By: Chip Stapleton on February 24, 2017
First, let me begin by stating something that will be completely obvious to anyone that has engaged with William Cavanaugh’s Torture and Eucharist & Being Consumed: There is simply no easy way to boil down all of what Cavanaugh is saying, and all of his important insight into one or two short sentences. If one were to…
By: Kristin Hamilton on February 23, 2017
A long, long time ago (about 500 years to be exact), in a couple of places far, far away (namely Germany and Switzerland), a group of reformers looked at the church in charge and, distressed by excesses and abuses, sought to make a BIG change. Some of them thought they could maybe make the change…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on February 23, 2017
[Just A Quick Note: This week we had two works published by William T. Canavaugh Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire and Torture and Eucharist. Both are great and so thought provoking! For the sake of this post, I am focusing my discussion on his Being Consumed. ] “The church is called to be a…
By: Stu Cocanougher on February 23, 2017
I have just completed two excellent books by Catholic Theologian William T. Cavanaugh. These were: Cavanaugh, William T. Being Consumed: economics and Christian desire. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2009. Cavanaugh, William T. Torture and Eucharist: theology, politics, and the body of Christ. Oxford UK: Blackwell, 2005. Both of…
By: Lynda Gittens on February 23, 2017
Cavanaugh states, “In the ideology of the free market, freedom is conceived as the absence of interference from others.” (Cavanaugh, Kindle, Location 81) Cavanaugh says, “Augustine’s view of freedom is more complex: freedom is not simply a negative freedom from, but freedom for, a capacity to achieve certain worthwhile goals. All of those goals are…
By: Jim Sabella on February 23, 2017
This week we are discussing two books both by William T. Cavanaugh. The first book is titled, Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ; the second is titled, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. Several themes run through both books. Some of the major themes are oppression, power, freedom, and the individual. Another is Cavanaugh’s…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on February 22, 2017
If the Eucharist is an act of defiance and a way to re-member the body of Christ back together, then torture is the antithesis of this, as it is breaks down the person and dismembers the community. When people start to “disappear” from the shameful experiences and choices made, the church threatens to “disappear” if…
By: Katy Drage Lines on February 22, 2017
Appetizers This weekend, I visited the Museum of Man in San Diego, and explored the Cannibal exhibit. Occasionally, cannibalism occurs in dire survival situations; more often though, cannibalism is ritually or medicinally practiced in order for the partaker to consume the power of the partaken. English royalty drank skull powder for health, and Richard the…
By: Mary Walker on February 21, 2017
The future Kingdom of God is brought into the present to bring the world’s time under the rule of Divine Providence, and thus create spaces of resistance where bodies belong to God, not the state.[1] … Christians themselves are called to create concrete alternative practices that open up a different kind of economic space…
By: Mary Walker on February 18, 2017
“One of the goals of the sensory ethnographer is to seek to know places in other people’s worlds that are similar to how they are known by those people. In doing so we aim to come closer to understanding how other people experience, remember and imagine.”[1]
By: Chip Stapleton on February 17, 2017
In the thoroughly engaging, if very dense, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture Vincent Miller frames consumer culture ‘not as a deformation of belief but as a particular way of engaging religious beliefs that divorces them from practice.’ (Miller, 12) This provides the reader with a lens for engaging our consumer society…
By: Geoff Lee on February 17, 2017
Consumer or consumed? Consuming Religion – Miller “Parish glamorization is ecclesiastical pornography — taking photographs (skilfully airbrushed) or drawing pictures of congregations that are without spot or wrinkle, the shapes that a few parishes have for a few short years. These provocatively posed pictures are devoid of personal relationships. The pictures excite a…
By: Kristin Hamilton on February 16, 2017
The past several weeks I have been thinking quite a bit about privilege, especially those privileges to which I am blind. It’s pretty easy for me to recognize the big privileges. I’m white and well-educated. I was raised in a nuclear family that loved me and protected me. I have always been free to talk…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on February 16, 2017
In his book Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture, Catholic Theologian and Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture, Dr. Vincent J. Miller argues that Consumer culture has given way to the how religion and religious practices have become commodities. The commodification of religion enables “people [to] pick and choose from the offerings of…
By: Lynda Gittens on February 16, 2017
CONSUMING RELIGION – CHRISTIAN FAITH AND PRACTICE IN A CONSUMER CULTURE Don’t let the Joneses get you down was a popular song and phrase during the 70’s by the Temptations. It spoke about people trying to possess more assets than the other just to appear to be in a particular status in life. A sample…
By: Stu Cocanougher on February 16, 2017
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. – 1 Corinthians 13:1 This verse has always intrigued me. As someone who has a desire to know God, this verse is…
By: Mary Walker on February 16, 2017
“After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true.” Spock[1] In his book on Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture, Vincent Miller, who teaches theology at Georgetown University, explores how religious belief and…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on February 15, 2017
It is no secret that capitalistic societies have influenced a consumer mentality in churches and society. I appreciated the clear summary and strong points Miller addresses to the negative effects of consumerism and the impact this is having on society and religion. Although he offered some tactics to combat consumerism in his final chapters for…
By: Katy Drage Lines on February 15, 2017
“People now readily engage all of culture, including their religion, as an object for passive consumption, rather than active, tradition-bound engagement.”[1] Vincent Miller, in Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture, makes a strong case for the origins of consumerism. As a Catholic scholar, Miller also provides an argument for how religion…
By: Jim Sabella on February 15, 2017
Miller, Vincent Jude. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture. New York: Continuum, 2004. Summary: We often don’t take the time to stop and notice it, but if we listen carefully, we will hear a constant song playing in the background of our everyday lives. Someone said it like this, “we are…
