In minimalism we trust
The minimalist trend is overtaking fashion, interior design, web design, etc. In others sectors, minimalism takes different names. Ultra-lite for example in backpacking is the theory that you can travel further, more comfortably with fewer, pricier things — and, of course, by spelling ‘lite’ with fewer letters than ‘light.’ Or in the self-help world, we are offered Greg McKeown’s Essentialism as a call to declutter our personal and professional lives, focusing only on those areas where we are optimally positioned. It may go by different names, but the essential mantra is that fewer, more useful is necessarily better — and ultimately, better for us.
In an age where we are consumed, overwhelmed by stuff, we are increasingly aware of just how empty the promise of ‘more’ rings in our lives. We see minimalism as a way to take back control. For me, this reveals itself in an odd joy that I’m carrying all my needed possessions for the rest of the year in a single backpack. For others it is the satisfaction derived from a simple, yet elegant open-floor plan kitchen.
In principal, there isn’t anything wrong with trying to declutter, prioritize, or simplify (in fact, it can be helpful), but it is important to think about why this trend is emerging; where it is rooted; and how it impacts us spiritually.
In doing so, it is critical to evaluate what minimalists mean by ‘better.’ More so than other fashion trends, there is a serious air of moralism that goes along with this fad. It is as if via anti-consumerism (or least more focused, thoughtful consumerism) adherents to minimalism feel we’ve actually done something more meaningful than indulge in a trend.
We might say we’re trying to be ‘sustainable’ or ‘low-impact’ but these potentially noble terms are so diluted, so over-marketed, so fraught with hypocrisy, I’m not even going to try to address here.
The word ‘intentional’ also gets thrown around a lot to justify the moral superiority of this stylistic bent. ‘Intentionality’ as far as I can tell connotes the vague idea that careful curation of our possessions and style will somehow allow us to focus more deeply on things that matter. But, from what I’ve seen, ‘intentional minimalism’ doesn’t seem to amount to much more than an empty Christian buzzword and perhaps a tactical adjustment towards that ultimate American goal of optimized efficiency.
Let’s pull back the high-minded language for a moment and look closely at this trend from a different perspective.
I mean, isn’t there something inherently broken about the decision to spend hundreds extra on a smaller number of lighter, smaller, less durable toys with which to get better in touch with nature?
Isn’t there something backwards about the need to remodel your home in alignment with the most recent fashion in order to make it ‘more conducive for community’?
Isn’t there something incredibly elitist about a self-help philosophy which promotes an approach to life so self-actualized it can only reasonably be pursued by the most privileged among us?
Nowhere are these attitudes more visibly on display than social media. ‘Your external space reflects your inner space’ or ‘what does your home say about you’ are often the unspoken messages behind the images, but in some cases, we are even so brazen as to put these most American of idolatries in writing.
If our self-constructed surroundings, our physical possessions have truly become the principal means by which we feel capable of telling the world ‘who we are,’ we are more lost than we imagine. When we attempt to resolve rampant materialism by trying to answer for our surplus via fewer, more useful (and usually more expensive) objects, we’ve totally missed the point.
We are asking the wrong question here.
While certainly telling given the state of inequality in our world, there is nothing inherently damning about the number of things we have. It is the value we give them to define us which turns them into idols.
And this brings me to my bigger question for believers.
Why do we so often find ourselves trying to solve our spiritual problems via human means?
At the deepest level, I believe this phenomenon arises from our propensity to prioritize the natural, human tendency for belief, over the far more un-natural (or, rather, supernatural), but transformative response of faith.
Somewhere along the way, we have gotten terribly lost regarding the definitions of these terms. And, as French sociologist and lay theologian Jacques Ellul states quite poignantly, “we have an annoying tendency to confuse the two.” I submit that the distinction is critical for understanding the roots of the recent minimalist fad and more critically, for ensuring our spiritual survival amidst modern society.
On one hand, beliefs are the necessary building blocks for existence and thriving as humans. We build our beliefs largely (but not fully) on the basis of rationality and empirical observation. In other words, we believe what our senses tell us to be true about the world.
We tend to believe things we perceive as proven through experience: that (usually) buildings won’t spontaneously crumble when we go to the second floor; that our neighbor (likely) won’t stab us when we walk over to ask about his week; that (generally), cars drive on the left in the UK and its previous colonial dominion and on the right in the rest of the world. We (some of us), believe scientific findings and formulas because they’ve been proven as fact in empirical studies many times over and produce a consistent result upon which we can rely.
Beliefs are those tools with which we construct our lives, the things we take for granted from observation and experience. As creatures who crave certainty, we like our beliefs since they help us derive an element of surety from our existence in a fragmented, uncertain world.
Critically, beliefs are also what bind us together as communities and societies. Without a minimum of shared beliefs, a society cannot exist and will soon dissolve. Thus, we are encouraged by our society to hold and form and fight for our beliefs — and ultimately to be governed by the most reasonable of those beliefs.
Beliefs can also be spiritualized. And, given the human (and easily politicized) nature of beliefs, we tend to seek human, political means to enforce them.
For example, as Christians, we believe what the Bible says about how Christians should behave sexually and therefore use politics in an attempt to coerce non-Christians into alignment with this belief. We believe in peace, so we offer our support to a government which kills in peace’s name. We are overcome by materialism, so we deify simplicity and believe fewer, better things will relieve us from the tragic superficiality of our souls.
Faith is different. It doesn’t ask us to use our rationality to create a solution to a problem. Faith is hope in those things unseen, unknown. And we all too often forget — in our hyper-individualized version of Christianity — that God is and must be ultimately unknowable, unresolvable in order to be worth our faith in the first place.
God is not the abstract projection of our own desires, aspirations, or values — even though we often treat Him this way. If He were, He wouldn’t be God at all, but just another of our own creations which aid us in the development of productive societies (the primary critique on Christianity by German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach).
Nor is God fully knowable. We can know pieces of His character, but the true nature of His justice, His mercy, His peace, His love are complex and mysterious and powerful beyond our ability to fully grasp.
Rather, God is, as Ellul characterizes Him ‘fundamentally other’ ‘inevitably different from what pagans call God’ and thus, ‘unable to be fully assimilated into a system of belief.’ For, again, beliefs are based on things we have fully identified, defined, and through this definition determined a rational approach for action.
If beliefs are productive, useful for society, easily actionable, faith is the opposite. It is a disturbing force which asks us to release our imagined control over outcomes to an unknowable God who ascends upon us.
Faith is hope. And, as Ellul again suggests, ‘a hope founded in realism.’
The realism is expressed when we accept the inevitability of suffering; that human existence is tragic and broken and unredeemable.
The hope flows from faith in a force, a God, beyond our comprehension — beyond rational proof — who desires union with us who are beyond love and through that love, redeems us who are broken beyond redemption.
Without grounding in this sort of unbelievable faith, human existence — including a supposedly Christian existence — is based on nothing more than illusions and rationalizations (what Marx called ‘false consciousness’ and ‘ideology’).
But, if we can base our faith in the only realistic hope for humanity’s redemption — a God beyond our comprehension who loves us beyond our ability to receive it — we can begin to face life with the courage and wisdom to act in greater alignment with His more knowable, but equally undefinable Son.
Perhaps then, we will confront the sin we see in the world with prayer instead of policy.
Perhaps then, we will choose, in spite of the risk to our own safety, to stand in love with those who face violence and persecution instead of supporting — at arms length — a government who wishes to abolish death via more death.
Perhaps then, we will confront materialism not by a re-tooling and re-prioritization of which things we let define us, but by a rejection of possessions as a means by which to define our lives.
Perhaps then, we will learn what it truly means to live by faith: a “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we cannot see.” Hebrews 11:1
