This page provides a recent reflection on an aspect of faith and culture. Responding to current events, issues in the news and in politics we aim to provide some considered thoughts on how our faith impinges on the world around us and the reverse.

NEWS! www.thinkingfaith.org:the online journal of the British Jesuits, covering a broad spectrum of cultural issues from a catholic perspective.

December 2008

Faith and Culture: True Worth

Christmas gifts Recent surveys suggested that predicted Christmas spending 2008 was set to be approximately £400m less than 2007.

However, the average amount spent per adult on gifts, socialising, and food and drink, was still estimated as being £655, with the average amount spent on just gifts by an individual adult as being somewhere between £250 and £350.

The credit crunch will obviously affect varied demographic groups very differently, and there will be those who choose to pay it no heed and spend as normal, if not more. For those who want to engage with some of the underlying issues however, this could provide an opportunity for gaining invaluable cultural insight. John Drane* talks of ‘the way that material success has become a culturally-approved sign of worthwhile achievement.’ Could our spending and accumulating over Christmas and the January sales, in fact be an indicator of where our cultural sense of worth is?

In Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI talked about the ‘thirst for God which only the simple and poor can know’, echoing Jesus’ affirmation Image of Jesus of the blessedness of the poor. Archbishop Oscar Romero was convicted of the fruits of living simply, when he said: ‘Aspire not to have more, but to be more’. If we were to take these words seriously, we might begin to remember firstly, what really matters in life, and secondly that our true worth comes from him who has loved us, and given himself for us.

Find out more at www.livesimply.org.uk. Also see: www.caseresources.org.uk/culturetalk