To stave off recession, Congress and the President urge us to buy more stuff. Encouraging Americans to keep shopping, they tell us, will plump our economy — despite fundamental shifts in the world economy, not to mention two large-scale wars. Whatever the economic merits of this plan, I believe that promoting consumerism is bad for our national soul. Indeed, I see the government offering us empty calories to satiate a bottomless hunger. And that’s why I am donating my stimulus check to charity.

The consumerist economy

Consumption represents the majority of our GDP. Cars and big-screen televisions keep a web of people employed domestically and internationally, from store clerks to factory workers to the cargo handlers in between. Consumption and consumerism are here to stay, and we would be foolish and delusional to wish otherwise.

But the recent boom was built on an illusion: Americans spent at a historically unprecedented scale by borrowing heavily against artificially inflated home prices. Well, it turns out that you can’t have your house and mortgage it, too. The buying binge is over, and it’s time for Americans to confront what all of this consumption has wrought.

We are still wealthy

The truth is that the United States is still the wealthiest nation this world has ever known. While almost half of the world lives on less than $2 a day, Americans are blessed with domestic tranquility, high literacy, and tremendous life opportunities. Understandably, many Americans find cold comfort in statistics when struggling with job loss, mushrooming health care costs, and rising gas prices. These problems are real, and right now they are growing. But the paradox is that more wealth can feed our gluttony rather than salve our want. In fact, the more money we make, the more we spend on ourselves and the less of it we give to charity.

Deprivation is relative: we don’t compare ourselves with the unseen poor halfway across the globe, but the Joneses next door. “I don’t think most people who are affluent feel affluent,” observes a participant in one of the Boston Faith & Justice Network’s economic discipleship groups. “We feel we are in debt and someone else is affluent…For my kids, poverty is not having Nintendo.”

From deprivation to gratitude

Without denying the reality of domestic poverty and inequality, I decline to view our economic circumstances through the lens of deprivation. For me, a more spiritually sound way of understanding wealth is as abundance. The glass isn’t merely half-full; it overflows.

It is out of gratitude for our wealth that some of us are choosing to do something different with our economic stimulus checks: donate them to charity. Certainly, those of us who are struggling financially are thankful for the opportunity to pay down debts, invest in schooling, or simply put food on the table. But many of us would otherwise binge on stuff we don’t really need.

One man gives freely, yet grows all the richer;
another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.
Proverbs 11:24 (RSV)

From the point of view of our national economy, donating our stimulus checks to charity will produce the same multiplier effects as buying a plasma-screen television. But it will mean something quite different to our own spiritual well-being. It’s not about denying ourselves by resisting temptation, but expanding ourselves by giving generously to others. Indeed, as the proverbs suggest, it’s not wealth that leads us to give, but giving that makes us realize we are wealthy.

I know we can’t extinguish consumerism, nor do I want to, but we can ask for a different kind of consumption. After all, the word “consumption” can mean “to use up.” But it can also mean, quite simply, “to eat.” Perhaps, whatever your spiritual beliefs, you too offer up words of thanks before you sit down to eat a meal. If so, consider offering some words of gratitude before you “consume” that stimulus check. You might find yourself feeling a lot wealthier for it.

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