Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

by A.J. Swoboda

As Judith Shulevitz prophetically writes, “Americans, once the most Sabbatarian people in the earth, are now the most ambivalent on the subject.”24 As a nation, we have replaced Good Friday with Black Friday, replaced Sabbath with consumerism. We are a people defined no longer by the grace of Christ but by the consumeristic ways of the world. Cultural critic Daniel Harris has gone so far as to argue that as Christian faith has been displaced, consumerism has taken its place as the one thing that draws us all together: “In a fragmented society in which major institutions like the church and the community no longer play the same role in bringing people together, owning identity possessions becomes one of their chief ways in which we experience community, overcoming our isolation through shared patterns of consumption.”25 Eventually, this kind of society defined by consumerism creates a whole new caste system. Those without smartphones, computers, wireless, the latest technology, a keen fashion sense, or cultural nuance are the lepers of this consumer society.