I am, for reasons that I documented. What’s so unique about Colson’s take on consumerism that we should feel compelled to strap ourselves by the wrist to him and his friends? There’s nothing particularly original about his perspective.

There are plenty of secularists, for instance, who would readily agree that a consumerist society built upon instant gratification is morally corrosive. They’d also point out, however, that it represents a threat to humanity due to the fact that it is unsustainable in the long run anyway. I could be wrong, but I doubt that Colson cares very much one way or the other about whether it is sustainable or not.

Matt,

I don’t know why you find it so difficult to criticize what I say without criticizing me personally. I do acknowledge the point that those opposed to abortion believe they are acting on behalf of the unborn, whom they believe are persons. However, opponents of same-sex marriage I trying to limit the freedom of other people plain and simple, and they are not defending life. It amazes me that these two issues so often go hand in hand. From the viewpoint of pro-lifers, I would expect same-sex marriage to be a trivial issue. Actually, occasionally someone who is pro-life does actually say same-sex marriage is of minor importance. One would think it would come at the bottom of a long list, with a 50-percent divorce rate, a sky-high out-of wedlock birth rate, and many other social problems being much more serious.

“I have prayed for years that God would do something to get our attention, to shake the Church, so that we would repent of buying into the consumerist culture and ignoring our call to be salt and light in the world.”
“Consumerism becomes empty and leveling, leaving society full of possessions but drained of ideals. This is what Vaclav Havel calls “totalitarian
consumerism.”
“insofar as we Christians have abandoned our heritage and have bought into the idolatry of consumerism, we have betrayed not only our God, but the nation we love”

-Chuck Colson

Commenter Jeff is especially suspicious of such allies. HK do you consider it the “fantasy of sin” to suppose that Colson actually said these things, and therefore they could not form a basis for common ground with brother Christians (to say nothing of pro-life Catholics)?

Here’s one of those Manhattan Declaration signers who, as HK and O say, “actively supports this culture of constant, gratuitous, decadent choosing” and “fights to keep the culture death in place”:

“But there’s something vampiric about the way consumerism works to “console” us for the loss of God…. John Paul argued that the habit of consumerist greed is “no less pernicious” in its effects than Nazism, Marxism, and Fascism. The effects are as deadly and as destructive as the murderous systems of the 20th century-ideologies…. The problem is that sex as a form of personal recreation is completely disordered. We’ve made it something utterly routine — a consumer commodity like everything else.”

I’m sorry I can’t quote more, but you find so many statements when you google his name, materialism, and consumerism, that I can’t possibly include them all.

That would be Archbishop Charles Chaput, someone liberal Catholics often love to hate. Fighting for the culture of death, indeed.

I did click the link, but I’m still not quite understanding the criticism expressed by you and the link, and that is why I asked you to confirm whether my limited understanding is correct or not.

It seems that you and the link are suggesting that the “liberal foundations of the culture of death” involves decadence or consumerism or the idolatory of choice, and that the MD not only doesn’t identify this and speak out against it, but it supports and fights for it. Am I on the right track?

If I’m right about my understanding, then in part, I tend to agree with you. This idolatory of choice (maybe better described as “idolatory of the individual”?) is a “liberal foundation of the culture of death” from which many others symptoms flow. Perhaps we should have declarations which identify this, speak out against it, and urge citizens to act contrary to it. Perhaps it is a waste of breath to talk of abortion/SSM/religious freedom, and instead, we should be talking about the evil root. Is that what you’re getting at?

But here is why I’m uncertain about whether I’m getting your and the link’s point: assuming that the MD fails to identify the evil root and speak out against it, I’m not seeing where the MD actively supports the evil root. And maybe I’m repeating Matt Bowman’s point: I suspect that the very people who wrote and signed the MD are the same ones who would agree with you wholeheartedly that there is a evil root of decadence/consumerism/idolatory of choice and that we should actively work against it.

Anyways, I was hoping that by putting forward what you thought was needed in a better-written MD, it would clarify to me what exactly you thought we as a society should focus our energies on in order to bring the good news to the world.

If so, to make a better MD, what should be changed in your opinion? If you were drafting a MD, what are the points you would raise?

These are honest questions – I’m trying to understand your position.

He considers it “restricting other people’s behavior” when someone tries to STOP the oppression and unjust execution of innocent OTHER PEOPLE.

Oppression always paints itself as the victim, and its victims as oppressors. There’s nothing new under the sun.

While it would certainly be neat and tidy to conclude that homosexuality is the product of the same dysfunctional cultural characteristics responsible for consumerism and the like, I think the witness of gay and lesbian fidelity shows that such an equation is not fair or accurate.