Being Consumed

I recently picked up a thin little book by William Cavanaugh titled Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. I’ve only read the introduction, but the first two sentences hooked me. “Some Christians may be tempted to assume that economics is a discipline autonomous from theology. Many Christians, however, intuit that what we do with our money and our stuff should be directly informed by how we relate to God.” This is really the heart of this blog and the idea behind asking What Would Jesus Eat?

Even though this is a thin book (99 pages), each sentence is packed with thought and meaning that another author might take a chapter to unpack. I’ve found myself re-reading sentences and paragraphs to fully swallow and digest what is being said. This is the kind of theological writing I love, because you can just feel how much thought went into what’s being said.

I would like to promise a series of posts really digging into this book in detail, but there are a number of series started here that I’ve left dangling (Ethical Eating, Cheap Food Isn’t, World Hunger Myths and Food in the Bible is often neglected). The book addresses four issues in relation to its overall theme: the free market, consumerism, globalization and scarcity. Each topic is distinct and interesting enough that I think it will be worth a post each. So, no promises, but hopefully I will get a chance to think through this dense book with you soon.