Thursday, September 6, 2001

American culture clings to superficiality
by Esther Anderson
Skiff Staff

Contemporary culture is plagued with the passion to possess. People believe that the good life is found in accumulation, that more is better, appearance is everything, and what you see is what you get.

The pace of the modern world accentuates our sense of being fractured. We feel strained, hurried and breathless.

The complexity of rushing to achieve threatens to overwhelm us.

We live in a culture where appearance is everything. It is just as good to look the part as it is to actually be the part. Even the church has caught onto this philosophy of appearance.

People have begun to believe that if they look like they are worshipping God, then it’s just as good as if they actually are. We have learned how to lift our hands and close our eyes, how to look to be part in church, but then we walk out of the building and are not changed.

Aimless tradition used to be what often structured my life. I grew up believing that a “good Christian” attended church and participated in church choir.

Though those things laid bare are wholesome, even commendable, they are not the backbone of the Christian faith. Alone, such roles do nothing but bind one into legalism and into thinking that such events change, even increase one’s standing with God.

Never before had I experienced such freedom from superficiality until I traveled miles away from home to Zambia.

Upon departure, I was warned about the striking cultural differences I would face. I was told that I would probably experience severe culture shock.

When I stepped onto African soil, however, the most beautiful experience of my life began.

Zambians are practical, hard-working people. Some walk almost 20 miles each Sunday to attend church, so they certainly don’t come for a show, to be awed by a fantastic preacher, or to mingle with their friends. They come to meet God.

Despite their extreme poverty and hunger, they seem to have caught onto the true meaning of life.

When they lifted their hands to worship God, it was the most powerful thing I have ever experienced. Nothing planned. Nothing intimidating. Just honest and real.

The Zambians know something that most of us in America don’t. We pray for them in their poverty, but perhaps they should pray for us in our prosperity.

We use prosperity as a measure of success and worth. “Successful” people are those who bring in a good income.

Have we in America become slaves of superficiality by diminishing the value of life to only the material?

The Zambians love more deeply than I have ever seen. They do not use one another for financial gain or secret ambition. They are genuine.

They didn’t label me as “white” or “American.” No, they looked “under my skin,” seeing me as someone to love.

In Africa I witnessed first hand what Isaiah meant when he wrote “In that day man will look to his Maker and his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars; the work of his hands, he will not respect what his fingers have made” (Isaiah 17:7-8).

Let us not become so consumed with our culture that we become blind to reality — the reality that people are so much more than what they appear to be.

People are longing to go deeper emotionally and spiritually; to find reality. God is calling all to a genuine worship of His name.

He doesn’t want a show of tangible possessions or rigid procedures.

Let us not become slaves to superficiality. There is more to life than what meets the eye.

Esther Anderson is a senior social work major from Atlanta.
She can be contacted at (e.l.anderson@student.tcu.edu).