Materialism and Consumption

Abstract

This chapter studies how the circulation of gifts and money raises fraught questions about U.S. “materialism” and the unjust global distribution of “abundance.” It starts in the 1960s to 1980s, beginning with a shift in how U.S. Christians conceived of materialism. The chapter then explores three popular anti-materialist tactics related to choosing a child to sponsor, small and homespun gifts, and the rhetorical transfiguration of consumer objects into emotions like joy and love. It also draws on the author's contemporary fieldwork at Operation Christmas Child to consider the continued role of objects as points of contact in Christian globalism. Ultimately, U.S. Christians seek to overcome their anxieties about materialism by embracing materiality—the gifts, donations, and other objects of love that seem to provide the surest way to manifest and circulate Love across the world.