bible and theology on Consumerism

Jesus is teaching us to stop loving things and using people and start using things and loving people.

When every option is available to us, we don’t actually have freedom; we tend to shut down. I experienced what sociologists call choice overload (or paralysis) and decision fatigue. If you’ve ever tri...

A Theological Giant's Final Word Walter Brueggemann’s passing on June 5, 2025 leaves a void in biblical scholarship that will last a very long time. He was still writing books and essays at age 9...

We pray to You our Lord, our Savior, our Merciful God, that all our sins may be forgiven. Our sins are like a straight jacket, binding us, and keeping us from relationship with You. Although we know w...

Almighty God of creation, please forgive us for the times when we’ve squandered the gifts you’ve given us. You give so freely, so abundantly, that we sometimes take your gifts for granted. For the tim...

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves; when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little; when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lo...

Lord, You are a great and holy God, and you have asked us to pursue you as the object of our worship and devotion. But Lord, we have fallen short of what you ask of us, we are a sinful people. We have...

Merciful Jesus Give us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety in order to take up the cross of opportunity and justice Too often we fail to do this Merciful Jesus Give us courage to d...

We are complicit and we do not even realize it, O Holy God. Every day we participate in systems of idolatry, and we promote the captivity of a nation to gods. We have bought the subtle lies of our cul...

The Celebrant and People together, all kneeling Most holy and merciful Father: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinne...

Weddings have evolved over the past few decades to become a major industry, with the average cost of a wedding in 2010 coming in just under $27,000. Unfortunately the vast majority of couples spend th...

There is no such thing as material covetousness. All covetousness is spiritual. ...Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will conten...

People are realizing that what seemed important to them in their lives-materialism and consumerism-doesn't work at all to make a happy heart. It actually makes an unhappy heart. And an unhappy wor...

In his classic book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster shares 10 principles that can help you cultivate an attitude of simplicity over consumerism: Buy things for their usefulness rather than...

When we keep purchasing, keep consuming, and keep envying and coveting, we are pining for what the objects represent: peace, ease, meaning, beauty, stability, adventure, knowledge, renown, connection,...

American culture is probably the least Christian culture that we’ve ever had because it is so materialistic and it’s so full of lies…. The problem is people have been treated as consumers for so long ...

Let us treasure up in our soul some of those things which are permanent..., not of those which will forsake us and be destroyed, and which only tickle our senses for a little while.

Who covets more, is evermore a slave.

A social order bent on producing wealth as an end in itself cannot avoid the creation of a people whose souls are superficial and whose daily life is captured by sentimentalities. They will ask questi...

Den som köper det han inte behöver stjäl från sig själv. He who buys what he does not need steals from himself.

What really characterizes consumer culture is not attachment to things but detachment. . . . People do not cling to things; they discard them and buy other things.

In this satirical excerpt from How to be a Perfect Christian by the Babylon Bee, the point becomes clear that our often-consumeristic approach to church leaves much to be desired: You want to be a p...

Some of us are interested in religious studies because we are interested in people. People do religious things; they symbolize and ritualize their lives and desire to be in a community. What piqued my...

One of the early hits of the internet had to be eBay. Suddenly getting rid of your old junk, or otherwise unnecessary “stuff,” could be sold, not just to your neighbors in a yard sale, but to anyone w...

The story is told of Socrates walking through the market in Athens, with its groaning abundance of options, and saying to himself, “Who would have thought that there could be so many things that I can...

Not only are my possessions not bringing happiness into my life; even worse, they are actually distracting me from the things that do!

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

The drive to possess is an engine for hurry.

If you own something you cannot give away, then you don’t own it, it owns you.

It is not objects that people really desire, but their lush coating of images and dreams. . . . It is never the object which is consumed—instead it is the relationship between us and the object of des...