Miller, Vincent Jude. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/i>. New York: Continuum, 2004.<\/p>\n
Summary:<\/p>\n
We often don\u2019t 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, \u201cwe are either buying something or being sold something.\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems a bit pessimistic, but there are positives. One positive is the abundance of available goods that can make life more pleasant and healthy. Another is the ability to choose among a variety of options, from shoes to cars to cans of baked beans. In fact, in a consumer based society, choice and customer satisfaction are the ultimate economic goal and the customer is sovereign king![1]<\/p>\n
This setting illuminates the path to Miller who asserts that in a consumer culture the greater social world has more of an impact on the consumer than do a clearly defined set of values including religious beliefs and practices.[2] The consumer culture has made us self-centered and focused on our immediate pleasure. When the joy\u2019s gone, we move on.[3] In a consumer culture religion, faith and beliefs become a commodity to be packaged, advertised, purchased, consumed and purchased all over again.[4] In Miller’s words, \u201cthis in not a book about religion against consumer culture; it is a book about the fate of religion in consumer culture.\u201d[5] And so what of the fate of religion?<\/p>\n
Application:<\/p>\n
I remember the difficult transition I had when returning home after five years of being outside of the country. One of the most difficult aspects of the transition was the consumer aspect. I quickly realized that in that five-year period, I had lost much of my skill in being a savvy consumer. I found myself being taken advantage of as if we were in a country where we didn\u2019t speak the language\u2014AGAIN! One of the more notable moments was when my wife and I walked into a superstore and were so overwhelmed by the choices, that we left the cart in the middle of the aisle and rushed out of the store. We laugh about it now, but it was a defining experience for us\u2014we saw our own culture through different lenses.<\/p>\n
I was also impressed by the changes in the church. The music had changed. The worship changed, the dress had changed, the way in which churches were set up had changed. Can you believe\u2014some of the churches didn\u2019t even use a pulpit anymore!! (Smiling)<\/p>\n
I asked one of my closest pastor friends what happened. What did I miss? What occurred in those few short years that motivated congregations to change how they worship and in some cases, who they were? I remember him eluding to fierce competition and the many choices in churches. His words are reminiscent of our superstore experience.<\/p>\n
It would seem that at this point that I would move into a polemic about the state of the church in the Western world. But I can\u2019t. Yes, we are disconnected and often self-centered. Yes, we commodify life, experience and sometimes faith. It\u2019s easy to bemoan what the Church has become and miss what the Church is. The culture will always impact the church. Every generation has its challenges, and its answers, and its culture. Yes, we need to do better! However, I don\u2019t remember a time in my life where the Church was doing more, feeding more, helping more, evangelizing more than it is now. We don\u2019t always get it right, but very few cultures do. And so what of the fate of the Church? It has nothing to do with fate. God is greater than culture, and so not even a consumer culture can prevent God from building His church.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Miller, Vincent Jude. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture. New York: Continuum, 2004. Summary: We often don\u2019t 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, \u201cwe are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"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-11717","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\/11717","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\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}