplines which comprise Christian
asceticism and include a great variety of concrete means by which Christians
throughout the centuries have put into practice their new life in Christ. I
would like to suggest three practices as particularly effective in confronting
the vices of consumerism: the penitential life, the honoring of the Sabbath,
and the offering of the tithe.
Consider
penance. It is a powerful means of transformation because it is an exercise of
the divine love which has been bestowed on every Christian reborn into the
death and resurrection of Jesus. United to Christ by this love and filled with
the Holy Spirit, the Christian is able to follow in the path of Christ's
self-emptying love whereby He laid down his life as a sacrificial gift to God
for the sake of His fellow man. Traditionally, this personal kenosis of the
Christian has been understood as an ongoing conversion (or metanoia)
encompassing three types of actions: fasting (or self-denial), prayer, and
almsgiving (or works of mercy). In this penitential life the Christian seeks to
respond to God's love by enacting the self-emptying love of Christ in daily
life. Through self-denial the Christian turns away from the inessential desires
of his will and his flesh, being content with God's will for his life. Through
prayer he seeks an ever deeper communion with God and the grace to persevere in
the narrow path of love. Through works of mercy the Christian not only shares
material goods with others, he pours himself out on their behalf.
The Church forms
disciples, in large measure, through preaching, exemplifying, nurturing, and coordinating
this communal life of penance. By its very nature such a life turns the
Christian away from the selfish pursuit of an ever-increasing standard of
living and toward a selfless loving of God and neighbor. By establishing
specific practices in which the entire community undertakes self-denial,
prayer, and good works, the Church would be able to foster an authentic
holiness which frees its members from consumeristic bondage. Christians in turn
would humanize the society in which they live, especially by bringing Love and
Hope to a fallen world. Such a Christianity is neither an opiate nor a
revolution; it is a prophetic witness radiating from the Church which
transforms her members and the whole world.
Consider the
Sabbath. In a consumeristic and activist culture, the Sabbath carves out space
for God and others, a time for resting from labor, acquisition, and consumption
to enjoy personal relationships and the fruits of the earth. The hectic
scheduling of events, which makes time "fly," is broken by a savoring
of time with others in God's creation. The Sabbath rest can be an enlivening
experience of "kairos" (the "fullness of time", perhaps
akin to the consumerist's illusory "quality time") rather than a
wearying experience of "chronos" (time measured, spent, or
"killed"). Sabbath time comes only at a price—one "saves"
or "redeems" this time by not using it for material gain, servile
labor, or other consumeristic pursuits. In our current situation, this means
that the entire week would need to be rescheduled around the Sabbath. As people
adjusted each day's activities in order to be able to honor the Sabbath, the
Lord's day would become again the center from which all time is measured and
allotted. Even in cases that require a Christian to work on Sunday, it is
possible to acknowledge Sunday with some special form of worship and to set
aside another day for Sabbath rest. By keeping the Sabbath an effective limit
would be placed on productivity and the opportunity would be created for
fostering relationships with God and others.
Offering the tithe has an effect similar
to honoring the Sabbath. In order to give 10% to God's work people cannot be
spending everything on themselves. To find 10% in an overextended consumeristic
budget likely means that a person's entire lifestyle would have to change. The
monthly budget would need to revolve to a certain extent around the tithe.
Thus, a limit on spending would be established by rendering first to God what
is His. This would create a situation in which one is invited to learn that
income is not meant to be expended solely to expand one's lifestyle and that an
accounting must be given for every penny before God.
Families in my
parish who have taken the two concrete steps of honoring the Sabbath and
offering the tithe report that the net effect is to transform their family life
and their understanding of time and money.
Giving one day of their week and one tenth of their income teaches them that
all their time and money belong to God. In order to honor the Sabbath and the
tithe they must continually remind themselves that all activities and expenses
must be related to what God intends for them in a given week. They learn that
some things just will not get done and some purchases will not be made, but
that that is all right because the limited resources of time and money must be
used according to God's will. In short, they begin to develop a sense of
Providence. They experience that their lives are in God's hands, not in the
hands of circumstance, and that they do not need to be "all they can
be" but only what God wills them to be. This is an experience of Love and
of Hope. They learn to be satisfied with the good they possess through seeking
to do God's will as they acquire and expend the goods He has entrusted to them.
They are able to face the future with less fear because they have begun to live
in trust of His Providence. This creates not only a type of personal
contentment unknown to consumerism, but also makes possible a modest level of
economic security which consumerism cannot provide. Being content with less
means having the possibility of saving part of one's income for the future in
the form of possessions that are truly one's own.
Conclusion
I have witnessed
the genuine spiritual and material well-being of families who have followed
this ascetical path to freedom from consumerism. It is a path not easily
traversed and one which in my experience has only been followed successfully by
those who undertook to honor the Sabbath, to offer the tithe, and to live a
penitential life. The lesson they have taught me is that by creating an
environment that encourages asceticism the Church can provide much needed
support and vision to those who have become trapped by consumerism. Many of our
people want out; they simply are not able to understand the problem or to
envision a solution on their own. The wonderful thing about these ascetical
practices is that even without fully understanding them a person can act upon
them and be aided by them. Like the good habits our parents tried to instill,
these behaviors aid us long before we can fully appreciate them. They combat
consumerism at its roots of desire and fear; they force a reassessment of our
purpose in life, of our use of time, and of our use of money.
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