I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly —John 10:10

Abundance in modern America connotes something quite different than Jesus' words about the abundance of God's blessings and grace. In the Bible, we are told that abundance is neither "treasures on earth," nor "possessions," nor "riches." Our televisions, on the other hand, tell us that what we own defines who we are.

Consumerism is a modern phenomenon. Seventeenth century John Milton paints Adam and Eve very small against the panorama of God's creation: "The world was all before them, where to choose their place of rest and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way." Three hundred years later, Joni Mitchell sings our consumer-centered version, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot with a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot." The justice concerns around consumerism grow from its pride, its impersonality, its inescapability, and its frenzy.

The fictions of marketing also obscure human and environmental dimensions of the consumer choices we make without paying much attention. Who did the work? Were they paid enough? What was destroyed, wasted, poisoned? These pages provide resources to help you reflect on the economic implications of your consumer choices.

The 2007 General Assembly of the National Council of Churches passed A Social Creed for the 21st Century, in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the "Social Creed of the Churches," passed by the Federal Council of Churches in 1908. This historic document, which was central to the social gospel movement, lifted up the public role of the church, just as the NCC's new statement calls its member communions to ameliorate particular injustices in our own world including the "adoption of simpler lifestyles, resisting the powerful institutions that shape our choices."