My friend Ashish came from Northern India to visit me in Chicago. We were eating at Gino's Pizzeria one day and ran into a youth pastor I know, along with his youth group. Just returned from Central America, they were debriefing. "So what did you learn from your trip?" Ashish asked. Student after student obsessed about the poverty of "those poor people." After they left, Ashish said, "Why do they ...

Editor's Note: This is a great scene that shows the mindset of someone consumed by materialism. A word of caution is in order, however: Toward the end of this clip, the last 5-8 seconds or so can be interpreted as being sexual in nature. Though the general ratings system does not list the scene as sexual in nature, we were concerned enough to give you ample warning should you use this scene. You will ...

In suburban America, the powers of consumerism, materialism, and individualism have become so pervasive that we scarcely recognize them anymore. Consumerism is the cultural force that encourages creation of identity based on the consumption of goods and services—a defining characteristic of suburban life.

Consumerism is directly related to materialism: consumerism encourages suburban teenagers ...

How Americans manage stress:

• Listen to music: 52 percent
• Exercise or walk: 47 percent
• Read: 44 percent
• Spend time with friends or family: 41 percent
• Watch TV or movies two or more hours a day: 41 percent
• Nap: 38 percent
• Play video games or surf the Internet: 37 percent
• Pray: 37 percent
• Eat: 34 percent
• Hobby: 30 percent
• Church or religious services: 21 percent
• Drink alcohol: 18 percent
• Shop: 18 percent
• Smoke: 16 percent

Affluenza is the popular, hour-long PBS documentary about consumerism and its harmful effects on the family, the community, and the environment. In this particular scene, the narrator of the documentary is visiting Virginia's Potomac Mills Mall, one of the largest shopping centers in the U.S. As the narrator walks through the mall, he says, "Potomac Mills attracts more visitors than any other site ...

I had accepted the call as senior pastor of a large congregation that had recently erected a huge, state-of-the-art building resulting in major debt. Feeling the pressures of my new responsibility—and with a strong desire to impress my parishioners—I hit the ground running. I was in the office early every day, and almost every evening I was out shepherding the flock or reaching out to ...

Affluenza is the popular, hour-long PBS documentary about consumerism and its harmful effects on the family, the community, and the environment.

The clip begins with a look at car commercials from the 1950s. The narrator says, "Are you old enough to remember the '50's—that golden age of prosperity following the Second World War?" Scenes of a prosperous family in the 1950s are shown as the narrator ...

More people remember the ingredients on America's favorite burger than remember the ingredients in America's favorite book, according to the latest study.

In anticipation of the new animated movie release of The Ten Commandments, Kelton Research conducted a poll of 1,000 people to determine basic knowledge of the Ten Commandments. Eighty percent of those polled knew that a Big Mac had two all-beef ...

Rest and relaxation doesn't seem to come as easily or naturally to Americans as it does to those in other nations. According to the 2006 World Almanac and Book of Facts:

• a worker in Italy averages 42 vacation days per year.

• a worker in France: 37 days

• a worker in Germany: 35 days

• a worker in Brazil: 34 days

• a worker in the United Kingdom: 28 days

• a worker in ...

Camp Quest West, just north of Sacramento, California, is no church camp. Designed for children of agnostics, atheists, freethinkers, and humanists, the mission of the camp is to "promote respect for others with different viewpoints, values, and beliefs." It goes one step further to say, "we deplore efforts … to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms and to look outside nature for ...