Christian Living

If you’re not among the mommy set, you may not have heard about Hattie Garlick, the UK mom who has vowed not to spend a single pound on her two-year-old son for the next year. Hattie’s decision is part social rebellion, part necessity. She credits a growing distaste for “kiddy consumerism” and the fact that she was recently laid off (or as our British cousins say, “made redundant”). Ultimately, her decision is rooted in the ideas of minimalism and thrift—that we don’t need what everybody says we need and what we do need, we can find more cheaply.

I know a bit about this kind of counter-cultural lifestyle. I grew up in a family of seven with an extremely limited income. We gardened, canned, and wore hand-me-downs, not because my parents were making a public statement, but because they were trying to clothe and feed us. Even today with a smaller family and a decidedly larger income, I still buy most of our clothes at Goodwill, we hunt, garden, and can, and my idea of a good time is shopping at Aldi. And yet, even I am skeptical of frugality for frugality’s sake. (If I’m honest, I suppose I’m also a bit of a curmudgeon. Whenever being counter-cultural becomes trendy, I immediately get suspicious—I don’t make a very good hipster.)

Because even while those of us enmeshed in consumerism might need to cut of our hand to save our souls (Matt. 5:30), minimalism can have as many pitfalls as materialism. It’s entirely possible to trade consumerism for a Gnosticism that elevates efficiency and thrift above everything else. Just because we might be counter-cultural doesn’t mean that we don’t have our share of sub-cultural baggage. See if any of this luggage is yours:

This week brings fascinating news from two colleges. The two institutions are facing almost opposite situations, and the contrast between them is both remarkable and illustrative. Because change occurs constantly, Christian organizations are constantly required to apply their principles to new situations. Cedarville University and Faith Baptist Bible College provide a clear contrast in terms of how new applications might take place.

The school that is now Cedarville University started out as a Bible institute in Cleveland. During the early 1950s it acquired the name and campus of Cedarville College, formerly a Presbyterian school. For many years, Cedarville College staked out its identity as a fundamentalist, Baptist institution. Under the leadership of James T. Jeremiah, it was one of the flagship schools identified with the Regular Baptist movement.

In 1978, Paul Dixon became president of the college. He brought with him a vision to make Cedarville into a world-class university. Regular Baptists, however, had neither the numerical nor the economic strength to fulfill his dream. Dixon needed a larger constituency and broader appeal, and in pursuit of these goals he began to downplay some of the distinctives that Regular Baptists thought important. There was a softening of ecclesiastical separation as the platform featured a broader variety of evangelicals. There was an increasing openness and even friendliness toward the more current trends in popular culture. There was even a shifting of the criteria for faculty selection. By the early 1990s, Cedarville professors were putting themselves publicly on record for their (belated) support of the Equal Rights Amendment—legislation that was almost universally opposed by conservative Christians of all sorts.

Republished, with permission, from Voice magazine, Jan./Feb. 2013.

Every Christian should give thoughtful consideration to the tragedy of war and to what it means for individuals and a nation to go to war. In a widely-reported story in August 2012, ten Nobel Peace Laureates, including Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, wrote and signed a letter to NBC protesting a new reality television program, “Stars Earn Stripes.” The reality program, hosted by retired four-star general Wesley Clark, paired minor celebrities with former U.S. military personnel and put the teams through various training and simulated military exercises including live fire experiences. The Nobel Laureates protested the program, which was widely advertised during the 2012 London Olympics, arguing in part:

Preparing for war is neither amusing nor entertaining.

Real war is down in the dirt deadly. People—military and civilians—die in ways that are anything but entertaining. Communities and societies are ripped apart in armed conflict and the aftermath can be as deadly as the war itself as simmering animosities are unleashed in horrific spirals of violence. War, whether relatively short-lived or going on for decades as in too many parts of the world, leaves deep scars that can take generations to overcome, if ever.

Trying to somehow sanitize war by likening it to an athletic competition further calls into question the morality and ethics of linking the military anywhere with the entertainment industry in barely veiled efforts to make war and its multitudinous costs more palatable to the public.¹

The letter drew quite a bit of attention across the political and religious spectrums. Some saw it as an indictment of the U.S. military while others saw it as an indictment of the entertainment industry or contemporary U.S culture and society as a whole. Unfortunately, most Americans and television viewers probably did not think anything about it at all.