CYBERCOLUMN: Shopping addiction_younger_90803

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Posted 9/5/03

CYBERCOLUMN:
Shopping addiction

By Brett Younger

The New York Times reported that, according to her lawyer, Elizabeth Randolph Roach is a shopping addict who was driven to steal a quarter of a million dollars from her employer by padding her expense accounts. (Why didn’t Kenneth Lay think of this excuse?)

Her addiction also compelled her to buy a buckle worth $7,000 at Neiman Marcus (The reporter didn’t say if it was marked down). It also compelled her to buy 70 pairs of shoes at one time. (Why didn’t the clerk, like a good bartender, cut her off after 50 pairs?) And she became so engrossed shopping in London that she ran up a tab for $30,000 and missed her flight home. (She should have bought a plane).

Brett Younger

Judge Matthew Kennedy of Federal District Court in Chicago spared Roach from jail by reducing what could have been 18 months in prison because, he said, she has a “shopping addiction.” Instead, he sentenced her to:

Five years of probation.

Six months of home confinement on weekends (during all the best sales).

Six weeks in a Salvation Army work-release center (where she’ll be great in the Thrift Store).

Pay a fin of $3,000 (less than half a buckle’s worth).

The United States attorney’s office believes this to be the first case in which a federal judge reduced a crime sentence because of a shopping addiction.

A psychiatrist who examined Roach said: “A lot of people use shopping to make themselves feel better. They feel alive. They feel engaged. It can be very stimulating.” Those involved in the case believe the decision might encourage more defendants to argue that their shopping addictions are responsible for their criminal behavior.

This story is too sad to be funny. We live in a country where shopping is recognized as an addiction in a world where people starve. I wish Judge Kennedy had been more creative. He should have sentenced Ms. Roach to:

Five years in Somalia, Rwanda or any other country with a disproportionate number of the 24,000 who die each day from hunger and hunger-related diseases. Maybe “shopping” won’t seem like such a pick-me-up after she’s sat with mothers whose children are starving.

Six months of reading the Bible. God commands us to feed the hungry countless times. According to Matthew, Jesus thinks that those who own 70 pairs of shoes and do nothing for the hungry “will go away into eternal punishment.” Maybe eternal punishment will seem like more of a deterrent to Roach than probation.

Six weeks of praying that God will use her to feed God’s children. Roach cannot solve the problem of world hunger, but she can make a difference. God always answers the prayer, “Open my eyes.” She can become one of the saints who see a better way.

A fine of whatever she ends up honestly thinking is right. She could give the money to Bread for the World or another organization working to end hunger. Like most of us, she might end up admitting that she is not nearly as “addicted” to feeding the hungry as God calls us to be. She might learn that a lot of people have discovered that helping the hungry “makes them feel better. They feel alive. They feel engaged. It can be very stimulating.”

Brett Younger is pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.


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