The Good Life: Genuine Christianity for the Middle Class
by David Matzko McCarthy. Wipf & Stock Publishers (December 2006).
Politicians target the “middle-class” for their votes. Businesses and entrepreneurs see the “middle-class” as a market niche. The vase majority of churches throughout the U.S. seem to appeal mainly to those in the middle-class component of the population. Some critics of middle class Christians have argued that they essentially prefer the status quo (like their unchurched and non-christian neighbors) and do not have, as a social group, the capacity to make significant contributions, and as a result, some could add meaningful contributions to the mission of the church. The Good Life will move middle-class Christian readers beyond their attachment to the market-share of business and past their complicit relationship to the consumerism mentality within American culture. David McCarthy seeks to help the middle-class to be more than a target of market-economics and political rhetoric. He applies biblical principles to help those in this particular class of people to respond to Jesus’ mandate to seek first the kingdom of God. McCarthy argues that middle-class Christians have a misguided attachment to the world. He maintains the Christian life should require less “stuff.” This book offers guidance to the middle-class Christian community whose relationships to people, family, home, neighborhoods, work, and even to the earth, are determined more by the market economy than by Christian principles. As American Christians it is difficult to not be caught up in American’s cultural, political, and economic benefits. Harder still, to not be defined by them or to seek meaning through them. The Good Life will help the reader to live beyond all this and discover ways to “seek the Kingdom of God.” I recommend that middle-class churches and their leadership ought to consider McCarthy’s book as a guide for mission development, even a framework for a Sunday morning sermon series. Church small groups would benefit from reading it together.
Check out my Habits essay, The middling of the Christian faith