Simplicity Part One

This is an excerpt from Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline. It has influenced greatly how I think about possessions and Christian attitudes towards material wealth and safety. That being said, I’m very much a connoisseur of the better things in life, and I do not share Foster’s more Puritan view that leans towards thinking that the material world and its beauty are comparatively irrelevant. God has declared his creation good (cf. Genesis), and commands us to enjoy it. He never revoked that pronouncement. But I do think we live in a culture that has much to gain from Foster’s insights.

You can buy is book here. He also has his own website, Renovaré, which helps different Christian groups find common ground. Foster is a Quaker, and a Quaker-related website with other books and with study guides can be found here.

“The Discipline of Simplicity”
from Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster

Simplicity is freedom. Duplicity is bondage. Simplicity brings joy and balance. Duplicity brings anxiety and fear. The preacher of Ecclesiastes observes that “God made man simple; man’s complex problems are of his own devising” (Eccles. 7:30)….

The Christian discipline of simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward life-style. Both the inward and the outward aspects of simplicity are essential. We deceive ourselves if we believe we can possess the inward reality without its having a profound effect on how we live. To attempt to arrange an outward life-style of simplicity without the inward reality leads to deadly legalism….

Experiencing the inward reality liberates us outwardly. Speech becomes truthful and honest. The lust for status and position is gone because we no longer need status and position. We cease from showy extravagance not on the grounds of being unable to afford it, but on the grounds of principle. Our goods become available to others. We join the experience that Richard E. Byrd, after months alone in the barren Arctic, recorded in his journal, “I am learning… that a man can live profoundly without masses of things.” …

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us to an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like…. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity.

This psychosis permeates even our mythology. The modern hero is the poor boy who purposefully becomes rich rather than the rich boy who voluntarily becomes poor. … Covetousness we call ambition. Hoarding we call prudence. Greed we call industry….

Courageously, we need to articulate new, more human ways to live. We should take exception to the modern psychosis that defines people by how much they can produce or what they earn…. The spiritual discipline of simplicity is not a lost dream, but a recurrent version throughout history. It can be recaptured today. It must be.

Before attempting to forge a Christian view of simplicity it is necessary to destroy the prevailing notion that the Bible is ambiguous about economic issues. Often it is felt that our response to wealth is an individual matter… of private interpretation. We try to pretend that Jesus did not address himself to practical economic questions.

No serious reading of Scripture can substantiate such a view. The biblical injunctions against the exploitation of the poor and the accumulation of wealth are clear and straightforward…. For example, the Old Testament takes exception to the popular notion of an absolute right to private property. The earth belongs to God, says Scripture, and therefore cannot be held perpetually (Lev. 25:23)…. In fact, the Bible declares that wealth itself belongs to God, and one purpose of the year of Jubilee was to provide a regular redistribution of wealth…. Such a radical view of economics flies in the face of nearly all contemporary belief and practice….

Constantly the Bible deals decisively with the inner spirit of slavery that an idolatrous attachment to wealth brings. “If riches increase, set not your heart on them,” counsels the psalmist (Ps. 62:10). The tenth commandment is against covetousness, the inner lust to have, which leads to stealing and oppression. The wise sage understood that “He who trusts in his riches will wither” (Prov. 11:28).

Jesus declared war on the materialism of his day. (And I would suggest that he declares war on the materialism of our day as well.) The Aramaic term for wealth is “mammon” and Jesus condemns it as a rival to God: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). He speaks frequently and unambiguously to economic issues. He says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” and “Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation” (Luke 6:20, 24). He graphically depicts the difficulty of the wealthy entering the kingdom of God to be like a camel walking through the eye of a needle. With God, of course, all things are possible, but Jesus clearly understood the difficulty. He saw the grip that wealth can have on a person. He knew that “where your heart is, there will your heart be also,” which is precisely why he commands his followers: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth” (Matt. 6:21, 19). He is not saying that the heart should or should not be where the treasure is. He is stating the plain fact that wherever you find the treasure, you will find the heart.

He exhorted the rich young ruler not just to have an inner attitude of detachment from his possessions, but literally to get rid of his possessions if he wanted the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:16-22). He says, “Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). He counseled people who came seeking God, “Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail…” (Luke 12:33). He told the parable of the rich farmer whose life centered on hoarding – we would call him prudent; Jesus called him a fool (Luke 12:16-21). He states that if we really want the kingdom of God we must, like a merchant in search of fine pearls, be willing to sell everything we have to get it (Matt. 13:45, 46). He calls all who would follow him to a joyful life of carefree unconcern for possessions: “Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again” (Luke 6:30).

Jesus speaks to the question of economics more than any other single social issue. If, in a comparatively simple society, our Lord lays such strong emphasis upon the spiritual dangers of wealth, how much more should we who live in a highly affluent culture take seriously the economic question.

The Epistles reflect the same concern. Paul says, “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction” (1 Tim. 6:9). A bishop is not to be a “lover money” (1 Tim.3:3). A deacon is not to be “greedy for gain” (1 Tim 3:8). The writer of Hebrews counsels, “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never fail you nor forsake you’” (Heb. 13:5). James blames killings and wars on the lust for possessions: “You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war” (James 4:1,2). Paul calls covetousness idolatry and commands stern discipline against anyone guilty of greed (Eph 5:5, 1 Cor 5:11). He lists greed alongside adultery and thievery and declares that those who live in such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul counsels the wealthy not to trust in their wealth, but in God, and to share generously with others (1 Tim 6:17-19).

Having said all this, I must hasten to add that God intends that we should have adequate material provision. There is misery today from a simple lack of provision just as there is misery when people try to make a life out of provision. Forced poverty is evil and should be renounced. Nor does the Bible condone an extreme asceticism. Scripture declares consistently and forcefully that the creation is good and to be enjoyed. Asceticism makes an unbiblical division between a good spiritual world and an evil material world and so finds salvation in paying as little attention as possible to the physical realm of existence.

Asceticism and simplicity are mutually incompatible. Occasional superficial similarities in practice must never obscure the radical difference between the two. Asceticism renounces possessions. Simplicity sets possessions in proper perspective. Asceticism finds no place for a “land flowing with milk and honey.” Simplicity rejoices in this gracious provision from the hand of God. Asceticism finds contentment only when it is abased. Simplicity knows contentment in both abasement and abounding (Phil 4:12).

Simplicity is the only thing that sufficiently reorients our lives so that possessions can be genuinely enjoyed without destroying us. Without simplicity we will either capitulate to the “mammon” spirit of this present evil age, or we will fall into an un-Christian legalistic asceticism. Both lead to idolatry. Both are spiritually lethal.

Descriptions of the abundant material provision God gives his people abound in Scripture. “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land… a land… in which you will lack nothing” (Deut 8:7-9). Warnings about the danger of provisions that are not kept in proper perspective also abound. “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth’” (Deut 8:17).

The spiritual discipline of simplicity provides the needed perspective. Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others. Once we recognize that the Bible denounces the materialist and the ascetic with equal vigor, we are prepared to turn our attention to the framing of a Christian understanding of simplicity.

Foster goes on to outline what he thinks this Christian simplicity should look like.

I reproduce this excerpt mainly because to write my own article I would simply appropriate what Foster has already written. I encourage everyone to buy his book, and to read it in entirety. (Please be aware that it is only because of the relatively restricted readership of this blog that I reproduce this excerpt. This means if more than a certain number of readers reads this entry, I will have to delete it because of copyright laws. Just in case you come back one day and it’s gone.)