Eden Without a Gardener

How Industrialism Erodes Sanctification

In a previous article, I discussed how pluralism erodes sanctification. The salient point was, “The sheer ubiquity of ultimate truth claims in our culture makes Christianity seem implausible by comparison.” The number of ultimate truth claims in circulation today, simply by existing alongside one another, works to undermine the perceived legitimacy of Christianity. This essay is a continuation of that thought.

I had a dental appointment this week. Since, I dread not having something to think about, I took a small book by David Lyon called Christians & Sociology to my appointment. The book was written in 1975. I wanted to see how thinkers from that era thought about the erosion of sanctification and identity within the family unit due to structural changes. I gave the 90-page book a quick skim, forming an initial impression. This quote popped off of a page,

The split between ‘home’ and ‘work’, for example, was first noticed soon after the emergence of the ‘factory system’. This was a division between the ‘family’ and the ‘economy’; or, put another way, the family became a predominantly consuming, rather than a producing, unit. Some have said that from then on, the family was increasingly stripped of its functions.

In Eden, humanity was not created to consume a finished world, but to tend and cultivate it—to participate in its ongoing life. Sanctification, too, was embedded in the rhythms of stewardship, relationship, presence, and patient labor. When the work of the hands was tied to the growth of the soul, formation was a natural consequence. But what happens when the garden is abandoned—when the work disappears and the earth lies fallow? And where has the gardener gone?

What caught my attention was how this notion collided with one of the topics I find most compelling: living faithfully in the world. One of the many problems we have when reading the Scriptures is hermeneutical. One hermeneutical issue concerns how we relate the past to the present—how we bridge the gap between ancient Israel and our contemporary cultural context. An Israelite family was agrarian and patriarchal. Those two concepts circumscribe the structure and identity of an ancient Israelite family.

An agrarian family was a producing family. Everyone contributed economically—children helped in the fields, and family labor was essential for survival. The home was both a place of residence and production. The father (or patriarch) held clear authority as the head of the economic unit. Roles were well-defined.

Identity and structure erode in a consuming unit. In a consuming unit, the family is primarily a consumer of goods and services. Income is earned outside the home, and families purchase what they once made (food, clothing, etc.). Authority becomes less centralized. As roles diversify (e.g., both parents working, children exposed to broader influences), traditional hierarchies erode. The shift from producers to consumers was not neutral. The family's internal economic interdependence diminishes, weakening traditional bonds and shared responsibilities.¹

From a hermeneutical perspective, if we focus solely on the benefits of being father-centric without considering how our cultural context necessarily reshapes family structure, we miss the forest for the trees—and we will never adequately address the problem we face. Our cultural context is not neutral. It often works stealthily in the background of everyday life, fraying, diminishing, and eroding both our communal life together and our lives individually—disrupting the very conditions in which sanctification once flourished.

This essay argues that the cultural shift from a producing to a consuming family model—and eventually to the atomistic family—has fractured the conditions in which sanctification naturally occurred, resulting in a disordered formation process shaped more by individualism and fragmentation than by covenantal structures and communal rhythms.

The Shift from Producers to Consumers Fragmented the Family Unit

Zimmerman identifies three forms the family can assume: trustee (maximum strength), domestic (moderate strength), and atomistic (maximum weakness).² In his framework, the trustee family—characterized by strong generational continuity and moral authority—is undermined by two main forces: the state and individualism.³ The state, according to Zimmerman, often seeks to weaken the trustee family because it competes with the state’s claim to authority and loyalty.⁴ At the same time, the rise of individualism erodes the collective identity and responsibility that once bound families together. While Zimmerman initially focuses on the direct role of state power in breaking down strong family structures, it is his later analysis of the effects of these changes that is most relevant for our discussion. It is here that the consequences of family fragmentation—on identity, formation, and sanctification—begin to emerge most clearly.

Zimmerman writes:

By 1900 the state had become the master of the family. The state recognizes the individual; it pulls him from family sovereignty whenever it deems this expedient. It is not a question of morality of the state. When the family rules the family, it does so for religious ends. When the state rules the family, for good or bad, it rules it for state ends. If it wants the individual freed from the family, as was the case in the nineteenth century in the Western world. it frees him and family demands must take second place. It is the same in the United States as in other Western powers, although here individualism, as opposed to the family and the state, has for the present gained sway.⁵

Zimmerman’s assessment exposes the power shift from familial and religious authority to state and individual autonomy—a shift that dismantles the environment in which spiritual formation once naturally occurred. The consuming family is Eden without a gardener: a place where fruit still grows for a time, but where the bonds of labor, presence, and stewardship have been severed. Over time, the garden turns wild, relationships thin, and sanctification—once embedded in the very soil of daily life—becomes harder to root.

Sanctification does not occur in a vacuum. It is nurtured—or hindered—by the institutions and relationships that shape our daily lives. As Peter Berger observed, institutions act as plausibility structures—social frameworks that either support or undermine belief.⁶ When I was a child, for example, many states prohibited stores from opening on Sundays. These "blue laws," backed by state authority, reinforced the plausibility of Christian practice at the cultural level, strengthening the family’s own rhythms of rest and worship.

Chief among the institutions nurturing sanctification is the family itself, which throughout much of human history provided a stable structure for spiritual and moral formation. Yet as Zimmerman describes, the family has undergone a profound transformation. The shift from a producing unit to a consuming one has culminated in what he calls the atomistic family—a family marked by individualism, weak relational bonds, and the erosion of shared responsibility. Instead of functioning as a cohesive unit of formation, the family has increasingly become a loose network of individuals pursuing personal fulfillment rather than shared purpose. This fragmentation does more than alter identity and belonging; it profoundly undermines the conditions in which sanctification—dying to self, growing in holiness, and bearing one another’s burdens—can naturally take root.

In what follows, I explore how this cultural shift disrupts the sanctification process and what must be recovered if we are to live faithfully in the world.

Ken Boa notes that our sanctification is not complete, as it is “both an event (we were sanctified when we gave ourselves to Christ [1 Cor 6:11]) and a process (we are being sanctified [Rom 12:2; Phil 2–3; 1 Jhn 2:28]).”⁷ Boa’s emphasis on the process of sanctification is important. He describes it as a lifelong process of becoming in character and actions the new creations we already are.”⁸ Therefore, anything–internal or external–that habitually or structurally gets in the way of that process makes it more difficult. Paul exhorts us to crucify the old man (Rom 6:6). The writer of Hebrews commands us to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us (Heb 12:1-3). If the goal of our sanctification is Christlikeness, then we must, at the very least, consider how the world functions to hinder the sanctification process.

The Consequences of the Atomistic Family on Sanctification

One consequence of the atomistic family is the loss of meaningful rhythms—shared time, rest, and relational presence—that once formed the backbone of spiritual growth in the home. In the absence of these rhythms, even Christians can come to believe that sanctification is found in doing more for God rather than becoming more like Him.

One of the most subtle yet significant consequences of the atomistic family is the erosion of shared rhythms—habits of time, presence, and rest—that once served as the natural context for spiritual formation. In earlier family structures, especially those grounded in production and interdependence, sanctification was embedded in the routines of daily life: shared meals, joint labor, Sabbath rest, and multigenerational presence. But in the atomized family, these rhythms are fractured. Family members become like ships passing in the night—each absorbed in individual pursuits, each shaped more by external demands than by shared formation. In this context, sanctification becomes not only harder—it becomes disoriented.

I experienced this tension firsthand when I was tasked to read John Mark Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. His critique of the modern life of busyness struck a nerve. I initially reacted with defensiveness, even anger. Why? Because I had come to equate relentless activity with significance. Like many shaped by atomized structures and performance-driven cultures, I had internalized the idea that my value came from what I produced—not from who I am in Christ or the kind of person I’m becoming. That lie doesn’t just affect individuals—it reshapes entire families and undermines the slow, relational process through which sanctification is meant to unfold.

I took his description of the hurried life personally. The more I read, the angrier I became. I felt he was piling on. After some thought, I realized his depiction made me angry because I thought that being busy, and making no time to be present, was the way that life went for people who desire to be successful, high-achievers, or accomplish anything important in the world. But over time, I realized my anger came from a deep-seated belief: that to matter, I had to produce; that presence was a luxury; and that success justified perpetual motion. In other words, I had internalized a distorted view of sanctification—one in which doing things for Christ had overtaken the slow, relational work of becoming like Christ.

I can only guess that it was the erroneous idea that my real value came from what I produced rather than who I am or the person that I am becoming. What I am suggesting is that I placed more value in my work and what it produced rather than on the person that I am to be. This is not just a personal struggle; it is a cultural formation. The atomistic family—fragmented, performance-driven, and emotionally thin—creates conditions where people prioritize production over presence, efficiency over intimacy, and autonomy over accountability. These conditions quietly train us to view formation as optional, rest as laziness, and relationships as negotiable. Sanctification, however, requires just the opposite. It thrives in patience, presence, and shared life. The more our families resemble networks of consumers rather than communities of formation, the more difficult it becomes to crucify the old self (Rom. 6:6), to throw off what hinders (Heb. 12:1), and to grow up into Christ (Eph. 4:15).

The shift from producer families to consumer families did not happen by accident, nor was it culturally neutral. Industry, in particular, reaped enormous benefits from this transformation. As families moved away from producing their own food, clothing, and goods, they became increasingly dependent on external markets to meet their daily needs.⁹ This created a constantly renewing demand, as necessities that were once grown or crafted at home now had to be purchased from factories and stores.¹⁰ Specialization replaced general household labor, allowing industries to mass-produce goods more efficiently and at greater profit. But the shift was not merely economic; it was psychological.

Where producer families had a sense of agency and self-sufficiency, consumer families developed a subtle but pervasive dependency on goods and services marketed as essential for modern life.¹¹ Industry expanded into every sphere once governed by the family itself—education, childcare, eldercare, recreation—turning former duties of stewardship into markets of opportunity. Even more profoundly, as family and communal structures weakened, industry stepped into the vacuum, not only providing products but shaping desires, values, and identity through relentless marketing.¹² Loyalty that once belonged to the family, the church, or the local community was redirected toward brands, corporations, and lifestyle consumption.¹³ In this way, the move from production to consumption fractured not only the economic life of the family but also its plausibility as a primary institution of moral and spiritual formation.

I am not anti industry. I recognize that this seems somewhat heavy. I am merely trying to report the consequences of the shift.

Reclaiming the Garden: A Call to Faithful Formation

We cannot return to Eden. The industrial and ideological currents that have shaped our lives are not easily reversed. But neither are we without hope. Sanctification has always taken root in ordinary places—in the soil of shared life, patient rhythms, and covenantal relationships. If the garden has grown wild and the gardener feels absent, the answer is not to abandon the plot, but to begin, once again, the slow work of cultivation. We must recover what industrialism and individualism have eroded: not a nostalgic ideal, but a faithful way of being in the world—one that resists fragmentation, embraces formation, and anchors the soul not in what we produce, but in who we are becoming in Christ. The conditions are not ideal. They rarely have been. But sanctification has never depended on perfect soil—only on a faithful gardener.

1. Carle C. Zimmerman, Family and Civilization (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2008), 25-36. Zimmerman labels the family types as trustee, domestic, and atomistic, existing from the Homeric era to today. When I discuss the shift from producer to consumer, I am conflating the trustee and domestic era and making them distinct from the atomistic era where the shift likely takes place. Both the trustee and domestic families are oriented around production, inheritance, responsibility, and obligation. The atomistic family corresponds with the rise of industrialization, individualism, and consumption—where the family ceases to be a formative institution and becomes an optional association.

2. Zimmerman, 23.

3. Zimmerman, 23.

4. Ibid., 24-25. Zimmerman notes that popular pressure was a reason for trying to break the power of strong families, as these families were often formidable in places where the state exercised little power. These times were often followed by the state attempting to build up families which it purposely weakened.

5. In chapter 8 of Zimmerman’s book, he discusses the affects of the state on the Family.

6. Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1967), 45–46.

7. Ken Boa, Conformed to His Image (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2008), 267-68.

8. Boa, 268.

9. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1979), 50–52.

10. Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 12–14.

11. Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1964), 10–14.

12. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 473–476.

13. Naomi Klein, No Logo (New York: Picador, 1999), xxi–xxiii.