How Much Is Enough?: Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture

How Much Is Enough?: Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture

by Arthur Simon
How Much Is Enough?: Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture

How Much Is Enough?: Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture

by Arthur Simon

eBook

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Overview

Why, in the face of unprecedented affluence, do so many feel discontented? Because possessions may capture the heart, but they cannot nourish the soul. How Much Is Enough? maintains that only the source of joy can give us joy. It points the way to release from captivity to things and to the joy of following Christ.

"This is one of the easiest books you will ever read-and one of the most difficult. Though there is not a word here that will be unintelligible to anyone, the challenge that Art Simon presents to every reader will leave you gasping for breath at times and at other times may prompt you to hurl the book across the room. Within the context of the United States of America at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this book may even strike some as a kind of obscenity-how dare he speak to us this way? It is, in fact, a sign of contradiction for our age, the very thing we don't want to know about, the only way that can bring us peace."
Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gifts of the Jews, and Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus

"Direct, concrete, deeply rooted, and compelling."
Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary

"Art Simon deepens our trust in God's bountiful grace and thereby empowers us to apportion our wealth more openhandedly. Share this book with everyone you know-the world can't wait for justice!"
Marva J. Dawn, author of Unfettered Hope: A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society

"Art Simon invites us to a new way of living that, freed from the shackles of consumption, is the way of gratitude and generosity. And he leaves it up to each of us to think through, and pray through, exactly what that means for us."
Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief, First Things

"Superb. The distilled wisdom of a lifetime of faithful obedience and creative leadership. If American Christians would truly read and understand this powerfully simple book, the result would be a cascading abundance of joy and justice."
Ronald J. Sider, president, Evangelicals for Social Action

Arthur Simon is founder and president emeritus of Bread for the World and author of The Politics of World Hunger, Bread for the World, and Grace at the Table: Ending Hunger in God's World.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781441210012
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Publication date: 02/01/2003
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 192
File size: 601 KB

About the Author

Arthur Simon is the founder and president emeritus of Bread for the World, a nonpartisan citizens' hunger lobby. His books include Bread for the World, a national Religious Book Award winner; The Politics of World Hunger, coauthored with his brother, former Illinois senator Paul Simon; and most recently Grace at the Table: Ending Hunger in God's World. Simon lives in Colmar Manor, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments11
A Preliminary Word13
1.That Seductive Urge15
2.Fat Wallets, Empty Lives19
Two Paths
The Snare of Wealth
Hunger and Poverty
Control of the Heart
3.Hope and Purpose31
A New Identity
Earthly Pilgrims
Whole-Life Christians
Compassion for Others
Spiritual Hunger and Poverty
Returning Home
4.Rushing to Nowhere49
Putting Life in Focus
Our Children
Sabbath Wisdom
5.The Poverty of Riches61
Having or Being?
Mammon as Master
Mammon as Servant
Servant Churches
The Riches of Gratitude
6.The Sorrow of Pleasure77
Pleasure as Master
Points of Pleasure
Pleasure as Gift
Joy
7.The Weakness of Power89
The Corruption of Power
The Pretense of Weakness
Power Doing Good
8.Faces of Affluence101
Consumerism
Capitalism
The Moral Ambiguity of Affluence
Those Left Behind
9.How Much Is Enough?111
Staying behind the Joneses
No Easy Answers
The Bible on Possessions
Our Calling
The Grace of Giving
10.Living Simply So That Others May Simply Live129
Choices Have Consequences
Why Me, Lord?
A Couple of Complications
Linking Personal Efforts to Public Policy
11.Love and Justice141
Justice as a Form of Love
More Than Private Piety
Making a Difference
12.Saying "Yes" to Life155
God's "Yes" to Us
The Life of Compassion
13.Filling the Heart with Something Better than Cash163
Prayer and Solitude
Praise and Thanksgiving
A Community of Faith
Celebrating Grace
14.The Meek Inherit the Earth175
Who Are the Meek?
Inherit the Kingdom
Postscript: A Few Suggestions183
Notes187
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