Kingdom Ethics: The American Dream versus God’s Definition of Flourishing

by John Ellis

When we think of idols, our first thoughts likely go to examples like Dagon in his temple as described in 1 Samuel 5, the golden calf Aaron made for the impatient and rebellious Israelites while Moses was on the mountain meeting with God, or the altar to Baal that Gideon destroyed in Judges 6. We realize, of course, because John Calvin told us, that our hearts are idol making factories. We confess that, but usually only in the abstract. At best, it’s an axiom that is applied to others or when we laughingly confess that we were wrong to skip the gathering of God’s people to attend our favorite sporting event. Our own idols are rarely disturbed because they’re so safely entrenched in our hearts that we have trouble distinguishing them from our faith.

Kicking off his book Sources of the Self, the philosopher Charles Taylor observes, “Selfhood and the good, or in another way selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined.”[1] The modern human is a self-defining subject, at least we presume so. Taylor argues that how we define ourselves reveals what we believe is good – or, sharpening it, the good. If you’re curious about your idols, you may only need to deconstruct your identity. Doing so will likely lay bare what you truly worship. How you define yourself is as good of an indicator as any as to where your most deeply held allegiances are as well as your ethics.

That’s a hard statement, I know. But let me unpack Charles Taylor just a bit.

To be clear, Taylor’s program in his book is different than mine here, but he’s still (as always) acutely insightful and pointedly instructive. The foundation of selfhood – the modern identity – is framed by the notion of self-actualization as flourishing. On one hand, that parallels – could parallel, but usually doesn’t – the Bible’s teaching that the flourishing of Christians is through being made in the image of the Son. As God’s people, our self-actualization is found in our being made more and more like Jesus. Our full material flourishing is waiting for us in the eschatological not-yet. But neither godly contentment nor eschatological patience are what modernity urges us to embrace or pursue. In our secular age, we’re told we flourish by defining ourselves via our acts as consumers. The good in Taylor’s “selfhood and the good … turn out to be inextricably intwined” is the good life – the American Dream, if you will.

Consumerism is an imperialistic act. To consume is, of course, a synonym of to devour. It’s also an exercise of control. Consumption is the ultimate act of domination/control. In the centuries past, the Tiv people of Nigeria believed that tsav – a substance containing power and abilities – grew on the human heart. One way a person could add to his own tsav was to consume the flesh of another human. “Men who built up their tsav by such means, the stories went, attained extraordinary powers.”[2] The anthropologist David Graeber cautions “that there is no reason to believe that any Tiv actually did practice cannibalism. The idea of eating human flesh appears to have disgusted and horrified the average Tiv as much as it would the average American.”[3]

Although I suspect that most of us reject the notion that consuming another person’s tsav adds to ours, I have little doubt that the Tiv’s belief makes sense to us. We can reject the “facts” while acknowledging the conceptual truth. Consumption is an act of control that brings the consumer benefit is what’s at the core of the Tiv’s concept and is something that those of us who live in 21^st century America relate to.

Self-actualization is sold to us as an act of empowerment. And how do we achieve our self-actualization, by and large? By living a life that conforms to our vision of flourishing.[4] Except, our self-actualization is often more a product of manipulated desires than an authentic expression of the real. There are few better ways to underline this than to point to M.C. Lars’ 2006 song “Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock.” Instead of me quoting the lyrics, I invite you to watch the video below.

Those of us of a certain age – Gen X – can laugh at the song’s obvious point. Truth be told, though, while the specific comedic target of the song might not apply to us, M.C. Lars’ overall jab does. There is little about our identity that hasn’t been manipulated by something or someone outside of ourselves. Whether it be Madison Avenue or Hollywood or our favorite talking head on our favorite “news” network, we’re trained by society to act as little more than consumers that keep the wheels spinning. We’re here to grow the GDP, and nothing makes that happen quite like sowing discontentment in our hearts. How often do you receive mail flyers enticing you to take equity out of your house so that you can fill-in-the-blank? Which commercials cause you to look askew at your fill-in-the-blank? Which social media influencers lead you to believe that there is a better, more fulfilled life out there that you can attain if you fill-in-the-blank? Are there talking heads on the news that convince you that your flourishing can only be achieved if America is made to look like fill-in-the-blank? The American Dream is splashed before us on our TV screens, social media pages, and frequently the various people we interact with calling us to a “better” self-actualization – a better, more fulfilled you. Contentment is the arch-nemesis of consumerism. That’s the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches.

While the call to contentment is found throughout the divinely inspired book, Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth is often overlooked in discussions about contentment. Chapter 7 is pointedly about the states of the married and unmarried, but it also offers a call to godly contentment. In verse 17, Paul famously commands, “Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them.” After using the illustration of those who are circumcised and uncircumcised, the apostle drives his point home in verse 20 by repeating, “Each person should remain in the situation they were when God called them.”

Paul was writing into a set of circumstances that may feel foreign to us. Specifically, Paul was encouraging Believers to faithfulness who were facing intense persecution and had what theologian Paul Barnett calls “eschatological madness.” Confusing Paul’s teaching about the already/not yet dimensions of the Kingdom, some of the Corinthian Christians sought to change their physical state in the already in the belief that the flourishing of the not yet should already be in their possession. Explaining Paul’s pastoral pushback, Barnett writes, “being caught up into the kingdom of God through the gospel brings many changes, including liberation from the forces of evil and a sure hope of resurrection into the Kingdom of God. The Spirit has brought a revolution in heart and mind which has found expression in every aspect of life here and now. But such a revolution does not change every outward circumstance, nor is it to do so.”[5]

Our contentment (and our identity) is to be found in our union with Christ and the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit which that eternal union brings. C.K. Barrett helpfully adds, “[The Christian] must always be true, not to [our] state, but to [our] calling within it.”[6]

While I believe that there are obvious parallels between the circumstances of the Corinthian Christians and us, 1 Timothy 6:6 provides a call to contentment against an even more sharply defined backdrop. Writing, “But godliness with great contentment is great gain,” Paul once again urges his readers to find their identity and their ethics (how we live) in Christ. A couple of verses earlier, Paul warns what happens to those whose eyes have been turned from Jesus and his teachings. He explains in verse 5 that they have a “corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.”

If Paul’s point isn’t clear, the words of Philip Towner may help. “Godliness is not about acquiring better and more material things; it is instead an active life of faith, a living out of covenant faithfulness in relation to God, that finds sufficiency and contentment in Christ alone whatever one’s outward circumstances might be.”[7]

Finding sufficiency and contentment in Christ alone is anathema to our secular age’s call to flourishment via self-actualization. Make no mistake, this expressive individualism has made deep inroads into white evangelicalism. It’s not an “out there” problem; it’s an “in our own house” problem. This is evidenced in the way platitudes like “If God closes one door, he’ll open another” are frequently used.

To be clear, not every Christian who uses that platitude or its siblings is doing so in a manner that calls our hearts to believe that we’re owed in the already what belongs in the not-yet. Often, though, that’s the way it’s used. I’ve been confronted with this reality over the last few weeks.

Having recently lost my job, my own heart has felt and battled (battles) the glittering allure in the deceit that self-actualization is found, at least in part, in an earthly vocation. A presumed contentment in Christ is easy while living our best life. So easy in fact, it’s difficult to ascribe that presumed contentment to our position in Christ and not in seeing our specific version of the American Dream actualized.

A sense of entitlement is baked into consumerism’s imperialism. The platitude about God opening another door often carries with it the expectation, even if unstated, that God owes us. This perspective believes that flourishing as we define it is our birthright. We’re catechized into that belief by the very secular air we breathe. I’ve seen this expectation demonstrated by well-intended brothers and sisters in Christ while trying to encourage me.

Possibly the most frequent phrase I hear when someone finds out that I lost my job is, “God has something better for you.” If by that, and some of them mean this, they are using “better” in the Romans 8:28 sense that all things are being used by God to conform me to the image of the Son, then yes and amen. However, I know that not everyone has meant it that way because it’s been made explicit during the conversation.

More often than not, either because it’s made explicit or because I sense it in the conversation’s subtext, the phrase is intended to encourage me in the belief that the hard providence of losing my job is because God has a more fulfilling job around the corner for me that better utilizes my gifts and talents. This betrays an acceptance of modernity’s call to believe that we’re entitled to self-actualization. Within our churches, many Christians demonstrate this belief by how they interact with “spiritual gifts.”

While serving as a pastor, I heard many times the excuse for not serving in *this* area because the person’s spiritual gifts were in another area. I’m all for utilizing the body of Christ in ways that leans on the very real spiritual gifts present in the Body. I’m 100% opposed, though, to church members being hesitant to pick up the plow in front of them because it doesn’t fit into the rubric of service under their spiritual gift revealed by a test they took.  

Look, God doesn’t owe me a job that utilizes my gifts and talents. Likewise, by extension, my church doesn’t owe me areas of service that fit my spiritual gifts. This is one of the reasons why I’m uncomfortable with the language of “calling” being applied to our vocation. It rings loudly with the deafening tone of entitlement. “I have these gifts and talents, so obviously God has called me to do fill-in-the-blank,” is what sounds through. The subtext is, “I’m owed fill-in-the-blank.”

The only thing God “owes” his people in the here and now is the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s comfort, guidance, sanctifying power, etc. Any other expectations, including the expectation of a better, more fulfilling job, opens us up to the charge of the prosperity gospel. We should probably spend less time seeking to pluck Joel Osteen’s mote out of his eye and more time prayerfully extracting the beam from our eye. Our best life is found in being in Christ and that’s all that’s required. Even in Reformed circles, we have a hard time accepting that.

If I never preach another sermon, never teach another Sunday school class, never get a book deal, or if I have to work a minimum wage paying service industry job the rest of my life, God remains good. No matter the circumstances in which God places me in the here and now, I can rest in Christ knowing that I am being conformed to the image of the Son and that my Heavenly Father will bring me safely home. And this is true for all Christians.

Catering our expectations of God’s work in our life to fit the definition of flourishing in the here and now that we’ve adopted is idolatrous. That’s a hard truth for us to hear because the culture to which God has called us to be faithful witnesses to the Resurrection screams the exact opposite. Finding our full sufficiency and full joy in Jesus is, I believe, harder for those of us living in 21^st America than for our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the ages and around the world who have lacked the material positions we have and the luxury of worrying about self-fulfillment in our vocation. The temptation isn’t unique to us, as evidenced by Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, but the challenges are more acute and more readily accessible for us. Above all, we should pray without ceasing that the Holy Spirit will provide us with the contentment in all things that comes from defining the good/our flourishing as God defines good/our flourishing. We should also pray for discernment as we deconstruct our identity in search of hidden yet very real idols and for the courage to destroy those idols, no matter how painful. Brothers and sisters in Christ, our full, material flourishing is to come, but that shouldn’t take away from the joy we experience in the flourishing that comes in the here and now as the Holy Spirit makes us more and more like Jesus.

Soli Deo Gloria

(I want to be clear: not everyone who has said to me “God has something better for you, John” has meant a more fulfilling job. Some have used that phrase to speak Romans 8:28 into my heart. The last thing I want is to provoke guilt in those faithfully discipling me or appear ungrateful.)

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[1] Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 3.

[2] David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (London: Melville House, 2014), 147.

[3] Graeber, Debt, 147.

[4] This also includes consuming others via the expectation that no one is allowed to deny my identity. This is a thread that I’m planning on pulling more on in my next Biblical Critical Theory article. For the time being, I want to point out that consumerism’s imperialism includes more than just material objects. It also includes the colonization of the minds of others. It’s a type of consuming solipsism.

[5] Paul Barnett, 1 Corinthians: Holiness and Hope of a Rescued People (Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2004), 119.

[6] C.K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians BNTC gen. ed. Henry Chadwick (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1968), 170.

[7] Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus NICNT gen. ed. Joel Green (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 399.