{"id":11487,"date":"2017-02-16T20:55:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T04:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=11487"},"modified":"2017-02-16T20:55:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T04:55:16","slug":"am-i-what-i-consume-consumer-culture-identity-and-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/am-i-what-i-consume-consumer-culture-identity-and-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Am I what I consume?-Consumer Culture, Identity and Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In his book\u00a0Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em>, Catholic Theologian and Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture, Dr. Vincent J. Miller argues that Consumer culture has\u00a0given way to the how religion and religious practices have become commodities. The commodification of religion enables\u00a0“people [to] pick and choose from the offerings of religion of traditions to produce their own syntheses…Under such circumstances, it is easier for religion to become an empty myth than to be the bearer of uncomfortable challenges.”<\/em>[5] It has been apparent\u00a0from reading authors like Anderson, Bebbington,Bevans, \u00a0Gardner, Polayni, and Weber, that religion\u00a0has had a very interesting tango with culture. it is even more evident that we as human beings cannot compartmentalize our faith from our every day life. Nor it is possible to exist in this world without experiencing being and also having an influence on\u00a0our dominant culture (which both Stephen Bevans and Stephen Gardner would assert that it is\u00a0not one dominant culture per se but is given meaning as experienced through an individual contextual lens).<\/p>\n

It can be stated that within consumer culture we show our affinity as consumers by the way in which we identify and relate to culture. As a result, at a basic level we become consumers that are more driven by what makes us comfortable in how we engage culture and less motivated by the challenges or conflicts it presents. When we think about the way in which we consume products and services we do not always, if at all, consider the full context that exist around the process by which a product is made and its impact on labor, environment, economy, etc. Instead we focus on the symbolism of the goods based on the value or “deeper fulfillment” we now desire to obtain influenced by what has been\u00a0communicated to us through branding and marketing. In an interview discussing consumer culture and religion, Miller\u00a0stated that “it\u2019s not that we don\u2019t care about those things, the system systematically hides them from us so I think in my quantification, it gives the new read of what\u2019s going on in consumer culture. It\u2019s not simply greed. It\u2019s not simply excessive desire for things, although it certainly involves that, but it\u2019s also not having access to the information to make profound decisions about our consumption<\/em>.”[1]<\/p>\n

I am reminded of Nike in the 1990’s and how their reputation was plagued with awful reports of outsourced manufacturing factories also known as “Sweatshops” and poor labor practices. In 1991-1993 Activist Jeff Ballinger published a series of reports and articles on the conditions of Nike’s factories in Indonesia.[2] Pressure\u00a0continued to mount from\u00a0protests of the company over the years after the reports thus resulting in a weakening of the reputation and global brand of the company . Phil Knight ,Co-founder and then CEO,\u00a0knew that in order to save the company a significant change was needed. In a formal address in 1998 he said \u201cThe Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse…I truly believe the American consumer doesn\u2019t want to buy products made under abusive conditions.<\/em>\u201d[3] From that point on Nike has made a dramatic shift and become more socially responsible both in practices and in disclosure with its patrons. Other companies like McDonalds, Starbucks, Walmart, etc. have faced similar issues. While it can be said that it takes some kind of \u00a0push back that impacts their reputation and brand to invoke socially responsible and sustainable action, it provides an example of what Vincent Miller was referring too in his interview. These companies had been in existence for decades. Consumers from all over the world have been consuming their products. Little attention was given to the process of production from labor to the marketplace. Once they were made aware of the issues their attention shifted and they were more informed to make a decision to patronize or not. \u00a0Prior to Jeff Ballinger’s 1991 report, I often wonder how many people wearing the Nike brand thought about the people slaving away in the factories in Indonesia under terrible conditions with low pay for Nike to make a killing selling the shoes for hundreds of dollars to eager consumers. Miller asserts that:<\/p>\n

Seeing a commodity as presenting itself with a ready appearance that we can evaluate, desire and choose without any context in the situation of production… has gradually colonized the way we relate to culture as well. That way of seeing things makes us comfortable in engaging pieces of culture, picking out of the context without asking questions about what they meant in their original traditions, what they meant in terms of their origins, what they meant for the communities that practiced them.[4]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I find myself challenged in thinking do I choose the comfortable over the challenging in every aspect of my life. Am I choosing to disregard the origin or context to be more comfortable? What drives my consumerism? All, if not most of us, have had to ask ourselves some tough questions as we become more aware of our role or the lack there of in perpetuating consumer culture. I do not believe that \u00a0comparing the amount of impact is necessary. \u00a0At one point or another\u00a0we \u00a0have bought into the symbols that have been advertised or marketed to us. Theyhave presented to us a “need” that longs for deeper fulfillment. Whether it was the choice in neighborhood, vehicle, school, church, career, etc. I like you must ask ourselves the questions “do the things we actually consume fulfill us?” “Are we what we consume?”<\/p>\n

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[1]\u00a0Ken Myers and Vincent J. Miller, “A CONVERSATION WITH VINCENT MILLER,” The Other Journal An Intersection Of Theology & Culture, April 4, 2005, , accessed February 14, 2017, http:\/\/theotherjournal.com\/2005\/04\/04\/a-conversation-with-vincent-miller\/.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0Max Nisen, “How Nike Solved Its Sweatshop Problem,” Business Insider, May 09, 2013, , accessed February 14, 2017, http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/how-nike-solved-its-sweatshop-problem-2013-5.<\/p>\n

[3] Ibid.<\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0Ken Myers and Vincent J. Miller, “A CONVERSATION WITH VINCENT MILLER,” The Other Journal An Intersection Of Theology & Culture, April 4, 2005, , accessed February 14, 2017, http:\/\/theotherjournal.com\/2005\/04\/04\/a-conversation-with-vincent-miller\/.<\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0Courtney Wilder, “Vincent J Miller,\u00a0. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture . New York, Continuum: 2003. 208 pp. $24.95 (cloth).,” The Journal of Religion<\/i> 85, no. 4 (October 2005): , doi:10.1086\/499463.<\/p>\n

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In his book\u00a0Consuming 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\u00a0given way to the how religion and religious practices have become commodities. The commodification of religion enables\u00a0“people [to] pick and choose from the offerings of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[255],"class_list":["post-11487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-miller","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}