An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture

The consumer culture holds the belief that no amount is enough. The free market ideology produces economic crises, violence, and an exhausted planet. An Other Kingdom provides a new narrative, a shift in our thinking and speaking, to take us out of a culture of addictive consumption into a place where contract is replaced by covenant, consumption is replaced by neighborliness, and time is reclaimed as our own. This is a modern exodus towards a connected community, built on an alternative set of beliefs, liturgy, and disciplines. The shift has begun and out of it we find a better way to raise our children, be healthy, be safe, and be kinder to the earth.

"A fast–paced, hard–hitting smack of a book . . . [with] specific, practical ways we can move toward greater neighborliness for the common good."
WILL WILLIMON, Professor of Christian Ministry, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC and United Methodist Bishop (ret.)

"The book is not sentimental . . . but rather hopeful of fundamental economic, social, and cultural transformation, reminiscent of economist Fritz Schumacher."
SUSAN WITT, Schumacher Center for a New Economics

"An alternative vision of a neighborly society, one that draws upon our deepest sacred and secular traditions and is already being constructed by ordinary people in many local communities."
WALTER T. DAVIS, Professor Emeritus, San Francisco Seminary

"Original and illuminating. Prophetic and liberating!"
ROBERT INCHAUSTI, author of Thomas Merton′s American Prophecy, Subversive Orthodoxy, and The Ignorant Perfection of Ordinary People

"Shines like the North Star in the night sky: a joy to read, and a compass to hold close as we face the unknown and unknowable environmental, political, relational, and spiritual challenges that lie out ahead."
CORMAC RUSSELL, author of Asset–Based Community Development; Managing Director of Nurture Development; faculty member of ABCD Institute, and lead steward for ABCD in Europe

Signs of the Times xiii

Introduction: C ontext Is Decisive xvii

The Landscape of the Market World xx

Enclosure xxi

Covenantal Versus Contractual Order xxi

The Neighborly Covenant xxii

Chapter 1 The Free Market Consumer Ideology 1

Scarcity 2

Certainty and Perfection 3

Privatization 3

The Institutional Assumptions 4

Better Management/Technology Is the Fix 4

Interpersonal Is a Problem 5

Competition Trumps Trust 5

Toward a Neighborly Culture 6

A Culture Based on Covenant 6

Chapter 2 Neighborly Beliefs 9

Abundance 9

Mystery 10

Mystery at Work 11

A Place for God 13

Holiness 15

Wilderness 15

Fallibility 16

Failing to Be God 18

Grief 19

The Common Good 20

Chapter 3 Enough Is Enough: Limits of the Market Ideology 21

The Consumer Market Disciplines 22

Surplus 22

Predictability and Control 24

Speed and Convenience 26

The Sale of Convenience 26

Convenience Displaces Capacity 27

Digital Solutions 28

The Meaning of Money 29

Money and the Machine 30

Wishing for Safety, Believing in Growth 31

Competition and Class 32

Class by Design 33

Class Warfare and the Distribution of Wealth 34

The Myth of Individualism 36

Chapter 4 Tentacles of Empire 37

The Corporatization of Schools 38

No View from the Top 38

End of Aliveness 39

Mobility and Isolation 40

Un–Productive Wealth 41

Violence 42

Illusion of Reform 43

Chapter 5 The Common Good Is the New Frontier 45

The Neighborly Covenant 46

The Commons 48

An Alternative Social Order 49

Resisting the Empire 50

Off–Market Possibilities 51

The Neighborly Way 53

The Alternative to Restless Productivity 55

The Shadow Side of Community 58

Chapter 6 The Disciplines of Neighborliness 61

Time 63

A Time for All Things 63

Time Is the Devil 63

Standing in Line 65

Kairos 65

Food 66

Food and Sacred Re–Performance 67

The Local Food Movement 69

Food and Culture 69

Silence 71

Listening 72

Quakers and Time and Listening 72

Sacraments of Silence 73

Covenant: A Vow of Freedom and Faithfulness 74

Covenant and Retributive Justice 75

Abundance and the Right Use of Money 75

Money and Our Affection for Place 77

A Liturgy for the Common Good 77

Prophetic Possibilities 78

Story as Liturgy and Re–Performance 79

The Re–Performing Power of Liturgy 79

Postscript: Beyond Money and Consumption 81

Timing Is Everything 82

Signs of Change 83

Commentaries 85

References and Further Reading 97

Acknowledgments 103

About the Authors 105

Index 111