Chalko – Consuming Religion
By far the biggest enemy of the American Church is consumerism, with a close second being that of selfish ambition. (Maybe it’s selfish ambition feeding our consumerism?) Vincent J. Miller in his book Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture explores the connection between consumerism and religion. Miller lays out in his thesis that our American consumer culture has changed “our relationship with religious beliefs narratives, and symbols.” Miller is not laying out a US vs. THEM mindset, as many have already taken then viewpoint and have written much about. Miller is saying that since even our culture has been commodified, where does that leave the current state of the church, and how should we handle it? Miller writes about “how the habits of consumption transform our relationship to the religious beliefs we profess.”[1] This is true.
Unfortunately, I’ve sat in far too many church staff meetings where the words marketing, brand recognition, and advertising were main topics of conversation. How about we just start with reading our newspaper and asking ourselves what are the needs of our city? Where can we serve? Of course, this means dying to our second largest completion for the kingdom of God, Selfish Ambition. Too often our own ego, or desires to assure ourselves of God’s love comes into play with our desire to grow the church.
One of Miller’s more interesting points to me was his observation that “As the twentieth-century print advertisements shifted from being primarily textual to include more illustrations. This shift served to support sometimes outlandish promises that often played more to the emotions than to common sense.”[2] — This is true! A crude example of this would be, when I’m at a restaurant, I almost always order off of the pictures in the menu. Even though I’ll read almost the entire selection, I have noticed I 90% choose something there is a picture of. Of course, the items that are pictured tend to be the more expensive items. And now, of course, we are being sold more than just premium Angus cheeseburgers in Red Robin and luxury land rovers in the auto malls. lifestyles designs from sponsored messages designed to look genuine are infiltrating our social media feeds. And in this complex marketing scheme, we are actually the commodity being sold to a company. It is Google, Instagram, Facebook all making their money by selling our information to companies so they can get their messages in front of us.
And I think the biggest way our religion has been commodified is in the Sunday Morning experience. We find churches and mega-churches to meet our exact needs and expect to be as precise as if we can be as picky in choosing churches as we are in assuming we have the right to use Snapchat or Instagram as will. This is perhaps the most depressing topic I can think of when it comes to the state of our church today. It seems almost pointless to fight against. (Of course, today’s church is not the sole culprit, even in the hymns of the good old days there seemed to be an appeal to the consumeristic side of us Americans. “I got a mansion on a hilltop” was not written by a Chinese underground church, nor does it reminiscent of the psalmist “he owns cattle a thousand hills.” It is distinctly American. Even
Megachurches will continue to exist and even become more prevalent because bigger churches offer a better product. Need children’s ministry? Big churches got that! Need a 1:15pm service? Big churches have that option too! Need Children’s church for 1on1 special needs, autistic kids? Only big churches already have that dialed in. That is a pretty good product, and for many reasons that are serving the church very well. On the other side, it conditions the believer to be a consumer just as much on the inside, as they were before they met Christ on the outside.
To highlight this consumeristic Sunday morning mentality there have been many videos, but this is one of the most current and potent messages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT70cA-7qMk Consumerism is anti-gospel but it is not insurmountable. And some of it can be hijacked and repurposed for the Gospel. “The encounter with God always takes place within the structures of human social and political existence.” (164). Our people showing up, want a Sunday morning experience. I know of pastors whose titles are, pastors of Sunday morning experience.
Pastorally, the book that really shaped my mindset on consumerism was a book called Renovation of the Church[3] which walked itself through the process of rejecting its own self-created culture of consumerism and in doing so lost over a thousand members who were now displeased with the lesser “quality” of the Sunday morning product which of course lead to significant church layoffs. However, the church’s barometer was no longer attend, but life transformation and they were willing to sacrifice a larger flash in the pan for more significant growth to it’s members. Secondly, the book MOVE[4], put forth by the Willow Creek Association transformed my ideas of how seeker friendly has its significant limits. In MOVE, Willow Creek begins to deconstruction it’s seeker-friendly movement that it had pioneered itself, once they realized their Christians were remaining nominal believers even after decades of church involvement.
Both of these two books were published after Miller’s and I wonder if they used Miller in their own research since they seem to have brought a deeper application from what Miller is starting to get at.
I can’t think about this topic too long and not start to get restless working in a church. Honestly when I look into the consumerism of church people, and the consumerism of Christianity and house churches, I begin to see the waste all around. My own church building is a 2200+ seat auditorium built around the year 2000, and yet currently we have about 500-600 people on a Sunday morning. This is a huge turn around from 8 years ago, back when it could have been easily voted the most dysfunctional church in America, and there were maybe 120 congregants. This is an extreme example but the waste of a regular church is still there. I’m getting to cynical now, but to build ginormous buildings to only be used once or twice a week, how is that good stewardship? Is there any real realistic hope for the home church? Alan Hirsch believes so[5], and Francis Chan resigned from his Megachurch many years ago now and has seemed to make it his life mission to ignite the home church movement within the US. And of course, there is Eugene Peterson who despite global name recognition pastored a congregation of under 200 for most of this adult life because that’s about the number he believed he could realistically shepherd.
And yet despite the waste and imperfections I still feel it is my greatest opportunity for significant impact in the Kingdom of God to go through this model of institutional church.
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[1] Vincent Jude. Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). Pg. 11.
[2] Vincent Jude. Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013).
[3] Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken, Renovation of the Church: What Happens When a Seeker Church Discovers Spiritual Formation (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2011).
[4] Greg L. Hawkins, Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016).
[5] Alan Hirsch and Ed Stetzer, The Forgotten Ways Reactivating Apostolic Movements (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016).
9 responses to “Chalko – Consuming Religion”
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I like that you conclude with a recommittment to the local church, Kyle. It is messy and problematic, but it is also an important institution to sustain. How will Miller’s observations about consumer culture encourage you to change your own engagement within the church?
Hi Kyle,
I feel your frustration with the consumerism in churches today. I too am a fan of Frances Chan…and believe he had a spiritual awakening when he left his megachurch. I would be fine with a huge building – IF it were used every day to benefit the community. Imagine the possibilities if the building was open as a beacon of light and services to the whole community. As a generation behind me, I believe you can lead the charge Kyle. Don’t be discouraged – keep doing the good work.
Kyle,
Great, thought-provoking post. Thanks. Loved (hated) the video!! 🙂 Very appropriate to include it.
When you said you were depressed by the way our churches are dysfunctional in reflecting consumeristic culture, I thought, yes, that was my biggest feeling after having read Miller. It is frustrating to feel a part of something so big and impenetrable that you can’t detach from. I think there are ways forward. Personally, I’ve found a lot of joy in refusing to participate in this commodification, and submitting myself to a liturgical tradition that isn’t geared to securing a high scores from church shoppers.
Kyle,
Great video illustration, is it sad I have heard those same things from people over the years? I have served in a 2500 person church, a 1200, a 500 and now 120. I am so much more happy at the 120 size. I can be a part of the lives of the whole church and the opportunity to disciple is so much greater. I agree with the smaller the better to be honest, do you see the same things?
Jason
Kyle,
Thanks for your honest and thoughtful post. I too am troubled by the consumerism that seems to plague our US churches and also believe that we ‘sell’ our congregants in much the same way that Google or Amazon cell their consumers. When we brand to attract the ‘right’ clientele we are suggesting that they are no more than the type of person we desire to attract. I think many of the issues that are evident in the church in regard to our weak theology stem from the consumeristic tendencies we have fostered. This has produced the nominalism you highlight and that which was finally recognized by the Willow Creek movement.
Hey Kyle,
Thanks for this post– I especially appreciate your honest reflection on the impact of “mega-churches”, both with critique and also with appreciation for things that they offer. I think you are really reflecting the thinking of a lot of American church pastors and leaders as you wonder about how to be better steward of gospel resources, while also, somehow getting the word out about the good you are trying to do. Thanks!
Great post, Kyle! I love your processing and your fierce awareness of this problem. I watched the video you sent. So hilarious and I will use it in a sermon at some point! It strikes me that those who made this short film and others like it have their pulse on a problem we just read at an academic level. It seems that it’s so easy for most of us to see how trapped we are in this web of consumer nonsense. And we know this intuitively, with or without Miller. The way consumerism plays out in the pews is this silly idea that worship is about me. One member came up to me after church one day and said, “I didn’t like that song we sang after the sermon today.” My response (in love) was, “It’s okay. It wasn’t for you.”
Kyle, your statement, “religion has been commodified is in the Sunday Morning experience” seems to be a theme in this week’s posts. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and personal experiences but do wonder if you found any dissenting or critiquing voices on Miller? It seems this is an easy win and a ‘go with the author’ kind of book but I know there are some aspects I questioned and wondered about the complexity.
Kyle, I loved this comment you made: “Too often our own ego, or desires to assure ourselves of God’s love comes into play with our desire to grow the church.” I have heard so many Christians using the phrase “God wants us to do this” united with their sales pitch. Their reasoning is seldom biblical, and yet sold as a “divine” calling from God. You hit the nail on the head; we have too many ministries driven by ego, greed, or selfish ambitions, and not near enough guided by true biblical reasoning.
Do you think it is possible to get the church back to the example set in the scriptures, or are we destined to become/stay a church of modern mis-formation?