HOW MUCH DOES HAPPINESS COST?

Can money buy happiness? We naturally recoil at the suggestion but a very large survey (450,000 people) conducted a few years back concluded that, up to a certain point, it does. That point, according to the survey report was $75,000 a year.

Princeton researchers Kahneman and Deaton analyzed data collected in 2008 and 2009 for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. They found that: “the effects of income on the emotional dimension of well-being satiate fully at an annual income of ∼$75,000.”

In other words, below that figure, people tended to experience emotional stress, anxiety and anger. Above the $75,000, the emotional factors levelled out.

Bruce Kasanoff, a ghostwriter for business and social innovators, comments: ” This makes intuitive sense; if you can't afford a decent place to live or enough food to feed your family, more money substantively improves your situation. But few would agree with the statement that the happiest moments of their life was when they had the most money.”

My own experience certainly backs this up. My wife and I have never been rich but there was a moment in time when our level of income increased to a comfortable level. (Nowhere near $75,000, I hasten to add!) The bills were all paid, there was a little bit of money in the bank, and we could enjoy a few little luxuries here and there,

The culture we live in pushes or defines our expectations of life. Some people expect to participate in  a culture that necessitates expensive club memberships, hobbies and travel. I believe that the Christian culture encourages modest living, offset by the knowledge that there is something infinitely better waiting for us in eternity.

When Christians, in community, outwork a culture of moderation and frugality, they can experience a contentment that significantly lowers the financial cost of happiness.

WHERE IS CULTURE HEADED?

In recent weeks, in this blog, I have discussed the cultural confusion that seriously began infecting Western society in the 1960s and the cultural confusion that we see now. No longer is there a deeply shared worldview or faith. Australia is multi-cultural. But where are we headed? What sort of cultural outlook do we have as a nation?

Let me suggest that a cultural vacuum cannot exist for long. Something will inevitably arise to fill the void. And, at the moment, the leading contender for this role, unfortunately, is Islam.

Many Australians are genuinely shocked that Islam continues to make inroads into Western society, despite the bad worldwide press of Islam-ists who carry out obscene acts of violence and terror. Every week we see reports on the latest atrocities of Boko Haram, or some other radical Islamic group. Today, there are reports of a Christian woman in Sudan, Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, who has been sentenced to death by hanging for the “crime” of “apostasy”, ie, leaving her father’s Muslim religion.

So how come more and more Western nations are bending over backwards to accommodate Islam? The answer has to do with culture.

You see, Islam self-identifies as more than just a religion. Islam has a strongly defined culture. Some Muslims are happy to live on the very edge of that culture but Muslims who take the Koran more seriously naturally want to centre their whole lives in Islamic culture. Islam is making inroads because culture, like nature in the proverb, abhors a vacuum.

Butter cannot stop a hot knife from penetrating and neither can a disjointed, anything goes “multi-culture” resist the penetration of a strong, clearly defined ideology that keeps pushing. Yes, I know there are divisions within Islam. And yes I know that not all Muslims want to live under Sharia law. But the ideal of multiculturalism, that it can safely and helpfully accommodate every possible culture, was flawed from the beginning. And now it is facing its most severe test.

Christianity should be the culture rushing to fill the void in Western culture. It has a very defensible worldview (ultimate truth, really) and a Christian culture based on love and compassion can do no harm where it is fully adopted. But, alas, Christianity in Australia is still not walking in the unity that God requires.

Multiculturalism is being tested but so also is Christianity. These are critical times and the cultural outlook of nations like Australia in twenty or thirty years will depend on who stands up strongly to shine a light through this present cultural darkness.

CULTURAL CONFUSION NOW

Last week, I quoted extensively from a biography about J.R.R. Tolkien which, I believe, accurately described the cultural confusion of the 1960s. ‘The Lord of the Rings’ became incredibly popular in an era when people, especially young people, were abandoning the moral worldview of previous generations.

Rightly discerning the times in which we live is not as easy as it might appear. Who really knows how this decade will be viewed in another forty to firty years? But it seems to me that the phrase “cultural confusion” pretty neatly sums up what is happening now.

No longer do we see in Western society an undergirding faith in the Christian God (who, by the way, is still the only TRUE God!) What we see is a religious supermarket where each individual feels free to choose any faith that takes their fancy. Or no faith, if that’s what they prefer. Or maybe a syncretistic combination – a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

But worldview, including belief in God, gods or no gods, profoundly influences how we live our lives. So does our concept of what happens at death. We fill our days (and minds) with social networking, celebrity gossip, sports, quiz shows and countless forms of entertainment but it’s all superficial stuff. It’s all an escape from the realities of life. More and more people, perhaps in an attempt to break the obsession with mindless trivia, find meaning in compassionate struggles for justice in various places around the world. But the bedrock of life, which must be some kind of faith, is still missing.

Australian society is not likely to settle on an agreed faith any time soon. But the Christian Church has all the ingredients, if we will only realize it, for a culture that is neither confused nor fragmented. More than ever, the world needs the Church to demonstrate a lifestyle where moral standards are inseperably linked to a credible worldview.

And it’s not just a theoretical issue. Jesus really is alive. God really is Creator of the Universe. The Holy Spirit still brings truth. The world needs a dynamic, Spirit-filled Church to live a holistic culture that is based on solid truth.

THE GREAT 1960’s CULTURAL CONFUSION

I’ve been reading an interesting biography about J.R.R. Tolkien and one of the chapters opens with what I considered a brilliant explanation about why The Lord of the Rings was such a success, especially in America.

So here’s an extended quote from pages 133-134 of “J.R.R. Tolkien, Architect of Middle Earth” by Daniel Grotta, originally published in 1976.

“The Lord of the Rings burst on the campuses of American colleges and universities like a rainstorm over a parched desert. Since the early ‘60s, when the American dream had begun to turn into a nonstop nightmare of presidential assassination, dirty wars in Southeast Asia, black power tirades and white backlashes, urban riots and campus disorders, many younger people began to feel dissatisfaction with and alienation from the mainstream of contemporary life. The vision of perfection that had enchanted a post-war generation – shopping centres, suburban split-levels, two-car garages, and color television sets – failed to satisfy their children; in fact, almost everything about middle-class America became anathema to rebellious youth. At first, the great social issues of the decade attracted their allegiance, spearheaded by an almost fanatical idolization of a youthful, dynamic president. The New Frontier meant the Peace Corps, VISTA, civil rights, the war on poverty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and a man on the moon by the end of the decade. But after John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas came the disenchantment of war, civil strife, social upheaval, government wrongdoing, and increasing abuse of the environment. The disenchantment became alienation, the alienation produced a polarity, and one extreme of that polarity became manifest in the hippie movement, drug abuse and student protest.

Large numbers of intelligent, educated young Americans found no pleasure in the present, no solace in the past, and little hope for the future. “Be here now” and “do your own thing” reflected the agonizing, hedonistic frenzy of a confused culture. A benign cynicism towards existing institutions inspired a search for new gods: the occult, mysticism, psychedelics, Eastern philosophy, ecology, and back-to-the-land movements. Some found rootless answers and temporary solutions, only to move on in deep dissatisfaction to a new guru, a different movement, another relationship.

In ancient cultures mythology provided continuity from past to present by creating acceptable points of reference, reassurance that acts of hope and heroism were possible. In the West, mythology was in large part superseded by organized religion. Religion provided gods, heroes, and hope for centuries until Darwin, Marx, Freud, and the rise of modern industrial society fatally undercut its foundation. Religion was replaced by nationalism, communism, materialism, and other temporary surrogates. But what was needed were new myths, believable gods, acceptable roots in the past.

Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as an attempt to modernize the old myths and make them credible. Apparently he succeeded beyond his own expectations, because his work was so well written and his mythology so well constructed – but perhaps equally because the modern need for a new mythology was so great.”

Now, as a Christian, I cannot agree with all Daniel Grotta’s conclusions – I definitely don’t think the world needed new ‘gods’. But there are themes in this that, God willing, I will explore in this blog over the next few weeks.