Be Not Conformed

This is an interesting quote from the book StormFront:
[emphasis added]

"What's wrong with the idea that God meets our needs? Isn't the Bible full of stories where God heals, rescues, enlivens, delights, feeds, and cares for people? Of course it is. But here's the problem: We North Americans tend to think of meeting our needs as not just one good thing among many other aspects to life. We tend to think of meeting our needs as the central purpose of our lives. We regard it as a kind of moral mandate that precedes all other duties and responsibilities we might have. It's what gives our lives their meaning at the deepest level. We have accepted the notion that the great drama of human life is the challenge to get one's needs met. We think this way because we tend to identify our humanity at its core with a set of needs that must be met. The clearest exposition of this is found in the writings of Abraham Maslow. He held that human beings are characterized by a hierarchy of needs. At the base of the hierarchy are what he called the "lower-level needs," things humans need in order to survive and achieve basic health - air, food, safety, etc. Once these needs are met, human beings engage progressively higher sets of needs, finally culminating in the need for self-actualization. Life acquires its energy and dynamism from our relentless attempts to meet these needs. The reason this image of human life acquires such power in North American life is that it is the image of our humanity that is reinforced thousands of times each day through the culture of advertising. Daily we are bombarded with images, phrases, music, and sensations that invite us to consider those things that we need or desire, and to exert our energies toward the satisfaction of those desires and needs. In essence, North American understandings of what it means to be human are deeply shaped by the market. We are trained to see ourselves first and foremost as consumers with needs to be met. Such training begins at a very early age. The largest marketer of toys in the world is the McDonald's corporation. They know that if they acquire "brand loyalty" in preschoolers, they will have customers for life. Soft drink companies spend huge sums of money to win exclusive contracts with school systems, so that their brands will be constantly in front of impressionable young people. To these examples could be added dozens more illustrating the dramatic expansion of the market's role in our culture. Markets are nothing if not efficient, and their expanded cultural role has brought along with it their enormously efficient and effective capacity to direct our culture toward the pursuit of needs and desires. What is lacking in this view of humanity? Glaringly absent is any understanding of a purpose for human life that extends beyond ourselves and the gratification of our own needs and desires. The problem is not that meeting needs is wrong; it’s that when meeting needs moves to the center of our lives, the result is self-absorption and narcissism. Genuine spiritual growth is difficult to achieve until this posture of self-absorption is confronted and addressed… The vocabulary of commerce and the syntax of consumption not only distort our relationship with God and thus with each other, they also miscast the church in the role of retail vendor, trading in spiritual goods and services. Thus, the market conforms the members of Christ’s body to its ways precisely at the point where the risen Lord summons them to be transformed."

Brownson, James V., et al. “Allegiance”. StormFront: The Good News of God. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003. pp 32-33, 29

-------------------------------------------------

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12: 1-2 (The Message)

--------------------------------------

Thanks to Paul for sending this to me!