[/caption] In the realm of church and faith we absorb sermons, buy our Christian books and music (my favorite!), our evangelistic T-shirts and specialty Bibles. We need other people (generally professionals) to tell us what GOD is saying. We need His voice to be pre-processed, shrink-wrapped, quick and made to order. We have bumper stickers, trinkets, conferences, concerts, wall hangings, action-figure Bible characters, and an ocean of other Christian products and experiences that we must have to be good followers of JESUS. But do we see the irony in it all? Maybe Consumerism is the real religion here. In ancient Israel they couldn’t bear the voice of the LORD because it was so terrifying. Today even though JESUS opened up for us a new and living way in the spirit to directly commune with the Father we are looking for a new Moses to mediate the covenant because GOD’s voice takes far too long to listen to. We need priests and prophets to facilitate the convenience. Consumerism has reshaped our spiritual landscape and not for the better. The speed of life for many of us means there is no time for getting up close and personal with GOD. We are helpless without our prepackaged, preprocessed spiritual food. And living it takes even more time. Once we’ve taken our devotional protein bars, our theologically manufactured snacks and sometimes our religious salad and yogurt (or burger and fries) to go, we just can’t work off the ‘weight’ (aka: guilt?). So we head to church the way we head to the gym and once having ‘exercised’ for the week through serving, worshiping and praying at church our guilt is ‘atoned for’ and we’re ready for another week of spiritual stagnation. Our life in GOD is being ordered and governed by cultural consumerism and I believe it’s indiscernible to us most of the time. Even in the realm of the environment and creation care, we buy our compact fluorescent light bulbs, our new eco-friendly sized water bottles, our reusable grocery bags and our carbon neutral organic sugar (just as an example). Somehow we’ve bought the lie that we don’t need to consume less to ‘save the planet’- we just need to buy ‘green’. Let’s face it, the mainstream environmental movement has been co-opted in the same ways the American church has- consumerism is the means to salvation and our primary identity is as faithful consumers. Buy, spend, absorb. To be balanced I will say that we can’t not consume. Fueling up, eating, drinking, purchasing goods are all normal modes of living. We are not self-sufficient beings (thank GOD!). So my argument is not against consuming in of itself. There are ways to build an equitable economy and spending money can be voting with your dollars. To this I agree. We also need to listen to sermons, read our Bibles, glean insights from teachers and authors,etc. – that’s true. The real issue remains though that we are being wholly governed and ordered by this dominating principle of consumerism. Christians must ask along with the wacky ‘preacher’/activist Reverend Billy: “What Would Jesus Buy?” In many cases I think the answer is: “nothing”. Do you really need the latest environmentally friendly, water proof, recycled Bible when you already have twenty Bibles sitting on your shelf? Maybe the publisher of that Bible needs to ask that people turn in their other Bibles to be recycled. I know, let’s not get carried away. Those of us who care about redeeming the earth from environmental devastation need to ask if ‘going green’ really means healing the earth or just merely buying more stuff from a destructive production system that’s cranking out new eco-products to fill our landfills all the same. At least they’ll biodegrade…or will they? All I can say is: REPENT! And SAVE 10% off your next purchase…]]>
Thanks J. I agree that the consumer imagination pervades our lives in more ways than we care to imagine. I like the way Rodney Clapp describes the task at hand regarding consumer culture in his book Consuming Passions;
“All its elements are not simply good or bad. It is pervasive in both grossly obvious and infinitely subtle ways. It is profoundly rooted in faith, culture and society as we now know them. To the degree it is toxic, it is an ivy in the garden with its tendrils wrapped around and through our most beautiful flowers and our most essential vegetables. It could not be violently or wholly extirpated without destroying much that we rightly prize and protect. But just like such a vining plant it has grown too abundant and thick, so that it is now choking the life out of precious flowers and indispensable vegetables. Christians and other people of faith are among those who must gird themselves for a long, intricate and difficult pruning.”
I like the site and sure appreciate the work you all are doing.
Cornerstone ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_(magazine) ) once published a great in-depth article on this topic. It agreed pretty much with what you've said, but one point the author brought out that I thought was particularly interesting was that even the “Live Simply” lifestyle doesn't mean stuff isn't your god.
I have a friend who's house is always spotless, in large part because she's constantly getting rid of stuff. She's a poster child for the “Live Simply” movement — at least, it looks like she is when you see her place. But she's also always buying stuff. What the Cornerstone article pointed out is that even if you don't have much, if you're just buying and purging constantly then you're still probably too into your stuff.
I have the opposite problem that my friend has. Not only do I probably buy more than I need, but I also hang on to stuff, just in case I need it some day. Sometimes this works out really well and something I saved turns out to be Just the thing I needed. But other times it's all just clutter that gets in my way and takes up way too much of my time as I try to deal with it all (especially after our recent move).
All of this to say, I suppose, that it's pretty easy to be ruled by stuff, even when you think you've got the upper hand. I think what's helped me most is to constantly remind myself, “Is this stuff helping people (enabling me to show hospitality, or to meet the needs of others, etc) or is it getting in the way of that?”
Thanks J. I agree that the consumer imagination pervades our lives in more ways than we care to imagine. I like the way Rodney Clapp describes the task at hand regarding consumer culture in his book Consuming Passions;
“All its elements are not simply good or bad. It is pervasive in both grossly obvious and infinitely subtle ways. It is profoundly rooted in faith, culture and society as we now know them. To the degree it is toxic, it is an ivy in the garden with its tendrils wrapped around and through our most beautiful flowers and our most essential vegetables. It could not be violently or wholly extirpated without destroying much that we rightly prize and protect. But just like such a vining plant it has grown too abundant and thick, so that it is now choking the life out of precious flowers and indispensable vegetables. Christians and other people of faith are among those who must gird themselves for a long, intricate and difficult pruning.”
I like the site and sure appreciate the work you all are doing.
Cornerstone ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_(magazine) ) once published a great in-depth article on this topic. It agreed pretty much with what you've said, but one point the author brought out that I thought was particularly interesting was that even the “Live Simply” lifestyle doesn't mean stuff isn't your god.
I have a friend who's house is always spotless, in large part because she's constantly getting rid of stuff. She's a poster child for the “Live Simply” movement — at least, it looks like she is when you see her place. But she's also always buying stuff. What the Cornerstone article pointed out is that even if you don't have much, if you're just buying and purging constantly then you're still probably too into your stuff.
I have the opposite problem that my friend has. Not only do I probably buy more than I need, but I also hang on to stuff, just in case I need it some day. Sometimes this works out really well and something I saved turns out to be Just the thing I needed. But other times it's all just clutter that gets in my way and takes up way too much of my time as I try to deal with it all (especially after our recent move).
All of this to say, I suppose, that it's pretty easy to be ruled by stuff, even when you think you've got the upper hand. I think what's helped me most is to constantly remind myself, “Is this stuff helping people (enabling me to show hospitality, or to meet the needs of others, etc) or is it getting in the way of that?”
I agree. The whole question of consumerism as religion is the focus of the PhD of a friend of my at Kings College, London – you can check him out at http://www.jasonclark.ws – his thesis is that consumerism is not just a philosophy or market “ism” but holds all the markings of an institutionalized religions, replete with it’s own liturgy, priests, and places of worship. I’m sure his project will culminate in a book at some point.
A few weeks ago I blogged on the question “Is there such a thing as redemptive consumerism.” If you, or anyone else, is interested in that post, you can find it here: http://1l2.us/bd5 One of the commenters reminded me of an excellent criticism of “the hypocrisy of conscious consumerism” by Philosopher Slavoj Zizek which you can find here: http://1l2.us/bd6 It helps that it the lecture has been animated by RSA Animate.