Have I won monopoly to forfeit my soul?*

Tim Chester's summary of CB Samuel’s presentation on Integral Mission, Humility and Lifestyle (Sept 2001):

Photo by: Antonio Correia

"The problem with lifestyle is not its theory, but its practice. The story is told of an Indian guru who taught his disciples to live on just the basic necessities of life. One day he sent his best disciple out to make his own way in the world. This disciple owned only two loin cloths – one to wear while the other was washed. And so this disciple lived, each day wearing one cloth while he washed the other. One day a rat ate his spare cloth as it hung out to dry. His neighbors gave him another, but he realized he also needed a cat to keep the rat away. And because the cat needed milk he got a cow. To feed the cow he obtained a small piece of land for fodder. Soon he was hiring people to cultivate the land so he did not have to interrupt his meditations. In time he acquired a large estate and a fine house. One day his guru came by. Seeing the large house, he asked his disciple how this had happened. The disciple said: 'I need all this to protect my loin cloth’.

"When many of us were young Christians we committed ourselves to radical lifestyles. But now we have many justifications for the possessions that over time we have acquired. We need to recover a biblical perspective on wealth and money. Jesus sees money as a spiritual force. He says we need consciously to short-circuit its power in our lives. Jacques Ellul said Jesus was the only one who was prepared to describe money as mammon. We need to define limits for consumption. We evangelicals have a theology for the creation and distribution of wealth, but we need to have a theology of consumption. We need to define what is enough? We need to learn that we do not need own everything. We need to explore the possibilities of sharing with others and owning things communally."

*I have had Switchfoot's "Company Car" stuck in my head for the last couple of days.