my "suburbs" rant

death by suburb: how to keep the suburbs from killing your soul, by dave goetz. harperone, 2007.

i'll start this by cutting to the chase—this book ticks me off. not because i strongly disagree with it, but because i find it to be so devastatingly accurate and ugly. furthermore, it describes a great deal of my own life and character, and that just plain stinks.

dave goetz's death by suburb vividly portrays the world we have fashioned with our american prosperity. to use his term, it is a "thin" world—superficial, insipid, and unsubstantial.

as goetz sees it, the suburbs are...

• a world where i must be in control

in a world that i will into being, there's not much room for mystery, for the sacred, for that which is outside my control. everything happens for a reason, right? if i want a better marriage, i attend the church's small group on marriage. if i want more knowledge of church history, i take a class at the local christian college. if i want to protect my kids from bad music, i play in the minivan the christian radio station that brands itself, "safe for the whole family." if halloween scares me, my kids and i can attend a fall festival, an alternative halloween event at a large church in our area...i live in a neighborhood so safe that the only way christians "stand up for christ" is by not serving alcohol at the block party. (it's a family neighborhood, after all!) even the construction workers working on the $1 million home next door listen only to nice Christian radio. how nice for our kids!

immersed in a context that values things done right or not at all, i inevitably conclude, most subconsciously, that i can control my life. (25f)

• a world of "competitive parenting"

i absorbed quickly that my children's education needed to be approached like an nba championship. no detail was too small and no standardized test too insignificant. education was not really about learning but about winning. (p.8)

• a world that's all about collecting "immortality symbols"

the meaning of children and their accomplishments is only one suburban immortality symbol. there is the sprawling five-thousand square foot house with the gorgeous sun porch. there is the "ken and barbie" appearance that some couples exude—eternal youth packaged in fresh cleavage and low body fat. for clergy, it's the three-thousand-member mega-church....

there is, frankly, no one more uninteresting than a person with no immortality symbols: the suburban family with no smart or athletic kids that lives in a relatively small house; the poor; the single mom left to raise three kids under twelve after the divorce; the elderly with no winter condo in florida; the midlife pastor with a small congregation. none of these folks is asked to speak at the college alumni banquet. (42f)

• a world that feeds the deadly sins of envy, coveting, and gluttony

the 'burbs are all about striving to be unique, but we all end up competing for the same symbols—the four-bedroom home with the pottery barn colors, the l.l. bean underwear and outerwear, the fuel-guzzling truck, the purebred dog, the family pilgrimage to disney world, and the athletic and scholarship-bedecked college-bound freshman. my wife says she doesn't really covet her neighbor's husband but only the figure of his size 6 wife.... (p.65)

• a world in which "church" is about my consumer preferences

within my protestant family, many churchgoing folk change churches as if they were changing drycleaners. if they come across a coupon for a dime less per laundered shirt, they're off to another store. actually, i think it may be less like shopping and more like casual sex.

it's certainly not about ongoing relationships. it's about the immediate experience, the brief sensation of feeling like i have found a home, a place where i deeply resonate with the worship and theology (at least for a time).

it's one year here and two years there, back to the first church to patch things up, and then on to the cool church with the AUTHENTIC charismatic liturgy where you can find inner healing. few, except for frustrated clergy, admit that local church loyalty is this thin; the reasons offered by church migrants (when someone bothers to ask) always seem reasonable. often the reason goes back to the kids: "there's no youth program for our kids, and we know that over at first church, they have a large youth program. and we really want our kids to make good friends."

parents will lay down their lives if their kids' spirituality and social needs appear to be at stake. it would be better to slap the cub of a she-grizzly than to suggest to any suburban parent that perhaps there are considerations other than the immediate welfare of kids for making decisions.... (127f)

• a world where serving others is primarily about my own significance
  

i often find myself serving mostly in safe or comfortable programs, where no relationship with someone in deep need forms. there doesn't appear to be any conspiracy to preclude relationships with the poor and broken. it just sort of happens, or, rather, doesn't happen. it's easier not to befriend a single mom who at forty-two with a newborn and only $6-an-hour job skills fears telling the father that he has a son because he might sue for custody because she's in such poverty. why get involved in THAT? there's no upside. (p. 109)

this stuff really hurts. the "american dream" life, the life of prosperity, comfort, safety, efficiency and productivity may be one of the most inhospitable soils in which to grow true disciples of christ that the world has ever known.

moses, who had seen it all, who'd been through slavery and exile and persecution and the wilderness, warned the second generation of israelites who were soon to enter the promised land that they were about to face one of the most severe trials of their lives—the trial of prosperity:

Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. (Deut 8.11-20)
^{121314151617181920}

dave goetz puts it this way:

i think my suburb, as safe and religiously coated as it is, keeps me from jesus. or at least, my suburb (and the religion of the suburbs) obscures the real jesus. the living patterns of the good life affect me more than i know.

i guess what bothers me most is that so few see this. we accept our cultural surroundings like a fish takes water for granted. we don't see anything spiritually harmful in "the patterns of the good life." we don't recognize how they play to the flesh and anesthetize the spirit.

to aid us in battling "the world" as it surrounds us in affluent society, goetz recommends several spiritual practices gleaned from the history of the church and monastery. frankly, i'm not sure they are enough.

• individual transformation through such practices is a key, but only a start.
  
• at some point we are going to need to talk about what church is all about;
  
• and living among and walking with the poor;
  
• and perhaps participating in a movement out of the affluent suburbs and into the cities and needy neighborhoods;
  
• and forsaking the mindset of "whites only" privilege that continues to predominate in the suburbs so that we can relate and learn with our brothers and sisters from other cultures.

thus ends the rant. thus begins deep heart searching on the part of this so-called "disciple."

thank you for the wake-up call, dave goetz.

today's van gogh

houses in auvers, 1890