{"id":32171,"date":"2023-04-03T06:44:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T13:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=32171"},"modified":"2023-04-25T15:33:44","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T22:33:44","slug":"faith-as-more-than-a-commodity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/faith-as-more-than-a-commodity\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith as More than a Commodity"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw a meme last week that said, \u201cDon\u2019t work God into your schedule. Work your schedule around God.\u201d That\u2019s a good introductory thought for a review of Vincent Miller\u2019s book, Consuming Religion<\/em>. This book examines two forces that are at work in the world: religion and consumerism and how they interact with each other.<\/p>\n

Miller takes the reader on a journey, showing how culture has been commodified through capitalism and then specifically, what the commodification of religion looks like in this world. He then offers thoughts on how grassroot efforts to overcome the commodification of religion could bring a necessary reformation of religious practice.<\/p>\n

What is consumerism? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Miller defines \u201cconsumer culture as a situation in which elements of a culture are readily commodified.\u201d[1]<\/a> He goes on to explain that rather than a set of values or inherent selfishness in people, the consumer culture is more about a structure in which cultural commodities becomes things in and of themselves (like physical products), so they are divorced from the original tradition, beliefs and practices from which they originated.\u00a0 The marketing and advertising systems then feed on an individual\u2019s desire for such objects and strive to tie acquisition to identity.<\/p>\n

Religious commodification<\/strong><\/p>\n

The result of consumerism impacting the religious sphere is \u201csuperficial religious practices and beliefs that function as products and not as parts of traditions. Consumers of religion are in danger of being cut off completely from deeper meaning and larger tradition.\u201d[2]<\/a> \u00a0Miller argues that a potential solution to this problem is to focus on the agency that capitalism opens to the masses and instead of producing a product of religion, encourage grassroot efforts of people returning to traditions and forming their lives around transformation in Christ.<\/p>\n

Implications in Church Leadership<\/strong>
\nIn reading Miller, I must admit that I had several moments of internal resistance. Much of my job as the Creative Director at Messiah is focused on making worship and discipleship relevant in the modern world. As such, we intentionally remind ourselves that many traditions in the church are man-made and therefore we do not worship the traditions, we worship Christ. For example, several years ago, we stopped having an advent wreath near the altar during advent. This upset many people because it was \u201csomething that had always been done.\u201d\u00a0 Those who were offended by its removal focused more on the wreath than on celebrating the birth of Jesus.<\/p>\n

In light of my initial resistance to Miller’s emphasis of tradition, I appreciated his summary of the three lessons he proposes for theology in light of the consumer culture in which we live because it reminded me that he\u2019s not saying all tradition is necessary, rather \u201ctheology must attend to the structures and practices that connect belief to daily life, attend to the lived, everyday theology of believing communities, and adopt the task of helping communities preserve and sustain their traditions in the face of the erosion of globalizing capitalism.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

My takeaway from this book is to have a greater awareness in how I communicate about church events, worship and discipleship practices to make the communication centered on Jesus, not on culture and continue to emphasize ways for individuals to focus on their internal faith formation rather than simply attend Christian events and take pride in calling themselves a Christian. In other words, a good question to ask might be: If everything that was externally Christian was taken away from your life (a church building, Bible study groups, worship music, etc, could you still be confident in your relationship with Jesus?<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Miller, Vincent J. Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em>. 1st ed. 33 1\/3. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012, 72<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Wilder, Courtney. \u201cVincent J Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture.\u201d The Journal of Religion<\/em> 85, no. 4 (October 2005): 681\u201382. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1086\/499463<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Miller, Consuming Religion<\/em>, 226.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw a meme last week that said, \u201cDon\u2019t work God into your schedule. Work your schedule around God.\u201d That\u2019s a good introductory thought for a review of Vincent Miller\u2019s book, Consuming Religion. This book examines two forces that are at work in the world: religion and consumerism and how they interact with each other. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"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":[2722],"class_list":["post-32171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-miller-clark-dlgp01","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32171","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\/154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32171"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32580,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32171\/revisions\/32580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}