Intervening in Customer Culture: Returning to the Perfect and Complete Love of Christ
We will only know who we really are by the re-ordering of our agency, the transfer of object and subject of self, in relationship to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
-Jason Clark-
There was a Sunday School song that was sung quite often when I was little. The lyric quote is as follows: “What are people looking for? Money! What are people looking for? Money! What are people looking for, morning and afternoon, evening and night? Money, money, money, not the Lord Jesus!” The continuation of the song says: “Whom does God seek? Me! Who is God looking for? Me! Who does God look for, morning and afternoon, evening and night? Me, me, me, a sinful man!” My Sunday School teachers taught me that the meaning of the song implicitly shows two kinds of desires. The first refers to human desires today where the tendency of their hearts and minds is only towards money or possessions to satisfy desires and gain recognition from other people. Meanwhile, the second is the divine desire of the Lord Jesus, a very great desire that is visible through His actions in seeking and loving His people.
When I heard the explanations from my childhood Sunday School teachers, my feelings were like those of a typical child who is happy to get new information. But as I grew older, questions arose in me regarding the meaning of the song. The big question is, is it true that today’s human desires tend to focus on material things because they want to satisfy their desires and gain recognition from others? Thus, what about the church regarding this problem? What can the church do so that Christians center their lives solely on Christ and put material things in proportion so that they can exercise their agency in the world?
Vincent Miller in his book, Consuming Religion, explains that human desire drives humans to consumptive behavior and gain recognition. This opportunity is then captured by the market which takes advantage of this opportunity by using various methods to obtain large profits. Miller writes:
“By exploiting the human desire for meaning and membership, marketers can be said to be positioning their products to compete with religion. What is perhaps less obvious but more important is that the pursuit of fulfillment also changes in the process. As people are trained to find fulfillment in consumption, they are also, in effect, trained to carry habits and dispositions from the realm of consumption to traditional sources of meaning, including religion.”[1]
Miller shows that when the market exploits human desires, the big impact that will be faced is the shallowing of the value and meaning of religious life, which means the shallowing of the appreciation of spirituality in human life. Reduced religion and shallow spirituality will distance Christians from carrying out their agency role in this world.
The problem, according to Miller, is that desire in consumer culture is similar to human desire in the Christian tradition in terms of longing for God. Miller says, “Consumer desire is similar in form to traditional religious desires.”[2] Miller shows that the problem is not as simple as the conflict between loving God and loving material things. Miller insists, “The problem arises not from conflicting goals in desire, for example, love of God versus love of things, but rather from the focus and texture of desire itself. Consumer desires are actually not so much about being attached to things as they are about the excitement of the desire itself.”[3] Therein lies the danger. Miller warns:
“This similarity in form raises the danger of subtle deviations from basic Christian desires, such as the desire for God and the desire for justice. It also tends to erode our ability to focus on one single thing. This kind of desire formation weakens our ability to commit to others and accept the suffering that their limitations bring. It also reduces our capacity for gratitude and sacrifice, both things that are also tied to particular things.”[4]
The deliberate act of commodification in culture and religion is one of the main causes. Miller says, “Our interest here is not consumption but the cultural dynamics of commodification. Various tactics are considered to counter the most culturally significant impact of commodification: abstraction.”[5]
Talking about consumer culture and relating it to my NPO which focuses on marital enrichment, I also find similar problems in it. The commodification of culture and religion that has given rise to consumer culture has also more or less influenced husband-wife relations. Regarding this, William J. Doherty says in his writing, “Consumer culture teaches us that we never have enough of anything we want, that the new is always better than the old–unless something old becomes trendy again, and teaches us not be loyal to anything or anyone that does not continue to meet our needs at the right price: Customers are inherently disloyal.”[6] Consumer culture has the potential to cause married couples to continually be dominated by the desire to look for something better, something perfect. This culture degrades the sense of contentment and gratitude among them. This can cause dissatisfaction with each other which ultimately leads to infidelity and divorce because they are dominated by the thought that there is always something better than what they currently have.
If consumer culture has such a dangerous impact on the spiritual life of people in the church and married couples in marriage, then how to counter it? To encounter consumer culture, we will use Miller and Clark’s writing. Miller offers a solution to counter consumer culture by proposing the idea of sacramentality. According to Miller, “Sacramentality is an interesting example of a religious resource for countering consumer culture because it challenges consumer culture not by critiquing consumption but by challenging the abstracting dynamism of commodification itself.”[7] On the other side, Jason Clark, in his prodigious writing offers evangelical worship as a solution to encounter the consumer culture. He says, “Evangelical worship and practices should therefore bring people into a ‘practical-prophetic’ ecclesiology where the mission of God comes into all social realities, and simultaneously orders all those social realities around mission.”[8] Based on Clark’s perspective, “For Evangelical the recapitulation of the Christ-event is about the freedom that can only come when God seizes us, and, through worship, we discover how there are no limits to the depths of identity-formation in the Christ-event.”[9]
In my perspective, both Miller and Clark help us to counter the customer culture that has taken hold. Both have important starting points for us to study so that ultimately customer culture can be eliminated from Christian life, namely by bringing Christians back to the roots of their faith through the appreciation of sacraments and worship. I also want to add to this process by renewing our perspective as Christians in looking at the Bible. I use David Jensen’s thinking which offers to approach the Bible as a narrative of desire. The basic idea is that throughout the Bible it expresses relations or relationships, namely the relationship between creation and God, the relationship between humans and each other, the relationship between God and the chosen people in a covenant, and the extension of that covenant to the world through Jesus Christ.[10] In my point of view, these three approaches can be used to intervene in the influence of consumer culture which has penetrated various aspects of human life and Christianity. Thus, Christianity can rediscover its substance as a community of believers whose desire to seek God has been fully fulfilled through the work and love of Christ as recorded and witnessed by the Bible.
[1] Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture, (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 88.
[2] Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion, 144.
[3] Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion, 7.
[4] Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion.
[5] Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion, 10.
[6] William J. Doherty, “Consumer Marriage and Modern Covenant Marriage,” Marriage and Families: Vol. 3, Article 4 (2000): 19. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/marriageandfamilies/vol3/iss1/4. Accessed in November 8, 2023.
[7] Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion, 189.
[8] Jason Paul Clark, Evangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogenes in the Relationship (2018), Faculty Publications – Portland Seminary, 235.
[9] Jason Paul Clark, Evangelicalism and Capitalism.
[10] David H. Jensen, God, Desire, And A Theology of Human Sexuality, (Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), ix.
About the Author
Dinka Utomo
Dinka Nehemia Utomo is an ordained pastor of the Protestant Church in the Western part of Indonesia (Gereja Protestan di Indonesia bagian Barat or GPIB). He has served for more than 15 years. The first five years of his ministry were in the remote area of East Kalimantan, including people from the indigenous Dayak tribe in the small villages in the middle of the forest, frequently reached using small boats down the river. For more than 15 years, Dinka has served several GPIB congregations in several cities in Indonesia. He has always had a passion for equipping Christian families, teaching and guiding them to build equal relations between husband and wife, maintaining commitment, love, and loyalty, creating a healthy and constructive Christian family atmosphere, and rejecting all forms of violence and sexual violence. Dinka's beloved wife, Verra, is also a GPIB pastor. They have two blessed children. Dinka and his wife and children love to spend quality family time, such as lunch or dinner, and vacation to exotic places.6 responses to “Intervening in Customer Culture: Returning to the Perfect and Complete Love of Christ”
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Dinka,
What a thoroughly written post that calls us all to remember what the center and motivation of our lives should be.
You mentioned that “consumer culture has the potential to cause married couples to continually be dominated by the desire to look for something better, something perfect.” I remember hearing a sermon by a good friend and mentor, Dr. Alicia Britt Chole on vain imaginiations (Rom. 1:21 “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”) She likened this to an insatiable desire of the “if only…” trap. As a young married many years ago, I often said those words, “If only I had this….” If only my husband were…”. My mind was living in a world that didn’t exist, and therefore not being present to the present…a vain imagination. This was not helpful to me or my marriage relationship. Thank the Lord for his steady work of grace and love that has helped me grow in this area of contentment.
Dinka-the addressing of your NPO is so needed. May many marriages be strengthened as you move forward.
Hi Esther! Thank you for your encouragement regarding my NPO. I appreciate it!
I saw how consumer culture can have a huge impact on marital relationships. I hope every husband and wife realizes this and ask for guidance from the Holy Spirit to lead them in their journey forward.
Blessings.
Hi Dinka,
I love what you wrote, “The basic idea is that throughout the Bible it expresses relations or relationships, namely the relationship between creation and God, the relationship between humans and each other, the relationship between God and the chosen people in a covenant, and the extension of that covenant to the world through Jesus Christ.[10] In my point of view, these three approaches can be used to intervene in the influence of consumer culture which has penetrated various aspects of human life and Christianity.”
Resistance through relationships.
At the very beginning of your post, you wrote, “the second is the divine desire of the Lord Jesus, a very great desire that is visible through His actions in seeking and loving His people.”
The ever present Holy Spirit is our helper and our guide. I am convinced that what Satan may have meant for evil (consumerism and its cousin capitalism), that God can turn around for good.
Shalom…
Hi Russel! Thank you for your bright review. I appreciate it!
Regarding the Holy Spirit, I resonate with your thoughts. As the Bible says in John 16:13 “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”
Blessings
Dinka, I resonate with where you went with your post. You talked about how “customer culture can be eliminated from Christian life, namely by bringing Christians back to the roots of their faith through the appreciation of sacraments and worship.” This is similar to an observation I made in my post. I believe some — not all — Christians, at least in some of my circles, are (re)turning to older, more historical liturgies in their formation as Christians, liturgies that also connect them to a broader believing community of global Christians. I’m still navigating this, personally speaking. I have incorporated aspects of praying the Daily Office and have recently picked up Jonathan Gibson’s “Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship” and have enjoyed using this in my own personal worship. I still have much to learn and much re-training to do in this regard.
You referred to David Jensen. I’m not familiar with him nor his book “God, Desire, And A Theology of Human Sexuality.” Where did you comes across his work?
Hi Travis! I like your personal discipline regarding your spiritual growth. I believe your praying discernment process will help you to achieve a higher and deeper level.
Regarding Jensen’s book, I use it in my writing for another purpose. I bought it on Amazon. It’s a recommended book if you want to learn further about desire and sexuality.
Blessings!