{"id":25706,"date":"2020-02-03T11:44:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-03T19:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=25706"},"modified":"2020-02-03T11:44:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T19:44:00","slug":"consumerism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/consumerism\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumerism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scripture and consumerism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jesus spoke often about the challenge of materialism.\u00a0 Sure, there weren\u2019t all the advertisements, brands, cosmetics and fashion magazines but he did explain in Luke 12 how things have a way of taking hold of our hearts and becoming our master.\u00a0 He did talk about how we can so easily give our heart to the wrong grid, define ourselves by our \u2018treasure\u2019 and end up serving money.<\/p>\n

Paul writes in Romans 12 that we get \u2018conformed to the patterns of this world\u2019 without even thinking.\u00a0 Paul wasn\u2019t writing about consumerism as such, but he was talking about how the dominant values of the empire have a way of molding who we are.\u00a0 Consumerism, as an advanced cultural expression of materialism, is just a modern institutionalized expression of the same selfishness that has always been the problem. As Christians, we are called to live with a different hope and desire and remember that we are shaped for a greater purpose.<\/p>\n

The post-Christian Trinity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australian author of the book \u201cThe Trouble Whit Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises\u201d <\/em>He argues that faith has been subverted and co-opted by the power of the hyperreal world. What we have now is a kind of hybrid faith that suits the goals of the hyperreal culture. He explains through a diagram (\u201cThe Post-Christian Trinity\u201d) in which he attempts to explain the way in which our spiritual beliefs interact with our hyper consumer culture in a post-Christian world that no longer sees Christianity as a viable life choice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWith high religion\u2019s detachment from everyday life, it is then consumerism that speaks into the \u201cevery day,\u201d offering us solutions, distractions, and hope that speaks into our pragmatic needs. But with these three elements in place of a distant god, the individual as god, and consumerism as folk religion, a vicious circle is created. With the distant god providing no ethic of living, with the individual ultimately serving self, and with consumerism both reinforcing this message and encouraging the individual to pursue materialism and hedonism without restraint, the individual then falls into a directionless downward spiral or addiction\u201d.<\/p>\n

… each of the traditional parameters of social analysis such as class, ethnicity, and gender can be challenged and rethought through the perspective of consumption as a practice (Miller: 53).<\/p>\n

POSTMODERNISM AND CONSUMER SOCIETIES<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rise of studies on consumption is also due in good measure to postmodernism, which has claimed a culture of consumption “as proof for the break with modernity. While, in modern conditions, the most important thing for the self-perception of individuals was their situation in the productive labor process, postmodern authors agree that<\/p>\n

today “the meaning consciously chosen in the lives of the majority in people comes much more from what they consume than from what they produce.<\/p>\n

The increase in expressive rather than functional use of goods means that, in the “postmodern condition”, consumption has replaced production as a principle organized by society and culture. Many are based primarily on consumption, which has reached a symbolic and hyperreal level to the point that “the idea of \u200b\u200bbuying is as important as the act of buying” (Bocock: 1993: 49).<\/p>\n

The notion that in contemporary times people define themselves through the messages they transmit to others with the use of goods and practices, is common in the social theories of Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Zygmunt Bauman, no doubt three of the more sociologists influential today. Modernity has “unpinned” individuals from their traditional context so that they are situated in society no longer according to their lineage, caste or class but to a personal identity that they themselves must invent and create. That is, individuals are increasingly forced to choose their identity, which in this way becomes a matter of personal selection, and the main channels for communicating identity are material and symbolic goods. Hence the importance of consumption.<\/p>\n

Miller, Vincent Jude. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em>. New York: Continuum, 2004.<\/p>\n

Sayers, Mark. The Trouble With Paris (p. 110). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n

Sayers, Mark. The Trouble With Paris (p. 110). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n

Sayers, Mark. The Trouble With Paris (p. 105). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n

BOCOCK, Robert. Consumption, <\/em>London, Nueva York: Routledge, 1993.<\/p>\n

MILLER, Daniel (ed.) Acknowledging Consumption. A Review of New Studies. <\/em>London, Nueva York: Routledge, 1993.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scripture and consumerism Jesus spoke often about the challenge of materialism.\u00a0 Sure, there weren\u2019t all the advertisements, brands, cosmetics and fashion magazines but he did explain in Luke 12 how things have a way of taking hold of our hearts and becoming our master.\u00a0 He did talk about how we can so easily give our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"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":[570],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-crime-thriller","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25706","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\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25706"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25708,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25706\/revisions\/25708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}