{"id":28437,"date":"2022-03-31T06:29:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T13:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=28437"},"modified":"2022-03-31T06:29:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T13:29:09","slug":"a-breadcrumb-fish-along-with-other-clever-christianese-shirts-of-the-90s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/a-breadcrumb-fish-along-with-other-clever-christianese-shirts-of-the-90s\/","title":{"rendered":"A Breadcrumb & Fish, Along with Other Clever Christianese Shirts of the 90s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sit down into Doc Brown\u2019s DeLorean or Bill and Ted\u2019s phonebooth to speed back to the 1990s. There you\u2019d find a husky middle school boy, a little insecure about his weight, who wanted nothing more than to dance with Dusty Lawrence, the girl of his dreams, at the school dance. Now, would he ever dance with her? Nope. Would he sit on the bleachers of the school gymnasium at all five of that year\u2019s school dances, trying to whip up the courage to ask said girl? Yes, yes, he would.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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But one other thing you should know about this strapping young man is that he loved Jesus. Well, it was more of the idea of a Jesus that was saving me from the wrath of a furious and vengeful God. You\u2019d probably notice that he loved Jesus because he was most likely wearing one of a dozen colors of the What Would Jesus Do Bracelets and a clever t-shirt, by the folks at Lifeway, with a clever twist on the latest fashion brand. We are talking about \u201cA Breadcrumb & Fish,\u201d the alternative to Abercrombie and Fitch,\u201d \u201cJesus is King,\u201d a rip-off of Burger King\u2019s logo, or \u201cJesus: He\u2019ll Be There For You,\u201d a twist on the TV show <\/span>Friends\u2019 l<\/em>ogo. And just in case you thought I was too faithful, you need only to listen to one of the hundreds of Christianese versions of the latest trends coming out of the secular music industry; DC Talk versus the Beasty Boys, Audio Adrenaline versus Nirvana, Newsboys versus U2.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cFar from being immune to the dynamics of commodification, religion is susceptible to abstraction and reification as other aspects of culture. Religious beliefs and practices are in danger of being extracted from the complex culture, institutions, and relationships that enable them to inform the shape of daily life,\u201d argued Vincent Miller.<\/span>\u00a0[1]<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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In his work\u00a0<\/span>Consuming Religion<\/em>, Miller takes a theological, ethical, and economic view of consumerism and consumer culture related to and within the Christian movement. He begins by framing what he means by consumer culture, examines the two-sided influence of religion and culture, and then jumps into an explanation of the commodification of culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

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For Miller, \u201cOur countless acts of consumption and evaluation of commodities large and small train us daily to value things out of their context.\u201d<\/span>[2]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0He argued that our cultural structures and habits are reinforced by practices such as shopping, advertisements, constructing identity, and consuming cultural products.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But what about people of faith? Surely they do not fit into the same consumer apparatus as non-religious people. According to Miller, religious leaders\u2019 use of secular media bypasses their traditional communal information and organizational structures. \u201cWhile this may serve well as a program of centralization, it comes with a significant cost. It erodes the communal mediating structures that link the authority of the leader and the doctrines and symbols they steward to the life of the local community.\u201d<\/span>[3]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Ultimately, Miller argues that the cost of welcoming these habits of interpretation and use of their tradition supplant hermeneutics and systems of formation.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I have been a minister in the local church for nearly two decades. From cultivating the spiritual lives of adolescents to journeying alongside young adults, from holding the hands of the dying to nurturing senior adults, I have witnessed the multigenerational and multi-contextual understanding of why the church exists and people\u2019s relationships to it.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Though certainly not for all, the church has become a commodity for far too many. It is seen through the way people select a church based on the best programs, worship, events, and staff. Like an intelligent shopper clicking through their online search engine to find the best price on the products they want, many churchgoers are looking for the best bang for their buck. Of course, they will give an exchange of money for goods and services; that\u2019s what we call a tithe. And just like every good merchant knows, the customer is always right, that is, if you want to keep them around.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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So how do we do spiritual formation, especially about our unhealthy consumption and identity around stuff? When those who hold the most consumeristic lifestyle typically are the busiest and least likely to give the church much of their, how do we journey alongside people intentionally?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Miller\u2019s work ultimately reminds us that consumer culture brings opportunities as well. \u201cIt accompanies and facilitates a great explosion of cultural agency. The doors of the archives of tradition have been opened to the masses.\u201d<\/span>[4]<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0Miller, Vincent Jude,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Consuming Religion<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(New York: Continuum, 2013), 105.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0Ibid, 71.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0Ibid, 106.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0Ibid., 225.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sit down into Doc Brown\u2019s DeLorean or Bill and Ted\u2019s phonebooth to speed back to the 1990s. There you\u2019d find a husky middle school boy, a little insecure about his weight, who wanted nothing more than to dance with Dusty Lawrence, the girl of his dreams, at the school dance. Now, would he ever dance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"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":[1761,834,371,2279,1121,2278],"class_list":["post-28437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumer-culture","tag-consumer-religion","tag-consumerism","tag-dc-talk","tag-vincent-miller","tag-wwjd","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28437","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\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28438,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28437\/revisions\/28438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}