Materialism

“By taking our focus off the human receiver and putting it on the divine giver, Christmas can become a symbol of God’s giving heart rather than people’s grabbing hands.” - Randy Alcorn

“I have all I need, as well as a lot of stuff I don’t need. There’s a word in the Bible that embraces this concept. It’s the word abundance.” - Olinger

“we do not need to be Christians for long before we learn that the greatest joy connected to wealth does not come from gaining but from giving. Hoarding wealth for ourselves gives far less lasting satisfaction than contributing wealth to God’s causes.” - Challies

“I recognize that the stated motive for the megachurch ministers will be evangelism, trying to make the unchurched think that by wearing cool clothing, they are creating the impression that Christianity is cool. But…” - Cranach

“He’s not trying to roast the pastors, but he just wants to raise a question.” - W. Examiner

“I’m not that old, but it seems like a lifetime ago that it was acceptable to keep things until they were broken. Now if my phone is more than a year old or if I haven’t remodeled my kitchen in the past decade, I’m out of date. Is there a moral right or wrong to this consuming of new and updated models of stuff?” - TGC

“In the open-ended question, Americans are mostly likely to say family is an important source of meaning (40 percent), and in the closed-ended question they’re most likely to report they find “a great deal” of meaning in spending time with family (69 percent)….almost a fourth (23 percent) find meaning in finances and money.” - Acton

“But amid the opportunities for creative service and extravagant generosity, competing temptations of materialism abound, threatening to twist our Christmas merriment into a pursuit of self-indulgence or self-gratification.” - Acton

More Than Material Minds: “As a Christian and a neuroscientist, I keep learning that to be human is to have a soul.”

“In place of religion, we now have spirituality (or pseudo-spirituality). Instead of church, we do elaborate #selfcaresunday rituals. We get baptized at Burning Man. We pay tithings to yoga studios. Wellness has in many ways become our new religion, with practitioners, instructors, and coaches its priests, imams, and rabbis.” - Quartzy