Today, I heard an interview with professor Arthur Brooks, who wrote Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism. He makes remarkable claims which contrast the books by atheists which we’ve discussed briefly in earlier posts. The book cover summarizes one of Brooks’ points: “Strong families, church attendance, earned income (as opposed to state-subsidized income), and the belief that individuals, not government, offer the best solution to social ills-all of these factors determine how likely one is to give.” That points a political spin on it, but in the interview today, Brooks said religious people in general are more charitable than irreligious people–er, I mean, secular people. He didn’t distinguish between religions, at least in the interview, so I understand him to say that faithful commitment to broadly religious ideas indicate a charitable spirit. Brooks went so far as to say that if you take out local religious people, the local PTA will fall.
And yet….
This commentary is from a web log produced by an American guy who works in South Korea:
Consumerism and Americanism
“Do Chinese Students Need An American Jesus?” asks Rev. Michael Spencer, a self-described “post-evangelical” minister.
When speaking of China, the author is often mistaken. For example, he shows his ignorance of the Cultural Revolution with this statement: “Mao may have been a poor communist, but he was a brilliant Confucian.”
When speaking of the American Christianity his Chinese exchange students encounter on campus, though, he is dead on:
(Blogger quoting Spencer:)
I doubt they will become Christians because they are seeing American Christianity, and it’s far more American than Christian. They’ve helped me to see my own cultural religion, and it’s been a disturbing revelation.
When they attend chapel, they frequently hear moralistic preaching. Their own Confucian and Maoist culture gives them morals and moralism, and produces a far more moral person than their typical American peer. They hear sermons on being a good person, staying off drugs, not having sex and staying in school. They were doing all this when they came here and will do it when they leave.
They see American Christians without a Bible most of the time. We have few spiritual disciplines and are hungry and thirsty for the things our culture values more than the gifts and callings of Christ. They hear us talk about Jesus, but the Jesus we talk about is not compelling enough to cause us to live truly sacrificial or revolutionary lives. I’ve noticed this with other Asians as well. When they hear us talking about our religion, they expect to see the same holiness and devotion they see in Buddhist monks, but in American Christians they simply see another American, with a slightly different set of consumer interests. Same American. Different t-shirt slogan. Our spirituality is clearly inferior.
The blogger further writes:
Indeed. Rev. Spencer also takes on Contemporary Worship™:
[quoting Spencer]
My Chinese students are probably put off- or just bored silly- by most of what we call worship, because I doubt that it is anywhere near as focused and relevant as their own cultural parallels. Our worship songs are frequently romantic and self-serving. We have little genuineness and little mystery. We talk and talk and talk and talk, but have little to show for it in our lives.
[….]
But they have also seen American Christianity up close. They see it through the filter of their own cultural lenses and presuppositions, but I believe most of what is there to be seen is American culture and not the Kingdom of God that Jesus brought, lived and taught. We are American Christians, and we’re practicing an anemic, weak, flaccid form of Christianity that, for our Chinese students, makes Mao look like the superior savior and Chinese virtues as the superior way.
The blogger concludes:
Rev. Spencer is correct, but as consumerism extends its global reach, its effects on Christianity can be seen in places like South Korea as well.
Yes. My post and this one are two broad brushes of a complex picture, each specific in its area. If you are thinking consumerism is weakening Christians around the world, you’re right. That’s why the Proverbs writer prayed to be kept from poverty and wealth so that he might not sin.