Calls for simple living have played a vital role in Christian history. But with rare exceptions they have presented themselves as discretionary, as what ancient theologians called counsels, and not as commands. Most often they understand their "counsel" as an alternative to a life of involvement in the world. What is remarkable about today's evangelical advocates of "simpler living" is that they present it as normative for all Christians, and they see it as nothing less than a strategy for transforming the culture of modern capitalism. I believe it is a mistake to present "simpler living" that way.

A case in point is Arthur Simon's book, How Much Is Enough? Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture. If Simon had written this book as a discretionary "counsel" and not as issuing an ethics-shaping "command," and as a mandate for transforming the character of capitalism, one could but admire its many virtues. In the early chapters, Simon gives us a gentle but firm shaking on distorted spiritual priorities. How pathetic and sad it is to think that we could be so very affluent and still not be content. Simon properly notes that in centuries past not even royalty dared dream of the affluence we commonly now enjoy. Yet it seems that many of us are still unsatisfied. Vast waters of wealth are everywhere, but for the insatiable there is "not a drop to drink." On this level, the question in the title, "how much is enough?" has its answer. Most of us, if we are healthy, already have enough, and we should not crave more.

It is a truism that most of us could and should be giving more to the global poor. But here, trouble starts for the model as an ethics of capitalism. In this economic order, percentages of income simply given away do not take into account the moral configuration of someone's economic life as a whole. What of production and its liberating effects? What of investments in businesses, employees' benefits, in insurance for family, in our own pensions, or in funds for college? Simon occasionally mentions the realities of economic infrastructure, but his approach naturally keeps the focus on superstructure—actions of simple consumption and distribution. This limited economic focus inevitably shapes the moral analysis.

For instance: if the consumption of luxuries is (most often) morally evil (see below), what is the consequence for our Christian teaching on vocation in business and the professions? Nearly all occupations in modern capitalism are immersed in the business of creating markets for, manufacturing, wholesaling, advertising, competing, retailing and/or investing in the habitual consumption of non-necessities. What is the consequence, say, for someone whose business is to manufacture high-end carpeting? How are his "manufacturing actions" related to the morally dubious "consumption actions" in question?

Simon's story about his own family huddling to ponder how they could justify having rugs in their home is quite a display of personal scruples. But it is not a very penetrating moral example for our businessman and his employees. They will, however, be interested in hearing more about Simon's claim that dramatic reductions in consumption of non-necessities (new homes in California, say) will not cause depression for that economy, since the poor (in Brazil, say) who receive the redirected money will spend it (presumably in Brazil). And the nearly singular focus on consumption and distribution also encourages a simplistic application of Jeffrey Sachs' recent argument for eliminating the poverty of children worldwide, and thoroughly uncritical acceptance of the claim that debt-relief is the best moral solution for the problems of poor debtor nations.

Of course many of us should be working fewer hours, spending more time with loved ones. But on the other hand, why should we think that "simpler living," as presented, encourages cultivation of the family? Simon actually proposes consideration of celibacy (in that case the literal elimination of the family) because family life makes "simpler living" so very hard to pull off. But recent studies show that family life is basic to both moral and economic development, so this advice clearly seems self-defeating.1

Should we really think, as advocates of "simpler living" imply, that our economic life (especially as it relates to the global poor) is the primary point of reference for our Christian ethics? What then happens to our broad concept of Christian vocation? What about the intellectual and aesthetic realms of life? What of someone who feels herself called to become an artist, a research historian, a nuclear scientist, a geologist, a mountain climber, professional baseball player or golfer? Did Joe DiMaggio miss his calling? Tiger Woods, too?

If "simpler living" is offered only as a "counsel," then these avenues of calling may remain open to Christians. But if it is held as a moral "command" then it seems clear that they have to be closed. For (no matter how much money one gives away) the occupations themselves simply require immersion in either gratuitous personal interests or (to the poor) useless pleasures. And many—such as professional athletics—necessarily promote the very kinds of personal consumption that advocates of "simpler living" discourage and even condemn as morally evil.

Which leads to the most basic problem with presenting "simpler living" as a Christian moral "command." It is that the truest moral intuitions of its defenders are utilitarian, and its advocates invariably translate these intuitions into the moral norms of modern utilitarian ethics. The main principle of modern pragmatic utilitarianism (in short form) is that it is always immoral to enjoy our material resources when it is within our power to use them instead to meet the material needs of others, especially those who lack necessities. No doubt, as an intuition, it holds in many situations and circumstances, but it cannot hold as a normative principle for an ethics of capitalism or for a distinctly Christian ethic. The development of Simon's own argument is enough to show that it cannot do so.

In the crucial chapter where Simon seeks to answer the book's question in ethical terms, he turns to Peter Singer—the most famous (and notorious) contemporary utilitarian philosopher.2 Singer's writes of Dora from Brazil, who unwittingly hands off an orphaned boy for $200, buys her very first television, and then is horrified to learn that the people she gave the boy to are selling human organs on the black market. Dora immediately returns the TV and sets out to save the boy from his ghastly fate. But, Singer asks, what if she had not done so? What if she had simply gone on, unfazed, enjoying her newly prized possession? Then, says Singer, Dora's enjoyment of the TV would have been equal to murder. And this, says Singer, exactly describes the moral character of our common enjoyments.

Simon wholeheartedly approves this rigorously utilitarian argument. "Singer's words are upsetting," Simon writes, "because they tell the truth." To purchase that wide-screen television you've been eyeing at Best Buy, he suggests, is morally indistinct from taking someone's life (though neither Singer nor Simon indicates how wide is "wide.")

But then Simon qualifies his approval of Singer in an unexpected and confusing way. Simon: "Now that I have spoiled your fun, let me add that God wants us to enjoy life, to have good times, and to spread the table well on special occasions" (my emphasis). Now, on Singer's principle just approved, we wonder how could it ever be so that God would want us to do the very kind of thing that we have just been told is murderous. Simon explains: the example of Jesus and other biblical characters shows that these actions of enjoyment sometimes are not evil, but good.

Wait a minute. Haven't we just been told that what Singer says about enjoyments being murderous is simply "the truth"? And what he says is that these enjoyments belong to a kind (call them "Dora-enjoyments"), and that "Dora-enjoyments" are by their very nature equal to murder, and therefore such enjoyments are always equal to murder, no matter who performs them (Jesus or anyone else), or when, or how often.

But if so, then what follows from Simon's explanation is that (for Simon) Singer's principle is not true, cannot be true, but is clearly false. For indeed, it follows that the ethics of Jesus grew from principles that are contrary to those of Singer and modern utilitarianism. And among these properly Christian principles there has to be one that secures some enjoyments as morally good, as distinct from the ones that are morally evil, even though it is within our power to meet greater human needs instead. (Remember: the poor are always with us, as they were with Jesus, too.)

What sort of principle is it? Simon does not even raise the question in this way. But of course we have to know what it is before we can know the answer to the book's question in any binding ethical form. As a consequence, we are forced to receive Arthur Simon's proposals as sincerely and sensitively given "counsel," but not as anything like a clear moral "command" for Christian ethics, much less for integrating Christian faith with existence within the infrastructure and human habits—the culture—of modern capitalism.

John R. Schneider is professor of religion and theology at Calvin College.

1. Michael Novak, "The Family and the Global Community," in Globalization, Economics, and the Family, ed. (Rev.) R. Sirico (Pontifical Council for the Family, 2001), pp. 21-33.

2. Peter Berkowitz, "The Utilitarian Horrors of Peter Singer: Other People's Mothers," The New Republic, Jan. 10, 2000, p p. 27. Singer now advocates infanticide and euthanasia as morally sound means for reducing immoral consumption.

Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
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