Sociology and political professor Hartmut Rosa in a paper entitled “Two Versions of the Good Life and Two Forms of Fear” wrote the following:
In a way, we moderns resemble a painter who is forever concerned about improving his materials—the colors and brushes, the air conditions and lighting, the canvas and easel, etc.—but never really starts to paint.
Theologians Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun sum up this insight with these words: The means have become ends. They go on to flesh out their interpretation of Rosa’s insight:
Perhaps another image is apt as well: when the means for life have become the ends of life, the dog has started chasing its tail. To chase one’s tail is bad enough; to have to chase it faster than anyone else verges on madness, yet this seems to be our situation. The resources we think we need to live the good life are competitive goods. It is not just that it is better to have more of them than to have less; we need to have more of them than our competitors do: more wealth, better education, more fame, better looks, more. . . We are like a painter obsessed with having better tools for her trade than any of her colleagues because she, madly, believes that superior tools themselves make her a greater painter.
Two teachings of Jesus have always struck me as particularly powerful and essential for our contemporary culture: Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. What does it profit humans to gain the whole world and lose their own selves? Both teachings recognize the tendency for us to turn means into ends. Jesus saw that propensity even among the peasants of his time whose concerns chiefly focused on survival in a predatory world. One can only wonder what he would say to us in the 21st century who wallow in luxury which those peasants could never even imagine. All our wealth, entertainments, and distractions are such necessary evils in our materialistic and competitive world. (Roman emperors learned quickly that to maintain their power, increase their wealth, and control the masses, it was necessary to provide “bread and circuses” for their subjects.) We have been seduced into believing with all “our heart, soul, mind, and strength” that the means we pursue to obtain a good life are ends in themselves. As a result, too many in our society have no noble purpose in life, no ultimate meaning for their time on this earth, no sense of community and the common good, no capacity for compassion and self-sacrifice, no yearning for justice. All that matters is wealth, superficial happiness (usually in the form of mindless entertainment), narcissistic comfort, and the futile hope that we have a chance of succeeding in the rat races and silly games that define so much of our world. However, such races and games blind us to what Jesus called the Pearl of Great Price.
I suggest that the Pearl of Great Price is what other parts of the New Testament call “eternal life.” Eternal life is a qualitive existence which is intensely aware of its connection with God, others, creation, and one’s authentic, God-given self. It is the end toward which all of our means should be oriented. Eternal life refers to a purpose and calling which is worthy of God’s faith in us and of our identity as children of God and siblings to one another. It is what Volf and Croasmun call “flourishing life”—life which is flourishing for each and all–for humans and other animals; for plants and soil; for air and water; for the present and the future. I believe Socrates was only partially correct when he said the unexamined life is not worth living. It is the unlived life that is not worth living. Jesus talked about people in his day who were like whitewashed tombs—all beautiful on the outside but dead on the inside. We have a lot of ethical, spiritual, and intellectual zombies walking around today who haven’t a clue regarding any worthy and enduring “end” in their lives or for this world. They are seduced, hypnotized, and enslaved by a worldview which is defined by greed, arrogance, and superficiality. And part of the reason for this tragedy is the lack of any witness to an alternative way of life.
And it is at this point that so many U S churches and Christians have failed. Too often we have wrapped ourselves in the almighty dollar, the American flag, the dogma of white supremacy, and the crippling norms of crass capitalism. What might happen if the church stopped focusing on “correct beliefs and doctrines” and emphasized and incarnated compassion, justice, forgiveness, beauty, and reconciliation? What if the church ceased to be obsessed with its buildings, organizations, survival, and church growth programs and became living witnesses to a value system which recognizes that life does not consist in the abundance of possessions and that it profits us nothing if in gaining the whole world we lose our authentic selves? What if the church loved God’s children as much as it worshipped its Lord? (If you have a problem with that statement, read I John 3:16-18; 4:20.) What if the church gave itself for the sake of this world God so loves? What if the church realized that it needs to be “saved” as much as the world around it? What if we stopped trying to be “Christian” and admitted that, at best, we are simply trying to follow this radical Jew whose life, death, and resurrection turned the world of Caesar upside down? What if we actually rediscovered (or discovered for the first time) the Pearl of Great Price—the End toward which all our means must point and work? What if we stopped chasing our tails and began to live God’s life in God’s world?
(The quote from Hartmut Rosa is from “Two Versions of the Good Life and Two Forms of Fear: Dynamic Stabilization and Resonance Conception of the Good Life” presented at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture conference on Joy Security, and Fear in 2017. The quotes from Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmum are from For the Life of the World, pp.26-27. This small book is filled with theological and practical gems for the church. I hope to write more articles based on and expanding the profound insights provided by these amazing theologians.)
