Our "Downfall"

You may have seen the show, or at least the previews, but there is a new game show for the summer called "Downfall." The basic premise of the show is simple. The contestant answers questions in order to win cash and prizes, which are placed on a conveyor belt on top of a 100 story building. When the questions start, so does the conveyor belt. If the contestant fails to answer the questions quickly enough, the prizes and eventually the cash fall over the edge of the building and crash on the pavement below.

I watched for about 10 minutes before I became so disgusted I had to change the channel.

The way the game was set up, it is essentially impossible to answer the questions fast enough to prevent prizes from plummeting. Which means that in every round, perfectly good items are demolished, all for the sake of a little "excitement." So while people on the other side of town, not to mention much poorer countries in the world, lack basic necessities -- we are throwing things off the top of buildings for the sake of game show novelty.

This is hardly the only example of consumerism and self absorption run rampant in our culture, but it strikes me as a particularly flagrant one. For what right do we have to throw our resources after things we intend to throw off a building when there are so many legitimate needs all around us? I can't help but think that mere blocks away from the patch concrete recently covered in tiny fragments of a baby grand piano lives a family who would have food on their table for weeks if they were given the money paid for that piano instead.

This post is a bit more condemnatory than usual, but I think the example of our culture necessitates that as Christians we ask ourselves: Who benefits from our use of resources? Are others served? Is God glorified? Or are our resources directed only toward ourselves?