Jan. 18, 2010 issue
Couple describe treating ‘affluenza’
By Mennonite Publishing NetworkPage:
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CALGARY, Alta. — While many North Americans worry about getting H1N1 influenza, few are concerned about catching a different kind of virus — affluenza.
Hugo and Doreen Neufeld
That upsets Hugo and Doreen Neufeld, authors of Affluenza Interrupted: Stories of Hope from the Suburbs (Millrise Publishing), a new book available through Mennonite Publishing Network.
“Everyone was talking about influenza, but we don’t hear much about affluenza,” Hugo Neufeld said.
The condition is described by John de Graaf and his co-authors in their 2001 book, Affluenza, as “a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.”
The Neufelds cite climate change, environmental destruction and the growing number of impoverished people around the world as symptoms of the illness.
“What is God trying to say to us about the affluent way of life that propels people to want to acquire more and more, while at the same time the planet and people in poverty around the world are suffering?” they ask.
Affluenza Interrupted is a follow-up to the Neufelds’ first book, The North End Lives (Herald Press), which describes the joys and challenges the couple faced while ministering to people living below the poverty line in Hamilton, Ont., from 1971 to 1989.
In their most recent book, they use stories and first-person accounts to reflect on the challenges of living as Christians in the suburbs.
“Poverty is a challenge for people in Canada’s inner cities, but affluence is a challenge in the suburbs,” Hugo Neufeld said.
For 18 years the couple co-directed and co-pastored Hamilton’s Welcome Inn Community Centre and Church, a Mennonite Church Eastern Canada-sponsored ministry in that city’s north end.
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