Ownership Isn't Consumerism

Yesterday's article was about ownership, specifically, how we pay more and more for lower-quality products we don't actually own. Some readers took that as a defense of consumerism. It wasn't.

I know the objection. A certain strain of evangelical piety treats ownership itself as spiritual compromise, storing up treasures on earth and all that. The irony should not be lost on anyone that this argument tends to get made on expensive internet devices, in comfortable homes, in a nation still living off accumulated wealth our fathers laid up for us.

But irony doesn't settle the question. Scripture contains genuine warnings about riches, their deceitfulness, their danger, the difficulty a rich man has entering the kingdom. We shouldn't respond to the hypocrisy of the super-spiritual by swinging into materialism.

Ownership is part of the moral fabric of existence. The eighth commandment is the simplest proof: thou shalt not steal. You cannot take something that belongs to someone else. The tenth reinforces it: do not covet your neighbor's wife or possessions. There are things that belong to your neighbor. There are things that belong to you. A holy life respects the boundary between them.

God also blesses people with ownership of real things: land, children, property, livestock. Throughout Scripture these are described as blessings, and there's no reason for embarrassment. Does God ultimately own all things? Yes. But divine ownership doesn't negate human ownership; it frames it. What we own, we steward. God entrusts things to us and holds us accountable for them. If your ox gores someone because you failed to restrain it, that falls on you. You owned the ox that is counted among the cattle on a thousand hills belonging to God.

The warnings in both Testaments are about ultimate allegiance. Money in a savings account is fine, so long as you understand it can't save you. Owning things is right, so long as you aren't owned by them. The rich young ruler was invited into Jesus's inner circle. He walked away because his riches owned him.

The same principle runs through Acts 5. Peter's rebuke of Ananias and Sapphira wasn't that they kept part of the proceeds. He says explicitly the property was theirs, to sell or keep as they pleased. The sin was using a gift to manufacture a reputation. The problem wasn't ownership. It was the heart behind it.

What I'm arguing is not consumerism but its opposite: owning quality things that last.

When cheap shoes aren't readily available, you save up and buy a pair that holds together. When movies aren't streaming on demand, you decide which ones are worth owning, and since shelf space is finite, you develop discrimination. Easy access to cheap, unlimited things breeds consumerism. Things that are hard to replace get cared for. And even those things will eventually break down, which is its own reminder: no matter how much you own, this world is decaying and awaiting redemption.

Ownership understood rightly reminds you that you will give an account. God gave you talents. What did you do with them?

There are people who will shame you for caring about quality, wrapping it in anti-consumerist language and a posture of super-spiritual detachment. In my experience, they haven't thought carefully about any of this, and they tend to be among the worst offenders.