In May, I published an essay for OnFaith about finally realizing, after years of guilt, that wanting and having a comfortable, attractive home is not necessarily un-Christian. The essay, later published in the print edition of the Washington Post, got lots of responses from readers thanking me for tackling a question that many Christians, particularly those committed to social, economic and environmental justice, struggle with: Is it okay to enjoy material things simply for the pleasure and comforts—physical, relational, psychological—they offer? I argued that, as believers in a God who took on human flesh, we can practice a redemptive sort of materialism, in which we see God’s grace manifest in the stuff of life—our homes and food, our bodies and the natural world.
Within the limits of a 1,000 word post, however, I couldn’t cover the many nuances of “redemptive materialism.,” and some readers who expressed thanks also asked great questions. How does, or ought, this kind of materialism differ from pure consumerism? What about what Jesus said and practiced concerning possessions and material wealth (that we ought to give up the former and understand that the latter makes faith more difficult)? Was my post nothing more than an apologetics for affluence?
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