#millercavanaugh

This blog post is being driven from reading William T. Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire and Vincent J. Miller’s Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture.

However, I have recently written another blog post on a related reading dealing with economics, socio-political interaction and faith.  I engaged Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in that post.  Weber’s text written over 100 years ago (1904/1905; translated into English, 1930) remarkably shines through in both of the texts that I am focusing on now.

Both of these texts do an excellent job showcasing the powerful need for positive alternatives being offered to the 24/7/365 inundation so many of us are experiencing of negative economic orientations.  As well, both texts, offer some helpful guidance in this area of positive alternatives.

I like how Cavanaugh discusses not simply eschew the idea of “free market” just because it has not met expectations.  Instead, Cavanaugh queries what it would take to make a market truly free?[1] I further appreciate that he doesn’t settle for an answer of negative freedom; for example, just being content with a lack of state intervention.  Rather, Cavanaugh encourages exploration into what would be a robust sense of freedom, a flourishing, life-giving sense of exchange.  He encourages us to search the Scriptures for these examples and then courageously begin to live into them.  He notes that this will not be primarily a top-down approach – though there is a place for this – but instead, we need to begin enacting the principles we see the Scriptures calling us to in the here-and-now where we currently reside.

This enacting of principles in the here-and-now sounds loudly in Cavanaugh’s discussion of Hans Urs Von Balthasar’s notion of the “universal Body of Christ” overcomes the superficiality of the “universal gaze.”  We are able to healthily appropriate the universal in the Body of the Christ in each of our particular/local interactions.  However, our focus on global identity (on globality), often turns our “universal gaze” into – in my term – a “universal glaze.”  This isn’t always the case.  There are ways around this glazing to become more rooted at the same time as broadening one’s horizons, but it is a strong tendency and negative examples abound.

Miller’s text sits well in conversation with Cavanaugh’s.  Miller is concerned with the idea of commodification throughout the text and how this leads us to unconscious acceptance -- through habitual acts – of what amounts to essentially contextless material to us.  We know little to nothing often about where it came from, what it’s really made of, the process whereby it was produced, the person or persons involved in the process, various entities to which our monies are going to in relation to our buying the product, etc. 

It is safe to say in the eyes of these authors that we are first and foremost not consumers.  For that matter, we are first and foremost not even producers.  First and foremost we are simply human.  We are image bearers of the identity of God that have worth above-and-beyond any particularities of action in which we engage.  This isn’t meant to lessen responsibility and consequences for actions, it is instead meant to allow for the free-choosing of better actions due to not feeling inordinately driven by unhealthy existential pressures.

I highly recommend these texts as materials to assist in the grappling of living well on the face of this wonderful planet that we are meant to care for as a creation of the God we serve.  We haven’t always done so well at caring for the Earth all around us, but I’d like to think that the more that we stop focusing on what we don’t have and more on the amazingness of who we already are and the miracle of our Being the more likely we’ll be freeing ourselves up to live well for God, for ourselves, for others and for the sake of the earth all around us.

What would it really mean for us to believe that God will supply all of our needs, that God really does care for us like the sparrow and the grass of the fields, etc.?  How might that kind of trust transform our lives and the lives around us for the better?

The way I see it, there are two problems with consumerism. Actually, there are a lot more than two, but for the sake of this post I will only focus on two. First, “Consumerism is a type of spirituality… it is a way of pursuing meaning and identity, a way of connecting with other people.”[1] Most Christians will either roll their eyes at such a statement or agree with it but quickly point the finger to others in the Christian community. As Christians, our first desire is to make Christ the center of our lives. It’s hard for us to admit that in fact we gain our identity and meaning from the things we own.  

Second, consumerism has caused us to be “detached from the producers, the people who actually make our things.”[2] Those people are are invisible to us, therefore we can continue to sustain our consumer habits because we are blind to the consequences. We are detatched from people and things. Detatchement takes away value and importance. It’s easy to throw away the things you don’t value… things, or people.

A few years ago Voice of the Martyrs held a conference in Portland. I took my youth group because I wanted them to hear the stories of what Christians go through around the world. A young woman from China told her story. She was imprisoned in a work camp for being a Christian. She told us of how for years she was made to work in a factory for 14 hours a day making Christmas tree lights that were later exported to America. “My fingers were bleeding as I was putting these lights together,” she said. “When you look at them, you see beautiful things… when I look at them I see pain and sorrow,” she continued. That year I was determined not to buy Christmas lights made in China… but do you know how hard it is to find Christmas lights not made in China?  It was impossible… Our tree went without.

Consumerism is evil packaged in beauty. It’s sorrow packaged in joy. It’s my freedom at the cost of anothers.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” I think that God will hold us accountable for our relationships with those that make our stuff… the people that go without so that I can have the freedom to throw things away.

[1] William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (Grand Prapids, MI: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), 36.

This week marks the beginning of Lent. For many of us, we understand Lent as a time of sacrifice and deprivation. It is a time of “giving up” stuff, habits and patterns, eating chocolate, drinking coffee, soda, watching television, limiting our internet time, withdrawing from playing solitaire, doing less shopping at the mall, and the list goes on and on. And I’ve noticed that the more technologically advance we have become, the greater the selection of things we have to give up! Some even try to give up “unhealthy” relationships. Whatever it is, we begin our 40 day journey of “giving up” and sacrificing perhaps with good intentions.

  Yet, every year I ask myself, “why do we continue to try to “give up” something or someone and then at the end of the 40 days…we take it back?” What’s the difference? What are we trying to prove? Is the practice of “giving up” for 40 days caused our “desire” for these things to increase? Is it possible that Lent has become a journey of “consumption” for some people?

  In his book, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture” Vincent Miller suggests that the problem between consumer culture and Christianity is not from conflicting goals of desire, but from the focus and texture of desire.[1] He goes on to say that consumer desire is not really about attachment to things, but about the joys of desiring itself.

For example, let’s take on the simple subject of chocolate. Obviously, we can give up chocolate for 40 days, many give it up every year with great success. However, their longing and craving for chocolate does not melt away. Easter baskets are filled with chocolate bunnies and eggs for those who have successfully abstained from eating it for 40 days. And for the more “religious/spiritual” there are chocolate crosses to enjoy after their 40 days of fasting. Sometimes I wonder if the chocolate industry has caught on to the fact that Lent is a time of the year when people cease to eat chocolate but then return to their daily consumption of it!

  But there is a bigger issue than simply the desire for chocolate (or whatever else it is that we choose to give up). There is the critical issue of understanding the differences and similarities of the constructions of desire between consumer culture and Christianity. Miller states that it is not his intention to critique consumer culture but to explore how religious belief and practice are transformed by its structures and practices.[2]  

  According to Tim Edwards, author of “The Contradictions of Consumption” the consumer society is a desiring society.[3]  Most people have difficulty in differentiating between “real” needs and “false” desires. Miller offers several examples of this (i.e., family sizes have decreased and home sizes have increased; larger houses filled with more appliances; large wardrobes).[4] Yet when we have these things they leave us longing of more.  Perhaps we may not sing along with Mick Jagger, but we’re certainly living out the words to his song, “I can't get no satisfaction, I can't get no satisfaction. 'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try. I can't get no, I can't get no.”

  Miller suggests that modern marketing and advertising constructs consumer desire in two complementary ways: by seduction and misdirection.[5] Seduction is more about the continued desire of objects than about immediate gratification. It is the thrill of seeking, searching and reaching out for more that overwrites the disappointment and frustration of not obtaining it immediately. Misdirection, as Miller states, is about encouraging consumers to think of consumption as a way of enacting profound values and fulfilling serious desires. It is about the substitution of a practice, not the substitution of values.[6]

  So what is the impact of consumer culture on our Christian faith and practice? I appreciated the way Miller began his introduction, “this is not a book about religion against consumer culture; it is a book about the fate of religion in consumer culture.”[7] The impact of consumer culture on our Christian faith is not necessarily what we believe, but how we put it into practice. The problem is the way in which the structures and practices of a consumer culture influence religious beliefs and practices. Miller states, that “when consumption becomes the dominant cultural practice, belief is systematically misdirected from traditional religious practices into consumption… When members of consumer cultures sincerely embrace religious traditions, they encounter them in a fragmented, commodified form. Beliefs, symbols, and even practices come abstracted from their connections to one another…Thus religious beliefs is always in danger of being reduced to a decorative veneer of meaning over the vacuousness of everyday life…” [8]

  So, back to Lent, is it a journey or practice of consumption? Are we giving up something, only to take it back after 40 days? Jesus never took it back, but gave it all, not for His sake, but for all of humanity.

  [1] Vincent J.Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture” (New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), 7.

 [2] Ibid., 107

 [3] Ibid., 107

[4] Ibid., 108

[5] Ibid., 109.

[6] Ibid., 109

[7] Ibid., 1

Religious Symbolism and the Church 

Miller's book, Consuming Religion, summed up the consumer driven culture of many Christian denominations and theologies found in our world today Churches and Christian non-profit organizations have experienced great wealth and membership growth when they have been able to meet the demands of their constituents.  This can be both positive and negative.  In some cases, Christianity has been used as a marketing ploy for “Christian celebrities” and churches to attract monetary donations used to feed greedy individuals.  On the flip side, leveraging communication and marketing structures to propagate the message of Christ in a relevant manner is critical for churches today.  Many denominations utilize religious symbols or elements to engage people in faith practices.  Miller's book, Consuming Religion, provides a summary of commodification and the impact to faith.  Today’s culture is so engrained in consumerism that people approach even religion with a consumer mindset. The dynamics of commodification causes people to “consume” religion instead of engage in their faith.  Christianity becomes something they can acquire just like any other commodity.  

After reading Miller’s book, I thought about my grandmother who was a PLT club member in the 1970s – 1980s.  The PTL club (Praise The Lord) was hosted and owned by a couple, Jimmy and Tammy Faye Baker.  They preached the “prosperity gospel”, which is still prevalent today.  This theology teaches that one receives blessings and happiness from God when they live an obedient life and are reconciled to God.  They amassed a cult like following of lower and middle class Americans.  I remember my grandmother saying that God was going to provide her with wealth and riches because she is supporting the work of Jim and Tammy Faye. The only thing that my grandmother ever got from supporting PTL club was a drained bank account and a false sense of security that she was going to heaven because she supported that ministry.

Throughout history of the Roman Catholic Church, some form of religious icons or materialism can be found.  The 95th Thesis of Dr. Martin Luther spoke out against the Catholic Church's practice of selling indulgences.  Indulgences are “remission of part or all of the temporal and especially purgatorial punishment that according to Roman Catholicism is due for sins whose eternal punishment has been remitted and whose guilt has been pardoned (as through the sacrament of reconciliation)”[1] The Catholic Church also has many saints with corresponding religious icons that can be found, such as the statues and images of the Virgin Mary.  She is considered the “queen of heaven” and people pray to her daily for everything from healing to interceding for love ones to get into heaven.  There have been attempts to reform the Catholic Church, but as Miller has pointed out, neo-traditionalists have rejected attempts to modernize Catholicism and have stuck to the traditional practices, beliefs, and costumes of the church.[2] 

Evangelicals have also fallen into the trap of religious icons and symbols. Many of our churches view their buildings, pastors, and doctrines as “sacred cows” that cannot be changed or modified.  In the church that I am currently serving, there is an underlying mentality that nothing should be changed because we will lose our history and tradition. This mentality is common throughout of our older established churches, and change does not always come easily or joyfully. Everything from the old organ to the painting of Jesus on the wall has become an icon.  While these items may not be overtly worshiped, people view them as a necessary part of their worship experience.  

I believe that the message to Christian leaders is one of caution.  Understanding the dynamics of commodification is important, as faith is not something that can or should be marketed or acquired.  We need to carefully balance our marketing efforts to ensure we aren’t just driving for church growth, popularity, or financial gain.  The focus must first and foremost stay on Christ.  If any symbol or communication from or within the church takes the focus away from Christ, then it should not be used.

[1] Inc Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).

          My title may be simply words to one of Madonna’s songs, as she sang about her own personal taste as a material girl. However, her conclusion is quite accusatory as she sings, “Experience has made me rich - And now they're after me, 'cause everybody's…living in a material world.” Her statement implies that living in a material world makes one a material girl or boy. Unfortunately, Madonna had quite a grasp on our Western world. The words ring so true as we begin to understand that almost all things have been commodified and in our consumer culture we are all to eager to acquire these material things. Such material desire has made its way and stance within the church.

            Through Miller’s book Consuming Religion we learn that even in the religious sectors we see the commodification of the spiritual things represented by material items. Miller notes that this commodification of religion needs content and that this commodification has spawned “an interest in the material aspects of religion. There is particular interest in paraphernalia of a size suitable for mass marketing”[1] from prayer beads to jewelry, body adornments, images, statuary, vessels and the like, all are commodified and ready for the religious consumer. Miller points out that such consumption is necessary for modern capitalism.[2] Yet this consumption it is not necessarily greed and the love of mammon, as some arguments against capitalism go, that encourages consumerism even religious consumerism. In Being Consumed, William T. Cavanaugh makes a powerful observation regarding this view of greed being the main fuel of our consumer economy, that being that greed “does not really capture the spirit of our consumer economy.”[3] Though we live in the west it is not typical of us westerners to desire nor have the determination to hold onto the material things we acquire. We are overly attached to the things that we have consumed. We no longer buy to save, indeed Cavanaugh points out that the US has one of the lowest savings rates of any wealthy country, and at the same time we are the most indebted society in all of history.[4] We have come to an age that we do not keep what we buy we simply discard and get the upgrade. Cavanaugh statement regarding consumerism really captured the essence of western thought for me: “Consumerism is not so much about having more as it is about having something else; that’s why it is not simply buying but shopping that is the heart of consumerism.” That’s it! I exclaimed and read the sentence to my wife. She nodded her head with that contemplative satisfaction that I have grown to love and said, “That’s good. That’s so true! Man your program is fun.”

            Cavanaugh continues with zeroing in on consumerism as “a restless spirit that is never content with any particular material thing.”[5] This restless spirit does not, and will not, find true happiness in any item purchased. So the hunt for the next commodity commences, hoping that the next elusive prey may indeed satisfy the inner cravings. But to no avail. This inner craving is only to be satisfied in the pursuit of God. Unfortunately, the very religious system that is to assist the seeker in his quest for God has “been transformed into a narcissistic, therapeutic enterprise.”[6] Now the empty and void spiritual man tries to fill his hollow soul with the commodified goods of his God and sings along with Madonna, “We Are Leaving in A Material World and I am a material…Christian??

[1] Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in A Consumer Culture (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group Inc., 2003), 78.

[2] Ibid., 33.

[3] William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Chrisitan Desire (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008), 34.

[4] Ibid., 34.

[5] Ibid., xi.

Growing up in non-liturgical churches my understanding and comprehension of Lent was filled with indifference.  I remember my cousin giving up oatmeal-raisin cookies during Lent.  I could not for the life of me understand why he would do such a thing especially since oatmeal-raisin cookies were not my favorite.  Maybe he did it because his parents told him (and my other cousins) that they had to give up something for Lent.  Maybe it was because he really did like oatmeal-raisin cookies.  Knowing him as I do now, I realize it was an act of devotion, based on his teenage understanding of  Lent. 

  Ash Wednesday marked the beginning of Lent, forty days of reflection.  Joan Chittister, speaks of Lent as calling us “to renew our ongoing commitment to the implications of the Resurrection in our own lives, here and now.”[1]  My pastor, Matt Robbins-Ghormley quoting Frederick Buechner wrote, “During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves…to answer questions like this is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become.  It can be pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.”[2] Robbins-Ghormley followed this by asking, “What are we becoming?  What are we failing to become? Lord, do your work in us this Lent.”

  These words fit with the two books read this week, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consuming Culture by Vincent Miller and William T. Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. Miller confronts the prevailing notion that our beliefs drive our behavior.[3]  This statement comes home to me when I think about our prevailing Christian culture in which the stated beliefs of our political leaders is expected to be a consistent with a prescribed affinity for certain policies.  I recognize the disconnect when I acknowledge that I give little thought to many of the things I purchase, whether that is the clothing I buy or the food I purchase at the grocery store. I am paying more attention to what I am purchasing and its origin, but the truth remains I am disconnected and isolated from its production.  While our garden brings produce in the summer months we are not to the place where it provides much beyond September. Whether it is clothing or food convenience and time are two commodities that factor into my purchasing choices; they are in competition with both my belief and my behavior.  The reality is, as Miller recognized and Cavanaugh also attempts to address, we often want to make changes to our consumption patterns, “to live another way, but we simply do not know how.”[4]

  What are we becoming?  Miller asserts that we have to look at and discern the cultural factors and influences of consumerism, centered on the commodification of culture where “religious beliefs, symbols, and values are objects of consumption.”[5]  I’ll see it in my mailbox in a few weeks when I receive postcards from at least two churches in my community advertising and inviting our household to attend one of several Easter worship services, mentioning that their worship band has a CD which is also available for purchase.  We are often conditioned when we talk about the “presence of God” in our worship services, associating God’s presence with particular songs or a style of worship.  It also makes me wonder what we discard when something has served its purpose (and is no longer useful).  There are four evangelical churches in my community that share something in common, when the talk is about new people coming the church a good number of them will be coming from one of the other churches.  For Cavanaugh consumerism is not so much about having more or buying to buy, the heart of consumerism is shopping.[6]  When we shop for churches we are often looking to see and hear certain prescribed affirmations, a certain type of preaching, some with altar calls and some without.  We are shopping our preferences.  What drives my shopping in my personal life?  Things related to household, commuting (auto, bridge tolls & gas/petrol), and family needs.  My exchange is purchase related without connection to their production, their value is in the item itself, deemed by my purchase. However I know from prior experience that even in providing basic needs there is the possibility of manipulation or bricolage, which may mean the intended purpose takes on an entirely different meaning.[7]

  The challenge for the Church amid this emerging and transitory place is to reengage with its desire.  Over the past several years I have begun to practice a more liturgical form of prayer.  Although the form of the prayers and scripture readings varies, there is one constant: praying the Lord’s Prayer.  This prayer is shaping me; the words are orienting my heart; it is creating desire.  Within a consumer culture desire is created and never satisfied.[8]  Desire involves, not only our desire for God, but also God’s desire for us, the desire for the kingdom of God and God’s justice originating from God’s steadfast love.[9] 

  Cavanaugh focused on the depth and breadth of the incarnation placing the Eucharist at the center.  Recognized by God we are sent by God; our “very identity is discovered in one’s mission.”[10]  Earlier in the book he captured our role in revealing Christ’s identity and our part in incarnation, “For becoming the body of Christ also entrails that we must become food for others.”[11]  If I, if we could grasp just a glimpse of what we are to offer the world we would experience not what it is to consume but what it is to be consumed.[12] I was at our Soup Kitchen today, we provided for others.  I am becoming at home among these men and women.  They also provided for me. 

                  [1] Joan Chittister, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009), 110.

            [2] Email received March 7, 2014, Trinity e-News, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Tacoma, WA.

            [3]  Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing, 2005), 15.

            [4] Ibid., 18.  

            [5] Ibid., 19.  

            [6] William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2008), 35.

            [7] Miller, 72.  Bricolage is a French term referring to “expediency, adapting one’s actions to the situation at hand.”  It describes the work of a handyman, one who makes repairs or completes jobs utilizing the tools at hand, as opposed to a craftsman who has specific tools for his/her craft.  Refer to 154-156 in Consuming Religion.         

            [8] Miller, 110. “Close examination of the texture of desire in consumer culture reveals that is not simply about fixing one’s heart on material things or sensual pleasure.  Indeed, it is about never being satisfied with them.”

            [9] Ibid.

            [10] Cavanaugh, 82.

            [11] Ibid., 55.  

Cavanaugh’s book, Being Consumed, explains to the reader some of the problems of Consumerism, while offering Christians informed, alternative ways of living. Miller’s book, Consuming Religion, on the other hand, focuses on what excessive consumerism has done to the practices of religion. That is, how the dynamics of consumerism have been brought into the playing fields of religion. Religion is no longer about “living for Christ” as the apostle Paul once wrote (Philippians 1), or loving one’s neighbour as Jesus taught, but about self-gratification as the marketing giants instil.

Hunger drives our search for satisfaction, whether that’s material or spiritual, and advertising points us to where such fulfilment can be gained. However, God communicates a different message. As Cavanaugh writes, “The Eucharist tells another story about hunger and consumption. It does not begin with scarcity, but with the one who came that we might have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). ‘Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.’ (John 6:35)” [i]

Only God can satisfy, whether we are rich or poor, as the world defines it. Whether we live in the East or West, geography poses no threat to the influence of affluence upon the Christian faith. Wherever we live, market consumerism directly affects the pursuit of God in a nation. Of course, this is nothing new. The improved ability to satisfy our everyday, human needs, through ordinary means has in essence, lessened our dependency on God to do the same. In other words, our credit cards and bank balances have become our ‘providers.’ They have taken the place of God. What that means for our faith experience is that, because we no longer need to rely on God to do something for us, we rob God of the opportunity to move in power, which, in turn, results in an anaemic faith experience. We don’t take seriously the promise that God is actually able to do provide for us in places the credit card cannot reach.

There have been numerous times when God provided for me financially when I was broke. When I was a single, full-time student in my 20s. I was travelling each day about 55 miles by car to and from my University, plus working two or three night shifts each weekend just to make ends meet. It was tight and quite exhausting, but manageable.

One Friday morning, my employer called me up and informed me that they had made a mistake with my salary. It turned out that they had been over-charging me on tax for that previous year. They owed me £300 and were going to refund it into my bank account that very morning. Moments after putting the phone down, I realised, “God is providing this money for a reason” and it didn’t take long to find out.

Later that same day, my car engine suddenly started making a very loud noise. Thankfully, I managed to get it to my local car mechanic who was situated just down the road. He looked the car over and informed me that the car needed some major work and that it was not going to be cheap. Can you guess how much it cost? That’s right, £300. It’s a small testimony I know, but it’s incidences like these that really bolster our faith and dependence on God, and I’m sure we all have such stories.

While I wholeheartedly agree with Cavanaugh that we have a Christian duty to understand better the ethics behind the machinery of consumerism and live more responsibly, we also need to understand what consumerism has done to our faith. Life is not meant to be padded from the sufferings and trials of life that occasionally come our way. We are not called to live in luxury and plenty without sharing what God has entrusted to us. Yes, Jesus is the Bread of Life that satisfies those heart desires that Cavanaugh talks about. But God also promises to provide for us what we need to survive in this life. He desires that learn to rely on Him in the midst of our needs, which enable us to better know Him and His power, a lesson that even Paul and his companions even learned (2 Corinthians 1).

The fact is we only pursue God and His love and power to the degree that we feel our need for Him. Here in the UK, many live as if God no longer does the miraculous. Where does our faith really lie? In the power of the wallet, or the power of God? Let us not fall into the danger that Miller warns us of: “…religious belief is always in danger of being reduced to a decorative veneer of meaning over the vacuousness of everyday life in advanced capitalist societies.” [ii] Yes, let’s encourage one another to live more responsibly and ethically wise. Yes, let’s create communities where we share our resources with each other and help the materially poor. But let us also acknowledge our own spiritual poverty and encourage one another to depend on God and trust in Him as He invites us to. God is looking for relationship with us, not mere purchasers. If God can rain manna from heaven, and water from rocks, let us place a little more confidence in Him.

[i] William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2008), 94

This week we had the great opportunity to read two, count them, TWO, books. Monday night I went to my book shelf to pull out the two assigned books. But wait! One was missing. Apparently I failed to order it. It was not on the shelf. What to do, what to do? I promptly turned on my computer and started browsing the Powell’s City of Books web site. I could pick up a copy of the missing book the next day. But then another glimpse of brilliance hit me: I have a Kindle. Why not get the Kindle version? Two minutes and $2.99 later, the book had been “whispered” to my Kindle and I was ready to start reading.

I must admit, at moments like that I appreciate our consumer society. I want something and BAM! I have it. Immediate gratification. There is goodness in some things. But that instant gratification has come at a cost. Someone, somewhere, lost their job because paper publications are down. Small, independent booksellers have closed because Amazon has everything and will either deliver it to my door, or my Kindle, as quick as I need it. It’s more efficient. But is it good? Or is good determined by something else?

Over the past weeks we have read about the market economy, the impact of the Protestant work ethic, and the rise of consumerism. We have considered how the church can engage effectively in public dialogue, and develop theology that responds to the context (not shaped by, but communicated in a way that has meaning given the context). But what if the church becomes ineffective because it too has been caught up in the consumer driven, market economy? What if our symbols and cultural objects become objectified and lose their meaning because they have been commodified into decorative ornaments? Vincent Miller argues that this is exactly what has happened: our cultural/religious symbols of faith have been co-opted by the market economy.[i]  Not only that, our churches function as the market does. We design our services to meet the needs of a niche market. People “shop” for the church that best suits their style preferences. We look for efficiencies in how we manage the church structure, and measure our success by numbers rather than relationship and transformation.

There are multiple features of the consumer economy that impact not only what we buy and how we buy, but our very identity. Miller walks the reader through a progression which he identifies as the commodification of culture. As we became industrialized and urbanized, we became alienated from our creative power: we stopped making our own things (food, shelter, clothing) and our sense of meaning was removed from our work. Labor came to be exchanged for wages.[ii]  Our time was invested in paid labor and we began to buy the things that we needed. The move away from multi-generational living to single family homes led to “social isolation, narrowed political and social concern, and the fragmentation of culture.”[iii] Work, everyday life, became mundane, and we learned to buy things to create identity, fill our wants, and create demand for products. Which created more work.

Not only did people become more isolated and alienated, but the things that we buy became abstracted. We no longer know who grew our food, built our houses, or designed and sewed our clothes. To create efficiency in the market, the cheapest labor is from bought somewhere around the globe. Food production became dependent on what will grow quickly and be resistant to disease. I have long joked that I prefer my meat packaged because I don’t want to know the name of the cow or chicken that it came from. If I don’t know, I don’t have to feel bad that it died. But Miller argues that there is more to the story. The reality is I don’t know the name of the woman who worked 16 hours for 33 cents an hour in Honduras to sew my jeans. So I don’t feel bad. I don’t know the name of the boy who worked 14 hours for 54 cents an hour in China putting together my decorative frame. So I don’t feel bad. And that is part of Miller’s point. We don’t know. We are isolated. We are alienated. Our “stuff” is objectified and abstracted. It is removed from its cultural meaning and practices and it’s just stuff. We are alone and disconnected and we use stuff to create identity, belonging and meaning.

That’s a sad picture.

But I found hope in Cavanaugh’s writing. For the past three days since I read Being Consumed[iv] I have been processing his description of the Eucharist in a whole new light. Cavanaugh presents the idea that when we consume the Eucharist, we not only consume the body of Christ – Jesus – but the body of Christ – the church. We become one with the body, the church. When we become one with the body, we feel the pain and joy of each member. We become connected to one another in a new way. Cavanaugh suggests multiple results of this consumption. If when we consume the Eucharist we become one with the body of Christ, then we, like Jesus, are called to be consumed by the world.[v] In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus identifies himself with the poor, the hungry, and the imprisoned.  “The pain of the hungry person is the pain of Christ, and it is thus also the pain of anyone who is a member of the body of Christ.”[vi]

In Christ I have belonging, meaning, and identity. In the church I have both local and global community. I am identified with all those who call on His name. I am identified with all those whom Christ loves. This becomes a foundation for identity, for ministry, and for consumption. I am consumed.

Cavanaugh writes, “The ownership of property is not about power, and the wide distribution of property is not about a greater equilibrium of power. Rather, property has an end, which is to serve the common good.”[vii]  Part of the challenge then is to re-connect with the origins of stuff. Who made it? How was it grown? Where did it come from? This gives a face to the product; a human connection. It also allows me to be intentional about what I buy. The other part of the challenge is to use the things that I have, my resources, for the benefit of not just myself, but for the community. There is a third challenge: to communicate this message to the body of Christ. If we are to change how the church has been commodified and co-opted, we have to provide both an understanding of what this means and how it happened, as well as alternatives to change the culture and our ministry.

These are not easy challenges. It’s not easy to find out where our stuff comes from. [viii]Educating the church simply from a socio-political point of view can be controversial. However, this idea of consuming and being consumed through identifying with Christ through the Eucharist is a start.

[i] Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture, (New York: Bloomsbury), 2003, rep. 2013.

[ii] Miller, p 34, 35.

[iii] Ibid, 48.

[iv] William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), 2008, Kindle Edition.

[v] Ibid, loc 882.

[vi] Ibid, loc. 611.

[vii] Ibid, loc 345.