Hungry for more: re-engaging religious teachings on consumption.

• Author: Gardner, Gary

In his book God's Politics, evangelical minister Jim Wallis describes an episode from his seminary days when a fellow student took scissors and snipped out of an old Bible every verse that focused on poverty and wealth. The remaining text was tattered and fragile, reports Wallis; these economic themes occur in the Hebrew scriptures more often than any topic except idolatry, and in the Gospels account for as many as one in seven verses. The eviscerated Bible was an effective prop for his sermons. "I'd hold it up high above American congregations and say 'Brothers and sisters, this is our American Bible; it is full of holes,'" the empty spaces constituting the mute teachings that favor the poor and outline the economic obligations of the wealthy.

Recovering the lost economic teachings--not just of the Jewish and Christian traditions, but of many of the world's faiths--could be enormously valuable to a global economy faced with unprecedented ethical challenges. Mass consumerism in wealthy countries has already broken the ecological bank, with a crippled climate, extinct species, scalped forests, and drained or polluted rivers standing as red ink. Now billions of citizens of China and India demand a piece of the global consumption pie. How can the legitimate aspirations of emerging nations be met without further damaging the planet--while safeguarding opportunities for the world's poorest, especially in Africa, to stake their consumption claims?

Consumption is linked, of course, to both poverty and wealth: the poor underconsume, by definition, and the prosperous typically consume more than needed, often wastefully. Thus religious wisdom on poverty and wealth can be helpful in tackling the emerging ethical dilemma of global consumption. Restoring the forgotten wisdom buried in the sacred texts of the world's faith traditions could help to sketch out the principles for a new economics--principles that addresses the challenges of consumption and poverty simultaneously.

Indeed, the power of inspirational and challenging religious messages to mobilize believers is at work on the consumption question in pockets around the world, from Sri Lanka and Alabama to the finance ministries of major creditor nations. In each case, religious teachings (see sidebar, for example) are awakening adherents to the moral dimension of consumption (and its offspring, debt and inequality), in some cases with measurable impact. They are a reminder of the power inherent in the founding visions of many of the world's faiths.

Neither Poverty nor Wealth

Consider, for example, the power of "Buddhist economics" to turn western notions of consumption on their heads. From its starting position--the purpose of an economy--the Buddhist approach is distinctive. As explained in E.F. Schumacher's classic, Small Is Beautiful, whereas market economies are designed to produce the highest possible levels of production and consumption, Buddhist economics supports a different aim: to achieve enlightenment. This spiritual goal, in turn, requires freedom from desire, the source of all suffering, according to the Buddha. This is a tall order in societies of mass consumption, where advertisers conflate needs and desires and where acquisitiveness is a cultural norm. Thus the very attitude toward material goods is one of detachment, a sharp contrast to the frenzied grasping for stuff that often characterizes non-Buddhist societies.

Indeed, from the perspective of Buddhist economics, having and consuming makes sense only as a means to a well-rounded sense of well-being, in which material needs are met in moderation, and in which cultural, psychological, and spiritual needs are also addressed. Consumption as an end--chasing the most prestigious house or the latest cell phone--is irrational. In fact, in Buddhist thought the rational person aims to achieve the highest level of well-being with the least consumption, since consumption is merely a means to this higher end.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In this view, collecting ever-greater quantities of stuff, generating mountains of refuse, and designing goods to wear out (all normal in consumerist economies) are absurd inefficiencies...