You’ve seen it happen. Maybe you’ve done it yourself. You’re in a restaurant and the waiter is doing a less than superb job. Perhaps it’s near the end of his six-hour shift, or he’s covering more than his share of tables. But whatever the case, you’re not getting the service you expected, and that’s just a tragedy.

“This guy’s getting a meager tip from me tonight,” you tell yourself. Perhaps you ask him, with bubbling frustration, “Can we get those refills about now?” You not only want him to step up the service; you want him to feel bad about it.

Now this is awfully presumptuous of me to place you in the shoes of a self-centered customer. I’ve been there myself, so if it’s helpful, just picture me as the penny-tipping schmuck who’s making a scene. If you’re a sincere Jesus follower—or a fair-minded unbeliever, for that matter—you know that the schmuck’s self-centered attitude here is morally wrong. Yet our consumer society seems tailor-made for this attitude, and some would even say it fosters and rewards it.

Is this really true? Does capitalism encourage this mentality of consumer entitlement, and thereby discourage human virtue? And is capitalism fundamentally dependent upon this consumer-entitlement mentality?

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Read the article “How Christianity Redeems Consumer Entitlement” on valuesandcapitalism.com.