The Heart of the Problem: A Society that Wants More

Last updated on: June 30, 2015 at 7:13 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

The Heart of the Problem: A Society that Wants More 2015-06-29T22:15:09-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Americans have always struggled with limits. Even our Victorian era was more expansive than the one over the water. If we want it, Americans will find a way to justify it.

This has been true for a very long time about our consumption of food and buying stuff. Over my lifetime, it has become true of sexuality. Instead of moderating my eating and drinking, I look for my Diet Coke and a bag of fat-free chips. If I can’t have all I want, I look for substitutes that will allow more.

They have always lived simply.

More.

I think the best predictor of political opinions is that parties will be unpopular when they tell Americans they cannot have what they want: more. Democrats look at the environment and worry that we cannot sustain our lifestyles. This is unpopular. Republicans look at our private behaviors and wonder if we can survive the breakdown or modification of the family, particularly in the the poor and oppressed. This is unpopular: it stands against our desires. Desire for what?

More.

Pope Francis gets this right in his encyclical Laudato si. We want sex without babies and an abortion option when sex makes a baby. We want to remake our humanity in our own image whatever the biological facts might be. Our normal is what “we want.” This is sustainable only for a tiny minority on the globe. The rest of the world’s population will be reduced to the makers of my iPhone, the bearers of the next generation, and the residence of the dump for my garbage.

This is wrong.

What to do about it is the problem for Christians. We cannot trust state power because our state is made up of the very people who demand “more.” Republics die when the people decide they can vote themselves benefits they cannot afford or when the powerful manipulate the system to disenfranchise the rest of us. A culture of “more” may be putting us in danger of both.

Christianity is a solution. The Faith tells me to moderate my desires. Christianity is not against pleasure, but not always for more pleasure. The rich are warned, the erotic nature cautioned, and my passions restrained. Since this is individual and voluntary, if enough of us adopt the restraints of the traditional church (no sex outside of marriage, fasting before feasting, moderation in life style, giving to the poor), then many problems would vanish.

And yet too often we have fallen into a religion of more: bigger churches (not more beautiful churches), bigger schools, bigger dreams, bigger media empires. We have confused “more” with love. True love does not consume and diminish, it husbands, nurtures, and grows. Love does not demand more, in fact, it demands nothing. Love is humble and humility is the antithesis of excess. The proud man demands, the humble man gives.

And so in these times, I look to myself and say: “How can I begin to restrain my desires? How am I failing to say ‘no’ to self?” I must avoid the temptation to make lists and be tyrant over someone else and focus on my own behavior. The Bible and the church have always told all of us that certain things are off limits. We can start there, but beware the guru that adds to the list for all his followers. This man wants more power.

We need moderation in power and advice.

And I think that is sufficient on the topic.

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