Record Live Podcast

The_subtle_trap_of_materialism
Intro: [00:00:00] Hi there, everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Zenita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church, faith, and living well. We believe as followers of Jesus, faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we put into practice. Let's go live.
Jarrod Stackelroth: It's Record Live time again, and while we are still missing our dear friend and colleague Zenita, today! I am joined by Pastor Jesse, the one and only. Thank you for friend of the show. I should say you've been on here a few times and, we appreciate every time that you do come on your episode about homeschooling.
Jarrod Stackelroth: It looks like is one of the top listen to, , [00:01:00] episodes of this
Jesse Herford: Is that right? I did not know that.
Jarrod Stackelroth: it is, is getting some interest out there. So yeah. Welcome to the show, Jesse. Great to have you on again.
Jesse Herford: Thank you man. It's good to be here. I'm excited for our chat today.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Now, in the lead up to this conversation, we were sort of spit balling, like, what are we going to talk about? How can we find something interesting, useful? And you mentioned that you've been reflecting on some In a sense, they're big existential questions in some ways you've been reflecting and thinking and and wondering and reading and learning and challenging, perceptions.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And so one of those topics that sort of briefly came up was materialism and commercialism and secularism and how some of that might interplay with our Christian faith. So maybe we'll start there. What have you been thinking about lately?
Jesse Herford: Yeah, I do this thing sometimes where I just jump [00:02:00] into a rabbit hole and I immerse myself in it and I think about it. And a lot of what I've been thinking about recently is on the topic , of secularism and materialism. , my main sort of touch points have been a lot of the work of John Tyson, John Mark Comer, and specifically they riff a lot on, , Charles Taylor.
Jesse Herford: There is a, a big, uh, dusty tome that Charles Taylor wrote in the eighties, I believe called a secular age, which is sort of the treatise on every, on the secular world. And. It has a lot of helpful things to say in terms of being a description of the world as we know it. , but it also has some things that are not quite as up to scratch as perhaps we might, , yeah, want to consider today.
Jesse Herford: But I guess the long and short of it is I've been thinking about. In terms of what we do, , as Christians and the way that we live our lives and the way that we, , relate [00:03:00] to our, , our, the world around us, there's this constant struggle. And it was alluded to in the title, of the show of being in the world, in your community, but not conforming to the pattern of that community. I think that one of the pitfalls that often as Christians, we really struggle with is not conforming. And I think particularly when I moved to Sydney, I've never lived in Sydney before. I was born in Sydney, but I've never as an adult lived in Sydney. I was really struck by how different the expressions of faith are in a big city and how in many ways the spirit of that city rubs off on the people of faith that are doing Jesus community in that city more than [00:04:00] sometimes the way that those Jesus people are reflecting on the city itself.
Jesse Herford: And so that's where my thinking kind of started on this thing. And so the question that I guess I'm asking myself is, in living our faith , in being a Christian in a city, perhaps like Sydney, or perhaps if you're in New York or LA or any of these big, metropolitan areas, how much of our faith is influenced by the Bible, by the way of Jesus, and how much of our faith in our everyday life is actually influenced by the Bible.
Jesse Herford: The world that surrounds us.
Jarrod Stackelroth: That's a really big question. Can you give us some examples? , can you unpack what you mean a little bit about that? Because I think we all recognize that when we hold a faith, there is the chance of hypocrisy in that faith. But in our conversation, it was like a little more insidious than that, a little more unnoticed or even subconscious.
Jarrod Stackelroth: What you're sort of talking about is taking on the culture. That [00:05:00] surrounds you, but rather than resisting that culture or subverting that culture, , because of the Christian faith, we're actually, it's almost like, , holding our Christian faith and our cultural faith together. , and , the culture is sometimes trumping.
Jarrod Stackelroth: , the Christian faith. We say our Christian faith is our values. This is what I believe in. This is my ideology, my ideals, but the values as we live and practice and experience them, maybe our actions and our words aren't quite the same. ? , what are some examples of.
Jarrod Stackelroth: That you think we, we do this
Jesse Herford: yeah, I think it goes deeper than just behaviors. The thing that helped me understand this in the context of my world, , was understanding a city that's far away from you and I, and that's New York city. New York is a really interesting city to study throughout the decades. , [00:06:00] and one of the.
Jesse Herford: Most popular YouTubers of all time, Casey Neistat, once said that you don't move to New York City because you think it's a nice place to live. You move there because you've got something to prove. You want to prove that either you can make it, or that you're tough enough, or that you're, skillful enough or entrepreneurial enough to survive in a city that's so fast paced, so competitive, so cutthroat, so expensive.
Jesse Herford: And I think Whilst I'm grateful that Sydney isn't New York, on par, I think in many ways cities like Sydney are, they're aspirational in terms of being a fast paced city, a city where, property prices are spiraling out of control where you move to Sydney to make it to get a job at a tech company or you're in finance or you're in the construction industry and the sorts of people that make it in Sydney who live in those massive mansions in the eastern [00:07:00] suburbs or in the hills they're the people who've made it and in order to make it in Sydney or in any other city around the like sydney You have to live a certain way.
Jesse Herford: You have to live by a certain set of ideals. I'm not saying that you have to be inherently,, duplicitous or, , morally corrupt in order to make it financially. , but there are a set of principles that the world definitely rewards that Christianity doesn't necessarily reward. , and I think in the church, oftentimes, For those of us who are living in these big cities, the temptation is to live our faith within the context of our community one way and to live in the world another way.
Jesse Herford: Because we tell ourselves the reality is,, I need to make it in this city. Otherwise, I'm not going to be able to provide for my family. I'm not going to be able to make my next mortgage payment. I'm not going to be able to afford my car. For those of us who live in this city, that's a [00:08:00] constant and a real pressure.
Jesse Herford: So, , for instance, I have a friend who is one of the most generous, , very family focused, just fun to be around. He's in sales and he's quite high up in his world. And he's shared with me a few times, the things that he has to do in order to succeed in his industry. He would never. In a million years due to his friends and family, the tactics that he's had to use to manipulate people to get what he wants to go behind people's backs.
Jesse Herford: And I'm not saying that every Christian who's in a big city does this sort of stuff, but I think that there is a degrading effect that Secular culture has on us that can slowly, if we let it, over time, degrade the sense of ethics and morality that we pretend to live with, [00:09:00] and cause us to live almost a split life, on the one hand, with our family and with our faith, and on the other hand, in our professional life.
Jarrod Stackelroth: There's a couple of things this is bringing up for me. So on the one hand, you could have the, I guess the increasing sort of segmentation of people's lives. So they're almost, , it's that Greco Roman concept of the different arenas, rather than it being wholly integrated. It's like, there's faith over here and there's, whatever else over there, what I have to do at work, what I have to do to survive.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Is there people who are good Christians, they've never overstepped a moral boundary, they're not doing anything unethically well, are they still impacted by a secular outlook because of culture and community? They might be still living in the city, or they might not be living in the city, but they've maybe swallowed the pill, as it were,, How is it impacting those people?
Jarrod Stackelroth: Cause I think , you've definitely brought up , an [00:10:00] impact that, you know, people who have to get ahead and are in that rat race, but some people might like to see themselves as outside of that rat race. , are they just above , this criticism or , is it working on them as well?
Jarrod Stackelroth: And how does that look?
Jesse Herford: We're all affected by this. , Charles Taylor uses , two different terms, sets of terminology. He calls it the buffered self versus the porous self. So, , , he talks about the pre modern period where, Religion was everywhere, in certain sense there was no such thing as religion because it's just the way that you lived your life, , you went to church or you went to temple or whatever, , but at the same time you were involved in your community, you were involved in your family, you were involved in yourself, there was not much sense of self.
Jesse Herford: Everything was porous. So think of it like a sponge versus, let's say, a glass cage,, a sponge, , , mops everything up, whereas a glass cage kind [00:11:00] of repels everything. Whatever's inside that case, like in a museum, , just repels everything. And that's the buffered self. The buffered self is the self that is thought of as external from all influences, whether that's physical or supernatural.
Jesse Herford: So in other words, I am my own person. I am not beholden to, , an outside, , authority. And the ultimate expression of that is God. So, you know, it's the, Frank Sinatra, I did it my way kind of self where, I might go to church, maybe I might partake in some sense of spirituality, but I also kind of can see myself apart from that.
Jesse Herford: My, myself and my person is separate from the self that goes to work, is separate from the self that is part of my family. , you know, in a Jungian sort of way, we'd have the ego and the id, you know there's my truest self, then there's sort of [00:12:00] the self that I portray to others, my shadow, or whatever. So, There's this segmentation that occurs, and what this segmentation does, essentially, is, on the one hand, it offers freedom, in reality, it makes us slaves, because it shuts off a certain part of ourselves, and it makes it so that we can be more easily manipulated by other forces outside of us.
, and that's, I think the degradation effect that I was referring to before comes in, because when we consider ourselves to be outside of external influences, I am my own person. That's when we can easily get sucked into, , advertising or marketing or the effects of, , lust or pornography or gambling, or just, being a jerk at work kind of thing.
Jesse Herford: Because essentially. The buffered self is the self that we lie [00:13:00] to. We're lying about ourselves and who we are, rather than, , the porous self, which recognizes the connectedness that we have with everything around us. So, yeah, I think we're all pretty much in that space. I think it actually requires us to recognize that To move beyond it, if that makes sense.
Jarrod Stackelroth: So, in some senses, what I'm hearing you describe is sometimes called Western individualism , in a way, isn't it? It's all linked together that,, evolution of self being the highest value for some, for many people. You know, the individual, and then we can take that into how we worship. We can take that into how we do church because it's about our It makes us more consumers.
Jarrod Stackelroth: We're sitting there. What can I get out of this? What can I take home with me from this church service rather than what am I adding to this community or [00:14:00] how am I a valued part of this community just by being here? , Wow. It's interesting. So. In some senses then,, I'm just thinking of someone who might disagree, who might say, well, no, actually a true Christian isn't actually caught up with this.
Jarrod Stackelroth: A true Christian, a true Adventist perhaps will avoid the city. Will go and live in a property far away from anyone and any of these unhealthy, unholy influences of secularism and materialism , and et cetera. And they will keep themselves apart. But what you've just described of like prioritizing the individual self over community, et cetera, you can really fall into that trap by setting yourself apart and not engaging in church or engaging in community.
Jarrod Stackelroth: In a sense, you're saying that,, you could be a very straight down the line, Bible believing, Ellen [00:15:00] White reading Adventist, who's doing all the things, doing it from a sense of self in a way.
Jesse Herford: To do that is to, is the most secularist, materialist expression of faith that I can probably imagine. So secularism is, a lot of people talk about how, our modern society has subtracted God from the equation. You know, we don't have prayer in schools or, we don't have prayer at a national level in our parliament or whatever.
Jesse Herford: Charles Taylor actually contends that secularism is not the subtraction of faith. , but it is positioning faith as one choice among many. So to your point, , when I walk into my local church and , I hear the music and I think, Oh, well, it's not as good as the church down the street. Or I listened to the preacher and I think, Oh, he's not as good as insert,, whatever preacher you're comparing them to.[00:16:00]
Jesse Herford: That is falling into the trap of secularism. The other thing that secularism does. is it makes man, as in mankind, humankind, the ultimate authority. So whatever we decide as being the best thing, then that, that's the best thing because we don't have, a greater authority , to lean on, to submit to.
Jesse Herford: We only have ourselves to submit to. And so to separate oneself. from the rest of the world is to be beholden to one's own sense of self. And it's to ignore the fundamental call of the New Testament church, which is to be a part of the nations. And this is,, true for the entire story of the Bible.
Jesse Herford: God tells the, , exiled Judeans, , in Babylon through Jeremiah to, plant vineyards and to marry [00:17:00] and , to do all this stuff in a foreign nation when they're enslaved in Babylon. , Jesus call to the disciples is to go, therefore, into the nations, not to wait for the nations to come into us and certainly not for us to, , go outside of the nations so that we can be ready for Jesus's second coming.
Jesse Herford: So, , even when we, I think, in many ways, try to, , be this exclusivist kind of, faith and to keep ourselves apart from the world, in many ways, we're still feeding into that same, ideology that, that is secularism , and that is materialism, because it doesn't Again, puts it all back on us.
Jesse Herford: It makes it all about us.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Mm. That's such an interesting critique of that sort of movement or that framing of that, because, and people may disagree with us. If you do show. Put a comment in the chat , and, , we can address it, but,, people may disagree with what you're saying, but in a sense, , the ultimate [00:18:00] sin in many ways that we've talked about as Christians is the elevation of self above the elevation of God, you know, God being the number one, in our lives.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And,, we can fall into that trap both by being uber focused on our own holiness. our own works, our own, legalism, as well as sort of prioritizing unholy or unhelpful things in our lives. And segmenting faith off into a corner and just having it as a one day a week sort of practice or, in that circle, I wear this face in another circle, I wear a different face, , just being comfortable in that sort of dichotomy , of different,, roles and different people that you play in different spaces.
Jarrod Stackelroth: So interesting.
Jesse Herford: Yeah. And by the way,, a lot of the criticism of, secularism is definitely a [00:19:00] criticism of more liberal thinking. And I will say we often talk about that dichotomy,, on the show. One thing I'll say about conservative Christian expression, at least the one that, the one that I'm familiar with, there is much more of a focus on personal everyday devotion, and I think that's definitely something that often gets lost in the, , more left wing side of the church, , One thing I can definitely, appreciate about more conservative, , expressions of Christianity is that, that emphasis on personal devotion.
Jesse Herford: And, we can talk about whether some of that is misdirected. That's definitely a relevant conversation, but at least it's, , a big emphasis as part of that movement. And I, I think, that's definitely, , that's not nothing. That's, that's a huge part of it. Our Christian, Christian life.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Yeah. And if we believe that God, , in our devotion to him will correct and to guide us and grow us, then that's super important to have that as a bedrock [00:20:00] because we can't be changed or be more like Christ. If we're not getting that word from him, if we're not getting,, moved and changed by him, , just, , I guess to take the conversation in a slightly different direction, are there any biblical principles, anything you've seen in scripture that can help us navigate this, minefield of secularism, of individualism, of,, putting myself on the throne as opposed to putting God on the throne?
Jesse Herford: Yeah. I think a big one is desire. , desire is a incredibly strong emotion and we all desire, and often we equate desire with just purely sexual desire. And we kind of. Make it a dirty word. But desire is incredibly powerful. Whether it's in relationship, whether it's in your, vocation, your family, , or just,, what you like to do.
Jesse Herford: , desire leads us. [00:21:00] to become formed spiritually, one way or the other. And so when I think of that, I think of, , specifically, you know, I guess , the typical story would be the Garden of Eden story where, , the two first humans are faced with a choice. Do they, , follow God's wisdom or do they,, see what is good in their own eyes?
Jesse Herford: And , that's a huge theme that throughout the rest of the Bible and that desire on the one hand to follow God's wisdom, to be part of what God is doing in the world, to be his royal partners, , Psalm chapter eight talks about this, , or to choose our own way, , the desire to be our own, the master of our own destiny.
Jesse Herford: , John Mark Comer talks about this in his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. He says, Ultimately, nothing in this life apart from God can satisfy our desires. Tragically, we continue to chase after our desires ad infinitum. The result is a [00:22:00] chronic state of restlessness, or worse, angst, anger, anxiety, disillusionment, depression, all of which lead to a life of hurry, A life of busyness, overload, shopping, materialism, careerism, a life of more, which in turn makes us even more restless.
Jesse Herford: So it's that desire, I think.
Jarrod Stackelroth: There's a challenging verse in Thessalonians and I want to get your take on this. , do we just not? Take part in the rat race. Should we encourage Christian mediocrity or hard work? , it says in first Thessalonians four and verse 11, four verse 11, make it your ambition. So we've talked a little bit about ambitions and things that we might chase in, the rat race, making your ambition to lead a quiet life.
Jarrod Stackelroth: To mind your own business. I like that Paul's telling them, everyone, mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you so that your daily life may [00:23:00] win the respect of outsiders. And so you will not be dependent on anybody. Verse 12. So Even in that verse, it's like, do you lead a quiet life and not work hard?
Jarrod Stackelroth: Do you work hard so that you're winning the respect of other people? And how is that a witness to your Christian faith? Yeah. Can you unpack that a little bit for us, Pastor Jesse?
Jesse Herford: , this is a passage that has just befuddled and fascinated me for a while, because I mean, we've all kind of, you know, Grown up around this idea. Like there's this, iconic book called good to great, , which is all about, , going above that mediocrity, it's one of those leadership guru books that often gets passed around in leadership circles.
Jesse Herford: And there's this idea of excellence of, , going above and beyond. A lot of it has to do again with this secularist materialist consumer driven individualist society. That is just the air we breathe., There's a,, number of [00:24:00] stages of spiritual development, a lot of models around spiritual development.
Jesse Herford: And one of them, there's, , there's one called the critical journey and it has six stages and I won't go through them cause we don't have time, but essentially stage one is awareness of God all the way to the very end. So you have, things like discipleship, being useful, doing stuff. And then there's a central point that.
Jesse Herford: People have to go through, that's called the wall. It's kind of like the runner's wall. If we get through that wall, we get to, , an entirely different stage of spiritual development. , there's an example that the book uses of the kinds of people that most of them are at the end of their life and most of them are not in leadership.
Jesse Herford: They're not leading big organizations, but they're spiritually. In a completely different realm to the average Christian. , in the book it's called The Life of Love. , think that one [00:25:00] elderly person in your church that always has a smile on their face. Who is just so generous. Not just financially, but generous of spirit, who never has a bad word to say of anybody, who always has an encouragement for everybody, who, when you're with them, you feel closer to God.
Jesse Herford: I heard somebody recently ish speak of the end of Eugene Peterson's life, , who's famous for writing the Message Bible, but he's written a lot of other stuff. He was an incredibly influential American pastor. Toward the end of his life, he had groups of pastors come visit him and they would just sit and talk.
Jesse Herford: And there was one group where the pastor said, look, he didn't say anything revolutionary or new or crazy or whatever, but just being in his presence was a gift. You didn't have to go to a mega church or see him speak in front of tens of thousands. That [00:26:00] quiet, beautiful,, what's the word that I'm thinking of?
Jesse Herford: Incarnational embodied experience of being present with a person and knowing you're also communing with God at the same time because of that person's presence. I think that's probably. If I could have a stab at what Paul is talking about here, the kind of faith that I think Paul is, encouraging us to pursue, that Jesus is encouraging us to pursue, is not the faith that necessarily , will be talked about for years to come, but it's the kind of faith that truly embodies the spirit of Jesus and is,, I guess an overflowing cup.
Jesse Herford: And the reality is that is a faith that takes a lifetime to, to cultivate of obedience to God , and communing in his presence.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Jesse, [00:27:00] we've run out of time. We've got 30 seconds left. What can we do this week to fight back against materialism? What's something practical we can do to start to reframe this for ourselves?
Jesse Herford: Well, I think it's helpful to recognize. , the air that we breathe, and you don't have to read Charles Taylor to do that, but, I would encourage, , people if they're interested to check out some of the, , books that have been written around this, especially those that have been written from a Christian perspective that might help you to recognize where you're at.
Jesse Herford: But if you don't want to do , that's fine. My, I honestly, it's really simple. , we're designed to live life in circles. That is, to have vital relationships with people that we trust and that we can journey with, especially in a busy city like Sydney or Canberra or New York, that's really hard.
Jesse Herford: We're all busy, but I think one of the best things that you can do for your own [00:28:00] spirituality is to take time. And that's why Sabbath is great, by the way, but to take time to journey with people, not a hundred people in your church, not even 50 people, but like three, four, maybe five people at most in a small group, in a Bible study, in a Sabbath school group, is slow and quiet, contemplative, deep relationship.
Jesse Herford: And I think that's what God's designed us for. And those are some of the richest relationships I think you can have, and I think can be one of the biggest buffers against the onslaught of secularism and materialism in our world today.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Some great thoughts there. Thank you, Pastor Jesse. Great to have you with us and we'll see you again on Record Live next week.