In my teens my parents divorced, remarried, and relocated. I was still in high school and just recently lost my football scholarship. I was in a world of emotional hurt and destruction and all alone. The next four years was devastating for me as I tried to bury all the hurt and despair I was feeling. Worse, I was succeeding very well as a carpenter in the union and had a great deal of money at a young age.<\/p>\n
Born Again<\/strong><\/p>\n At 22 my life greatly changed. I stopped many destructive behaviors and started going to church, got married, and started a family. I began serving in the local church and went to my first Christian concert. Growing up Lutheran, I shared with my wife that I did not know if I could do this. I did not know if this would be acceptable worship to God. After all, there would be no hymnals, no pews, nobody in a robe leading worship.<\/p>\n At the concert, we purchased everything that they had, I believe we even sponsored a child. We felt like heroes when we left that night. We returned to our small church, and sadly it did not seem as important, it seemed small, insignificant, we now needed another big event, something to try and fill the void of having an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Soon our church was no longer enough for us. I found myself at the biggest mainline church in our area. My spouse was excited beyond measure. I found myself uncomfortable, not connecting with this culture that seemed to be in a feeding frenzy.<\/p>\n New Awareness<\/strong><\/p>\n I had left the mainstream church, seeking out answers. Conferences no longer drew my attention as it seemed someone introduced a new model for success in ministry, as I simply became a seeker of truth. I no longer wanted to listen to a person if they were not filled with the Spirit of God and not a follower of The Way. I wanted Jesus, His Truth and nothing else. Church success no longer mattered to me. I used to make jokes of monks, now I think monks may have gotten it right.<\/p>\n I wish I could say, I have some knowledge. But really, I have had many questions with western church culture. I have spent a great deal of time in prayer, asking my Heavenly Father and mentors questions. I have questioned things that I have felt uncomfortable with. Through this program, it has seemed that my long list of questions has been getting answered.<\/p>\n Getting to the point!<\/strong><\/p>\n In Vincent Miller\u2019s book Consuming Religion, we have the synopsis of the fate of religion in a consumer culture.[1] We can conclude the depravity of man and where Dallas Willard conveyed the need for spiritual transformation needed in today\u2019s Christians. We can conclude that consumerism and capitalism is a form of idolatry that is handicapping many Christians in the church today from experiencing the fullness of God.<\/p>\n Miller comes to this conclusion on pg. 144. We see that consumer desires are \u201cconstituted in a never-fulfilled promise of consumption.\u201d We can take from our prior learning on dopamine, that when we purchase new things or merchandise, a chemical is released in our brains and we feel a momentary bliss. We can come into agreement that the world is desperate and trying to purchase happiness. But the problem with this is that it wears off. We must keep purchasing, keep going to events, to find that new thing to give us momentary happiness. The problem is clearly identified on pg. 145 that \u201cconsumption has become the dominant practice for the engaging culture.\u201d<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n In Dr. Clarks Evangelism and Capitalism on his prior reading assignment on pg. 176 came to a brilliant analogy Capitalism has developed into a \u201csavage\u201d form in which its victory over all ideologies is complete.[2] This brings us and the church into a new opportunity to simply become aware and repent. In this place of repentance, we can come into a new place of experiencing Jesus Christ in His fullness. We experience His Joy which does not fade away. We can come to the conclusion that John 3:30 \u201cHe must increase, but I must decrease.” My spiritual father would often have me read an entire book, then summarize the book in one sentence. If I had to summarize this book for him, I would say, have we purchased so much of this world, that we have nothing left for Jesus Christ!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1] Vincent Jude Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York: Continuum, 2004),<\/p>\n [2] Jason Paul Clark, \u201cEvangelism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogeneses in the Relationship\u201d (Faculty Publications \u2013 Portland Seminary, 2018), 198, https:\/\/ digitalcommons.georgefox.edu\/gfes\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In my teens my parents divorced, remarried, and relocated. I was still in high school and just recently lost my football scholarship. I was in a world of emotional hurt and destruction and all alone. The next four years was devastating for me as I tried to bury all the hurt and despair I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":162,"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":[2715,2622],"class_list":["post-31974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-tag-miller","tag-weber-tag-clark","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31974","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\/162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31981,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31974\/revisions\/31981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}