{"id":28462,"date":"2022-03-31T21:42:53","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T04:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=28462"},"modified":"2022-03-31T21:42:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T04:42:53","slug":"desire-commodification-and-religious-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/desire-commodification-and-religious-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Desire, Commodification, and Religious Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I read Vincent J. Miller\u2019s \u201cConsuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture,\u201d I couldn\u2019t help but think of Spider-Man 3 and the identity struggle that ensues when Peter Parker\u2019s Spider Man bonds with the Symbiote.[1]<\/a> Perhaps this connection was also encouraged as I read Jason Clark\u2019s engagement with Miller\u2019s central thesis.[2]<\/a> Clark writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Lyotard predicted, modernity has fragmented into ever new modernisms, until we are left with a war of all against all, and I suggest, arrive at a war of self against self. The sheer energy required for creating a self and life within the consumerism of late capitalism leave little left for creating Christian identity. Moreover, commodification is more likely to result in the resources of Christian faith being consumed as raw materials for creating this consumer identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

This paints a pretty bleak picture of the impact commodification has on how self-identified Christians living in the milieu of consumerism practice their faith. Miller contends that his book \u201c\u2026focuses on\u2026how the habits of consumption transform our relationship to the religious beliefs we profess.\u201d[3]<\/a> He focuses on commodification as being a key \u201ccultural dynamism\u201d since the late eighteenth century, even as he acknowledges its intersection with many other critical dynamisms at work in the world today.[4]<\/a> Miller believes commodification is worthy of his focused attention because it is so resistant to any form of ideological or theological critique. Instead, it simply turns critique into the next marketing hook to sell more stuff to religious (and not so religious) people feed up with consumerism. He uses the magazine \u201cReal Simple\u201d as an example of the insidious nature of commodification and its resistance to critique.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you feel the Symbiote taking over yet? Miller does, and this is why he writes this book. His hope is to \u201c\u2026provide guidance for living a more authentically Christian life in a culture that is neither entirely Christian in its logic nor entirely alien.\u201d[6]<\/a> Or, perhaps, in line with Agarwal\u2019s \u201cSway,\u201d[7]<\/a> guidance that allows us to become more conscious of the ways in which commodification influences so much in our lives.<\/p>\n

Miller uses an introduction, seven chapters, a conclusion, thorough notes, and a detailed index to walk the reader through the methodology of examining the relationship between religion and culture, the ways in which social institutions like the single-family home support commodification, the impact of commodification on religious symbols and the resultant diminishing influence of religious traditions in the public square and in the lives of individuals, the nature of desire, the political value of consumer desire as it is worked out through the practice of bricolage<\/em> (\u201cthe piecing together of meaning through the consumption of religious symbols\u201d[8]<\/a>), and finally, practical suggestions for how religious traditions can help people navigate the extremes of consumer culture in a more conscious, deliberate, and critical manner. His book is classified under the broad religion, psychology, and philosophy umbrella of the Library of Congress and is specifically housed under Christianity with a focus on special topics.<\/p>\n

His chapter on desire[9]<\/a> especially caught my attention. Scripture references desire in one way or another at least 153 times. Miller writes in his introduction, \u201cThe problem arises not from conflicting goals of desire, for example, the love of God versus the love of things, but rather from the focus and texture of desire. Consumer desire is, surprisingly, not really about attachment to things, but about the joys of desiring itself. It is the joy of endless seeking and pursuit.\u201d[10]<\/a> His words brought me right back to Lieberman and Long\u2019s \u201cMolecule of More.\u201d[11]<\/a> To what degree is commodification and consumerism driven by the addictive nature of brain chemistry and dopamine gone wild?<\/p>\n

I found the most hope in his concluding chapter\u2014practical steps that can be taken to navigate the extremes of consumerism and commodification. For example, paying attention to the sources of the things we buy and the impact their production has on the local communities where they are made. This draws us to attend to justice issues and to monitor our consumption. At a leadership level, I especially appreciated his call for those of us working in the world of theology to develop the skills and methods necessary to truly pay attention to the \u201cimplicit logics\u201d of our communities\u2019 practices \u201c\u2026and the texture of their daily lives.\u201d[12]<\/a> This challenges me to pay even more attention to the hermeneutical work of understanding deeply the community of Christ-followers I am called to serve among, the wider community\/society of which they are a part, and the biblical text revealing the heart and ways of the Triune God.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Miller, Vincent Jude. 2013. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Religion<\/em>. Repr. New York: Continuum.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Clark, Jason Paul, “Evangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogeneses in the Relationship” (2018). Faculty Publications – Portland Seminary. 132. https:\/\/digitalcommons.georgefox.edu\/gfes\/132<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Miller, 11.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 12.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 2.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 13.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Agarwal, Pragya. 2021. Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias<\/em>. London: Bloomsbury Sigma.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Muldoon, Timothy. P. Book Review. Downloaded from https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core. George Fox University Library, on 30 Mar 2022 at 00:48:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/terms. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/S0360966900001870, p. 462.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Miller, 107ff.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Ibid., 7.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Lieberman, Daniel Z, and Michael E Long. 2019. The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity-and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race<\/em>. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Miller, 227.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I read Vincent J. Miller\u2019s \u201cConsuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture,\u201d I couldn\u2019t help but think of Spider-Man 3 and the identity struggle that ensues when Peter Parker\u2019s Spider Man bonds with the Symbiote.[1] Perhaps this connection was also encouraged as I read Jason Clark\u2019s engagement with Miller\u2019s central thesis.[2] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"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":[2244,370,371,2281,2172,255],"class_list":["post-28462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agarwal","tag-commodification","tag-consumerism","tag-desire","tag-lieberman-and-long","tag-miller","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28462","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\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28463,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28462\/revisions\/28463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}