Is Wartime Living the Same as Minimalism?
00:00:00.000 | I've been waiting to hear you address this question for a long time, Pastor John.
00:00:07.400 | I'm glad we've gotten around to it this summer.
00:00:09.980 | It's a question that comes in from a listener named Kelsey.
00:00:12.440 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:13.800 | What are the differences and possible similarities between wartime living and what has recently
00:00:19.520 | been called minimalism?
00:00:22.200 | Is wartime living minimalism itself?
00:00:25.280 | Or perhaps minimalism, while broadly popular today, is a passing fad for the elite.
00:00:31.060 | In your mind, what distinguishes wartime living from minimalism?"
00:00:37.000 | The little bit that I'm aware of and the little bit that I understand this newer expression
00:00:45.040 | called minimalism, it seems to me to be a loose trend in our culture to own fewer things
00:00:54.440 | and strip down the complexities of life to the basics, largely driven by a desire for
00:01:01.280 | greater self-realization, greater happiness.
00:01:06.080 | The New York Times describes one advocate like this.
00:01:10.640 | He gave up his permanent home, life goals, and negative emotions.
00:01:16.280 | He threw away his college diploma, which had been gathering dust in storage.
00:01:21.680 | Quote, "I don't hold on to all the things society tells me to hold on to."
00:01:27.340 | He now carries nothing but a bag of clothes and a backpack containing a computer, an iPad,
00:01:32.600 | and a smartphone.
00:01:33.600 | "I have zero other possessions," he writes, and thanks to this, he has found peace as
00:01:40.160 | a wandering techno-ascetic Silicon Valley's version of Zen monkhood.
00:01:47.400 | It goes on like this, "From tiny houses to micro apartments to monochromatic clothing
00:01:54.040 | to interior decorating trends, picture white walls interrupted only by succulents, less
00:02:02.360 | now goes further than ever.
00:02:04.720 | It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the minimalism glut," it's kind of a funny phrase, "as
00:02:11.960 | the word can be applied to just about anything.
00:02:15.280 | The nearly four million images tag minimalism on Instagram include white sneakers, clouds,
00:02:23.560 | the works of Mondrain, neon signs, crumbling brick walls, and grassy fields.
00:02:29.200 | So long as it's stylish, austere, it seems it's minimalist.
00:02:33.980 | Minimalism is now conflated with self-optimization."
00:02:37.040 | So that's a glimpse from the New York Times about what we're talking about.
00:02:42.840 | So it appears that it's no single trend or movement, but a kind of a loose set of tendencies
00:02:50.080 | in our culture to react against the complexities and pressures of ownership and maintaining
00:02:56.680 | lots of stuff in the modern world that sap our strength, make us feel like slaves to
00:03:02.140 | our possessions rather than masters of our fate.
00:03:06.760 | And of course, at 71 years old, this is not the least bit new to me.
00:03:13.840 | In the '70s, I can remember so clearly because I was part of it, there was a great outburst
00:03:18.940 | of simple living literature just being rolling off the press for same kinds of arguments,
00:03:24.680 | same kinds of things with not as much technology to deal with.
00:03:29.000 | And I suspect this will last for a while and then fade until another form of the same reaction
00:03:35.060 | and tendency breaks out.
00:03:37.480 | So Kelsey's question, I think, is how does this recent expression differ from wartime
00:03:44.160 | lifestyle?
00:03:45.160 | And I've been talking about wartime lifestyles for about 30 years.
00:03:49.680 | I think first came out of my preaching in the mid '80s or so, and it had a very definite
00:03:54.580 | origin, which I'll mention in a minute.
00:03:57.240 | So let me say six things about what I mean by wartime lifestyle.
00:04:05.700 | And I think with every one of these six, it will be manifestly clear how, in terms of
00:04:14.060 | worldview, at least, it differs from the current minimalist fad.
00:04:19.700 | First, a wartime lifestyle as I mean it is rooted in a view of this world as created
00:04:28.860 | by God and intended by Him to be subdued, as Genesis 1 says, "For the glory of God
00:04:36.420 | and good of mankind," and to be enjoyed when received with thanksgiving to God and sanctified
00:04:46.460 | by the Word of God in prayer, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, 5.
00:04:51.560 | So any kind of austerity pursued in a wartime lifestyle is not based on any intrinsic evil
00:05:00.600 | in the created world.
00:05:02.100 | That's number one.
00:05:03.260 | Number two, a wartime lifestyle is rooted in the biblical conviction that since the
00:05:11.060 | fall of the world into sin and into futility and corruption, a war has been going on of
00:05:21.500 | the most serious kind between God and Satan, between God's purposes of redemption and
00:05:28.060 | Satan's purposes of destruction.
00:05:31.140 | So we read, Ephesians 6, "Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand
00:05:36.860 | against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against
00:05:41.900 | rulers, against authorities, against cosmic powers over spiritual darkness, against spiritual
00:05:48.700 | forces of evil in the heavenly places."
00:05:52.040 | So take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and
00:05:58.120 | having done all to stand firm.
00:06:00.760 | So one of the aims of wartime teaching, as I have tried to represent it, is to wake up
00:06:09.520 | the church in many places, especially in the West, that has simply settled in to a peacetime
00:06:18.260 | mentality with no sense of urgency of the war that we are really in.
00:06:24.520 | I mean, if you took the temperature, the military warfare temperature of the average Western
00:06:31.600 | Christian, I doubt that it would sound too urgent.
00:06:37.520 | Number three, third, since we are fallen now and sinful in our desires, the world, the
00:06:46.440 | God-created world around us with all of its cares and pleasures is not only a created
00:06:54.400 | good to be subdued and enjoyed, it is a danger to be guarded against.
00:07:02.080 | So Jesus in the parable of the soils tries to explain why so many people don't mature
00:07:09.360 | in hearing the Word of God, and soil number three goes like this, "As for what fell among
00:07:15.080 | thorns, they are those who hear the Word, but as they go on their way, they are choked
00:07:24.040 | by the cares and riches and pleasures of life."
00:07:30.240 | He's not just talking about sinful ones.
00:07:33.560 | And their fruit does not mature.
00:07:37.080 | In other words, the ordinary riches that John Piper has all around me, the ordinary pleasures
00:07:44.560 | of life are not simply good.
00:07:49.600 | They are also mortally dangerous to the soul.
00:07:52.760 | The wartime lifestyle puts us on red alert not to be naive that God's good creation is
00:08:03.080 | now only good.
00:08:06.680 | Because of our sin and because of Satan, anything good can destroy us.
00:08:11.880 | A wartime footing is essential, lest the enemy of our souls get the upper hand.
00:08:19.960 | Number four, therefore, Jesus calls us to a real self-denial in following Him.
00:08:27.320 | "Whoever would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me."
00:08:33.440 | In other words, genuine discipleship in this kind of embattled world necessarily includes
00:08:41.640 | self-denial.
00:08:44.160 | We have died with Christ.
00:08:45.480 | Our lives are hidden with Him in God.
00:08:47.560 | We are now exiles and sojourners on the earth.
00:08:50.600 | Our true wealth is in heaven.
00:08:52.800 | Our aim here is to glorify Christ by showing Him to be supremely valuable, not our possessions.
00:09:00.640 | And all of that is going to imply a certain kind and level of self-denial.
00:09:07.720 | Number five, and this is where the truth of wartime living really took root and came from
00:09:13.240 | in my teaching 30 years ago, the aim of wartime living is not that we go without, but that
00:09:26.640 | we are able to accomplish more things by a reallocation of resources from self-gratification
00:09:36.680 | to missionary penetration.
00:09:38.520 | That's where it began.
00:09:39.520 | It began with Ralph Winter.
00:09:40.520 | Ralph Winter, bless his heart, one of my favorite missionary heroes, who's now with the Lord,
00:09:46.480 | a great statesman in his day, huge influence on me, pointed out that in the Second World
00:09:52.080 | War, the luxury liner, ocean liner, Queen Mary, was transformed into a troop transport.
00:10:02.240 | This is wartime use of a luxury liner, and he described in detail the dramatic changes
00:10:09.880 | for how many people slept in a room, like 12 instead of three, and the kind of utensils
00:10:15.840 | that were used in them in the now-called mess hall instead of the beautiful dining room,
00:10:21.240 | and on and on, creating a sense for us that during World War II, there were changes.
00:10:28.040 | Life didn't just go on as usual.
00:10:32.120 | And he stressed that God's people in a prosperous land like America simply cannot live as though
00:10:41.000 | there were not thousands of unreached people groups remaining to be reached who were under
00:10:48.720 | enemy control.
00:10:51.000 | And we have, from our commander-in-chief, a commission to go, and we have the most powerful
00:10:58.360 | liberating bomb in the world called the gospel, and therefore to just carry on our lives in
00:11:07.160 | this country as though it were a peacetime shows how out of touch we are with biblical
00:11:14.080 | reality.
00:11:15.960 | And the last thing, number six, the New Testament makes abundantly clear that in fact, in all
00:11:23.800 | our recognition of satanic reality and in all of our awareness of the danger of riches
00:11:31.120 | in this world and in all of our embrace of self-denial and in all of our pursuit of missions
00:11:38.680 | and the reallocation of our resources, we find, in fact, the greatest joy, both in this
00:11:48.600 | world and in the world to come, because Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to
00:11:56.000 | receive."
00:11:57.760 | More joyful to advance the cause of Christ than accumulate wealth and comforts.
00:12:05.200 | When God calls us to the Calvary road, this is why Desiring God exists to make this point.
00:12:11.560 | When God calls us to the Calvary road of cross-bearing and ministry, he calls us on to the road of
00:12:21.840 | maximum joy, even if it costs us our lives, and Jesus made that clear in Matthew 13, 44,
00:12:30.920 | with that little favorite parable that we love.
00:12:34.120 | The kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up,
00:12:39.520 | and then in his joy, he goes and sells everything that he has.
00:12:44.560 | And I'm sitting here waving my arms because this is just so much what I want.
00:12:52.680 | I want to be one who knows how much I need to sell, how much I need to give away, not
00:12:58.600 | because I'm going to be unhappy, but because this is the path to true joy.
00:13:06.200 | In his joy, in his joy, he embraces the lifestyle that will glorify God, rescue people from
00:13:13.080 | suffering, especially eternal suffering.
00:13:16.680 | So that's the goal of wartime living, glory of God, the good of other people, and our
00:13:23.960 | joy.
00:13:24.960 | Amen.
00:13:25.960 | That is so good and relevant.
00:13:26.960 | Thanks for bringing all of this into a contemporary discussion on minimalism, Pastor John and
00:13:32.600 | Kelsey.
00:13:33.600 | That is a great question.
00:13:34.600 | Thank you for prompting this conversation here on the podcast.
00:13:38.120 | Well, you can subscribe to our audio feeds and you can search our episode archive, even
00:13:41.920 | reach us by email with a question you may have about trends you see in culture.
00:13:46.080 | Do all of that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:13:52.120 | Well in the life of this podcast, we have talked about the TV show Game of Thrones.
00:13:56.720 | We've talked about nudity in television and film.
00:13:59.560 | But next time we're going to field a question from a listener on the topic of television
00:14:02.580 | drama and humor, all the other shows that seem like innocent fun.
00:14:07.880 | For the Christian, what are the questions we should be asking before we binge a Netflix
00:14:12.640 | comedy?
00:14:13.920 | That is the question on the docket for Monday.
00:14:16.680 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:14:18.080 | Thanks for listening to the podcast.
00:14:19.720 | We'll see you on the other side of the weekend.
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