Be ye not conformed . . .

Here's yet another cut from a book you need to read:

Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age Tyler Wigg Stevenson, ~ Seabury Books May, 2007 ~ ISBN: 1596270497 [Amazon has it for ten bucks]

At the end of the book (pp 188-194), Stevenson gets to the nitty-gritty of how to overcome our consumeristic Christianity. He turns to Rom 12. Here are his comments on vs 2:

Conformation versus Renewal
Paul follows the urging of 12:1 with the instruction of 12:2, which both clarifies and expands our understanding of what the offering of our bodies as living sacrifices will look like — that is, the renunciation of the world's pattern and the renewal of minds. The result of this, he writes, will be the ability to discern the perfect will of God.

For our purpose of understanding what it will mean to be a faithful Christian in the age of Brand Jesus, the dual implication, of 12:2 is especially important. Paul's clarification of the living sacrifice entails a negative and a positive action on the part of the Christian. Living out our faithfulness with integrity will mean changing our present location, which itself requires that we give up the old (the negative) and adopt the new (the positive). The faithful life requires both steps.

***
First, the negative. We are not to "conform to the pattern of this world." The initial interpretive danger here is to imagine that we automati­cally know what that pattern is. Language of "world/liness" is tossed around in churches as if we all know precisely what it indicates and are already doing such a good job at avoiding it. What "world/liness" usually refers to, in church-ese, is that terrain on the far side of the cultural boundary markers that evangelicals have set for ourselves. In short, the term "the world" often has no content in and of itself, but is most frequently used to mean whatever the church smugly believes itself not to be. This is why even churches that blaspheme the gospel with prosperity teaching* are able to rail against worldliness, despite the fact that they are concerned with nothing so much as flourish­ing materially and physically in the here and now — a definition of "worldly" by most any standard.

*The "prosperity gospel" is the heretical but increasingly popular teaching that God wants Christians to be "prosperous" in all areas of life, not the least of which is material wealth. Prosperity preachers point to their own lavish lifestyles as confirmation of Cod's blessing and favor on their teaching, though most Christians within historic orthodoxy would reply that the only thing such lifestyles conclusively prove is the existence of a well-fleeced flock. In short, being pretty lousy news, the prosperity "gospel" is actually not the gospel at all, and is a prime example of ostensibly Christian behavior that leads non-Christians to blaspheme the name of the God.

By "pattern of this world," however, Paul is not referring generi­c-ally to the "not-church," but specifically to what might be termed the pattern of the present age, the order imposed by "powers and princi­palities" that is a concrete spiritual reality In many ways, this entire book represents an attempt to discern what this spiritual reality is in our day. And our conclusion tells us that Mammon, in the form of consumerism, has established the pattern for our day.

This pattern cannot fully be understood simply as a sweeping cul­tural trend, such as those frequently listed by evangelical writers with a full head of polemical steam (materialism, consumerism, anything-goes-ism, oh my!). No, if we think of worldliness as an external trend, it becomes too easy to dismiss as irrelevant to the believer's life. ("Those things arc after the pattern of this world. / don't believe in those things; hence, I am not conforming to the pattern of this world. Now... off to the mall!") But, as we have seen, the habits of con­sumerism bear an insidious influence even on those who imagine themselves to be immune. This ought not to be surprising; rather, it is hard to understand why so many Christians seem to think that non-conformation to the pattern of this world is an easy — indeed, almost automatic by virtue of being a church member — discipline.

No, the "pattern of the world" contains those aspects of life that we tend to consider — in practice, if not in confession — to be on the same level as our Christianity. Race (understandings of identity, rather than actual skin color) is one such aspect; class is another,- gender (roles, as opposed to biological sex) is a third such power. Which one of us does not have a race, a class, a gender? Who among us is immune to thinking of him- or herself in these categories? The few exceptions of each only prove the dominion of the rule. The "pattern of the world" consists of those forces like racism/tribalism, classism, and sexism, which infect us all. And if we doubt this, is it not proven by the fact that race, class, and gender are the three attributes that Galatians 3:28 tells us we transcend in Christ?

Now, into this group of worldly patterns has arisen consumerism, which threatens to become the king of all patterns, given that we in­creasingly understand all other aspects of our identities through our consumptive habits (including nationality gender, race, class, etc.). This movement is all the more threatening for our lack of recogni­tion that it is happening. We are becoming irretrievably consumptive beings, and this is true whether we want to or not and regardless of whether we ever give that fact a conscious thought. Now, that is a pat­tern worthy of the prince of this world, and one that gives due weight to Paul's instruction.

***
Paul juxtaposes the negative rejection of the pattern of the world with the positive exhortation to "be transformed by the renewal of your minds." As with the reference to "bodies" in 12:1, we should import neither a modern nor a dualistic (body vs. mind) understanding to Paul's usage of "minds." Dunn writes that Paul's reference to the re­newal of minds points to "a transformation which works from inside outwards," which, while typical of prophetic exhortation, "becomes a way of distinguishing the Christian emphasis from the too ethnic, law-centered spirituality of contemporary Judaism."3 In other words, "renewal of your minds" is Paul's prescription for the Romans, follow­ing on his diagnosis of the external religious sensibility that we saw in our exploration of Romans 2:17-32, the hypocritical moralism of 2:1-16, and the mental degradation especially in 1:28-32. The mind, renewed, is the beginning of the proper vision of God, which will come to undo and replace the spiritual glaucoma induced by sin.

We explore below some specifics of mental renewal. Perhaps the most important overall implication, however, is the way in which the inside-outwards change of "renewing your minds" is itself an example of nonconformation with the pattern of this world. After all, the pat­terns of our daily living reinforce nothing so much as the idea that change is an external commodity. How could it be otherwise in a buy-to-be society? What you consume — by definition, something external to you — defines who you are. If you don't like who you are, buy your­self a new identity, a new lifestyle. Thus goes the prevailing, if often unconscious, conventional wisdom.

This attitude is so endemic to our society today that even anti-consumerism is itself a consumer good. Take the popular magazine (and quasi-mail-order catalogue) Real Simple, which carries the im­plicit promise that fed-up consumers simply need to buy a subscription in order to figure out how to buy less. James Twitchell, noting this phe­nomenon of consuming anti-consumption, observes the "profoundly commercial nature of letting go" of commercialism, in that we seek the cure to the "social disease" of our consumerism by "buying a how-to-stop-buying book."4 But in the end, all that's changed is what you buy — not your basic disposition to consumption. The pattern of this world is maintained.

The change that occurs through the renewal of minds, by contrast, does not begin by adopting any new external source of meaning. Paul's exhortation implicitly rejects consumerist logic such as that demon­strated, for example, in the Christian T-shirt makers' mottos. "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ [with our shirt]" and "Change Your Shirt, Change the World" are revealed as inherently false — or, at least, inherently in­adequate for, and likely distracting from, the true work of Christian discipleship.

While the renewal of minds cannot begin with the external, how­ever, neither can it be limited to internal change. "Coming to belief in Jesus Christ" is not something that simply happens in one's life. Our usual understanding of conversion is totally inadequate to the task of discipleship as presented by Paul, because all too often the essen­tial transaction is "inviting Christ into your life," with anything that follows simply being viewed as sanctificatory bonus. But renewal of minds is not a goal in and of itself; no, if we look at 12:2, such re­newal is the means of "be[ing] transformed." The necessary internal change that is the renewal of minds is incomplete — cannot, in fact, be claimed as valid — if it does not lead to the holistic offering of our "bodies" as living sacrifices in all their social, external, and especially ecclesial relationships.

The Will of God
The result of this nonconformation on the one hand, and transfor­mation via renewal of minds on the other, is the ability "to test and approve what God's will is." These are dangerous verses for contempo­rary generations obsessed with discovering personal significance. The fact that a book dealing with personal purpose has become the best-selling hardcover book in American publishing history should tell us something of the nature of our era's spiritual angst.* Each of us wants to be special; moreover, each of us wants to know the nature of our par­ticular specialness. That we feel this way is understandable given our modern rootlessness and the efforts that advertisers expend to make each one of us feel uniquely targeted as the right consumer for their brands.

*I refer, of course, to Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life. However, while I think that this fact is indicative of our unfortunate situation, I hope that I will not be misread here as criticizing Pastor Warren, for whom I have a deep respect. He understands the contemporary world and has written a book for people who live in it. So, while the title of The Purpose-Driven Life may attract people whose concern for purpose is profoundly self-centered, that's admittedly where most of us are. Furthermore, if read properly, Pastor Warren's book will not let its reader abide comfortably in his or her initial disposition.

But is this the way of God? Though it appeals to our culture's ex­istential crisis, the idea that God has a particular, micro-managed meaning for each one of us smacks of an entirely modern, unbiblical individualism. Yes, God numbers the hairs on each of our heads, and yes, all lives are treasured in God's sight — but to imagine that we are each the center of our own, special, divine reality show frac­tures the redemptive work of God into as many fragments as there are believers, reinforcing the cosmic self-centeredness endemic to Brand Jesus Christianity.

We should also acknowledge that discovering God's individual plan for our individual lives is a pretty narrow spiritual ideal, given that it completely fails to account for the worst tragedies of human existence. [see Decision Making and the Will of God , Garry Friesen ~ WaterBrook Press ~ ISBN: 1590522052]

That is, it may be what we're worried about in modern America, but it's certainly not the most universal human concern. Worrying about which job God wants you to take is, admittedly, high up on the list of desirable crises to have, given that it requires a fair amount of physi­cal and economic security to indulge in the first place. Fussing about a meaningful job requires, to begin with, a life — which is why the poverty and misery of much of the world, properly considered, in­stantly reveals our particularly American quest as a relatively petty spiritual concern. And yet too many of us treat individual purpose as the highest goal of discipleship, demanding a significant portion of our spiritual (and, given the money we spend on self-help books, financial) resources.

Instead, we should read the final exhortation of Romans 12:2 — "then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is" — in light of Paul's unrelenting Christ-centered teaching. Without denying the particular value of each human life, it seems that the will of God for our lives doesn't require daily, special discernment. We're to become like Christ. That's it. We are not the center of God's redemptive drama, Christ is.

Our purpose, if we're given the luxury of worrying about it, is to enter into him. Becoming a living sacrifice is not about being the best me I can be. Though being a living sacrifice will not destroy one's individuality, neither will it encourage or strengthen it. While disci­pleship is a profoundly personal responsibility, it does not consist of the disparate paths of each person following his or her own individual purpose. Instead, it is the movement of every Christian toward the same center in the Lord. It is, in fact, the action of becoming more like one another as we each live into Christlike-ness, imitating imper­fectly the one perfect living sacrifice. As we come into alignment with God — as described above — we thus achieve discernment regarding our conformity with his "good and perfect" will: not one individually tailored for us, but one given specially in Christ, whom we are then able to follow. (Notice that this is an inversion of the consumcrist ideal of hyper-individuality.)

The fact that God's will is that we each become Christlike is con­firmed by the description of behaviors that follows, in Romans 12-15. All of these conform to the self-sacrificial mission and teaching of Jesus. Consider the consistent double-sidedness of Paul's exhortation: Hate what is evil, cling to the good; never lack zeal, keep your fervor, do not curse your persecutors, but bless them; do not be proud, but as­sociate with the lowly. This duality of rejecting evil and affirming the good is itself an echo of Christ's life. Recall prayer and fasting — the two are a parallel of the renewal of minds and nonconformation to the worldly pattern. The former is the renewed intention and self-direction toward God; the latter, an abstaining from all mortal sustenance.

American Christians have a hard time pretending at radical faithful­ness. The way we live doesn't appear to be substantially different from the way our non-Christian neighbors live, and even the few attributes from which we derive our proud distinctiveness — such as it is — seem to go largely ignored by much of the congregation. We appear to have embraced that emaciated, bumper-sticker theology of sanctification: "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." To be sure, none of us has arrived at pure holiness. But if our spiritual lives are satiated by for­giveness alone, we have no claim to a discipleship that includes the imperative of Matthew 5:48: "Be perfect... as your Father in heaven is perfect."

Part of the problem, I would suggest, is in the two-fold error of understanding our faith primarily through external, cultural factors, which has led to the commercialization and politicization of the witness of our discipleship. That is, we've replaced personal (both indi­vidual and church-body) commitments to self-sacrificial virtue with a legislative program designed to criminalize sin, and a consumptive pat­tern that we imagine will keep us from stumbling. And we have done so in large measure because we've accepted that cultural influence is tantamount to faithfulness.
Of course, we're not living any better than non-Christians. We're doing the exact same things under a different brand.