{"id":16328,"date":"2018-02-08T02:15:14","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T10:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=16328"},"modified":"2018-02-08T02:15:14","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T10:15:14","slug":"you-better-watch-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/you-better-watch-out\/","title":{"rendered":"You Better Watch Out!"},"content":{"rendered":"

At twelve thousand feet above see level it is hard to breath; especially in a line with 1000 people. In Lhasa, Tibet while visiting the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple, I stood in line with a friend to see and understand this site that Tibetans make pilgrimage to. After about an hour, our lin\"\"<\/a>e moved into the temple. We paid an entrance fee and were allowed to stand behind ropes around the\u00a0 periphery of the inner temple. It was my first introduction to Tibetan Buddhism and I was impressed with the incense, gold plated objects and rows of monks chanting. My friend however disappointingly said, \u201cWell, they have succumbed to the tourist. Last time I was here, there wasn’t a tourist line and a worshiper line. You didn’t have to pay to get in and the monks were not in fancy robes with golden objects sewn in.\u201d China had just added a fast train to this location which connected the rest of China with this unique province. As a result, the city, the people, the temples were now reflecting the potential for catering to the consumer. Religion and economics have often had a tumultuous relationship; yet how we as Christians respond does reflect on the core of our beliefs.<\/p>\n

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There is a \u201cdanger of cultural erosion in globalizing capitalism {…and the] profits from globalization\u201d.[1]<\/a> \u201cThe problem for Miller does not lie at the level of beliefs. It lies at the level of practices\u201d[2]<\/a> How we live out our beliefs speaks loudly of what is important. I believe the problem is more than a broken economic system that needs to be fixed. Jay would say I am talking about a heart problem again; I suppose I am. Miller says that one solution is found in a dialectical process.[3]<\/a>Willingness to understand the systemic problems our church and our family participate in bring clarity to the conversation; especially in the context of religion.\"\"<\/a>For many Chinese, religion is an extension or luxury to their life. What I mean is that it is not always at the center except during holidays. So for Chinese, religion has nothing to do with a desire for more money (except you can pray to be blessed with it). For those that have grown up in poor communities, the pursuit of wealth and the accumulation of things bring comfort. Consumption is about the entire process of obtaining something, no longer comes just from possessing objects but in the pursuit of those objects.[4]<\/a> The needs we filled with religion and community, we have attempted to fill with buying. A person continues to consume excessively because he or she is never content with any one thing. This is true with religion as well. \u201cPeople pick and choose from the offerings of religious 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\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

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Christmas is China is an example this kind of a twisted holy-day. \u201cThe Western religious festival is so trendy, in fact, that it may be the second-most-celebrated festival in China after the Spring Festival among young Chinese.[…a Chinese young man said,] Christmas is \u201can excuse to party\u201d whereas Chinese festivals are comparatively \u201csolemn, serious, and spiritual,.\u201d[<\/a>\"\"<\/a>6]<\/a> So we often see Santa and Christmas lights displayed in stores from November until after Chinese New Year. Unfortunately, Christmas is also taken as a Valentine-style day, where boyfriends and girlfriends exchange gifts and often their virginity. There is a Chinese saying, \u201cSilent night, first night\u201d that promotes Christmas Eve as a night of love. \u201cConsumerism focuses on the self and pursuing one\u2019s own individual desires. The difficult aspect of advertising no longer describes the qualities and virtues of a product, […]but instead create visions of the ways in which their product can transform the life of the consumer.\u201d[7]<\/a> Chinese have bought into the lie that self satisfaction will bring all that one needs for the day.<\/p>\n

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The Chinese unfortunately have learned a lot from our movies, songs, spending hab\"\"<\/a>its and quite possibly from those here to promote Christ. Two Christmas’ ago, we invited our local neighbors over to our home to celebrate Christmas. Most of them were government officials and I wanted to share the Christmas story creatively. I decided to explain the decorations of our house so they could understand their meaning and the story behind them. I was very proud of myself for finding a unique way to share the story. After some reflection, I wonder what they remembered; the cost of the beautifully decorated home or the story of Jesus?<\/p>\n

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China also has lear\"\"<\/a>ned to profit from the commercialism of holidays. \u201cShenzhen’s population swells by 5 million in the summer to feed the Christmas electronics boom, and Yiwu famously produces 60 percent of the world\u2019s Christmas decorations. In this real Santa\u2019s workshop,[there are]12-hour days at $500 a month, and 600 factories churning out thousands of baubles a day, as a migrant workforce largely indifferent to their meaning produces disposable tat bound, ultimately, for landfills\u201d[8]<\/a>Yet I see hope, \u201cFar from ushering in a new age of enlightenment from the \u201copiate of the masses,\u201d the country\u2019s strident and bewildering economic development has left behind Marxism and instead sent millions searching for priests and prayer books.\u201d[9]<\/a> The hope I see in Chinese Christians is that many see the trappings in a pursuit of wealth alone.<\/p>\n

Buddhist monks with the latest cell phones and running shoes or Pastors with luxury cars remind us how advertising has influenced us and the religions we follow. Keeping syncretistic models of worship of money and God out of our practices will be harder than we are usually willing to deal with. There is a girl named Angela that comes from a poor farming family, who came to know the Lord last year and is graduating from college. She has just begun to join (what we would call) a pyramid scheme. She has invested her money, attended the (worship service like) rallies on how to grow your business and become rich. Yet, she is blinded by her pursuit to see the problems. \u201cThe way of holy resistance lies at the level of practices. For only actual practices[…]will help us to counter an individualized, consumerist religion.\u201d[10]<\/a> The God (god), at the center of our belief, is lived out in the choices we make and the influence we have.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Miller, Vincent J.Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em><\/p>\n

(New York, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group Inc., 2003) 227<\/p>\n

<\/a>[2]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/artspastor.blogspot.com\/2010\/03\/review-of-vincent-millers-consuming.html<\/a>. Accessed February 8, 2018<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Miller, 221<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Miller, 91<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Miller, 94<\/p>\n

<\/a>[6]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/international\/archive\/2014\/12\/why-christmas-is-huge-in-china\/384040\/<\/a>Accessed<\/a> February 8, 2018<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Miller, 41<\/p>\n

<\/a>[8]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/international\/archive\/2014\/12\/why-christmas-is-huge-in-china\/384040\/<\/a>Accessed<\/a> February 8, 2018<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ibid<\/p>\n

<\/a>[10]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/artspastor.blogspot.com\/2010\/03\/review-of-vincent-millers-consuming.html<\/a>. Accessed February 8, 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At twelve thousand feet above see level it is hard to breath; especially in a line with 1000 people. In Lhasa, Tibet while visiting the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple, I stood in line with a friend to see and understand this site that Tibetans make pilgrimage to. After about an hour, our line moved into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"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-16328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-miller","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16328","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\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16328"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16343,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16328\/revisions\/16343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}