{"id":33950,"date":"2023-11-06T08:21:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T16:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=33950"},"modified":"2023-11-06T08:21:46","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T16:21:46","slug":"commodification-touches-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/commodification-touches-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"Commodification Touches Everything!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis is not a book about religion against consumer culture; it is a book about the fate of religion in consumer culture.\u201d[1]<\/a> With this statement in the introduction to his book, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em>, Vincent Miller, summarizes the basic thesis of his book. He gets more specific in the next chapter stating, \u201cThis book is concerned with the ways consumer culture transforms religious belief and practice.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Miller Among Others<\/strong><\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s book is another take on how intertwined religion and capitalism have become. In the past few weeks, we\u2019ve read in Weber\u2019s book, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism<\/em>, how the doctrine of predestination caused anxiety in many, leading people to quell their unease by trying to separate themselves for those they thought to be already dammed. The way to set yourself apart was to work hard, make money, and be frugal. This created a spirit of capitalism that saw making money not as something immoral but as a positive good.[3]<\/a> In Karl Polanyi\u2019s book, The Great Transformation<\/em>, we read about the move from a Christian society with a responsibility to others ultimately replaced by a turn to the self that \u201crenounces human solidarity\u201d with the development of the \u201csecular religion\u201d of the market.[4]<\/a> In other words, with the infiltration of capitalism into our culture, Christians went from leaning into a faith that taught us to care for the least of these, a faith that encourages interdependence, and sharing resources, to working toward our own self-interest and profit above all else.<\/p>\n

Miller seems to take Polanyi a bit further. The problem for Miller does not lie at the level of religious beliefs but at the level of practice. We\u2019ve taken our religious symbols and practices and commodified them, sold them on the market, tried to make a profit from them. This practice disempowers and domesticates them. As he puts it, \u201cWhen consumption becomes the dominant cultural practice, belief is systematically misdirected from traditional religious practices into consumption\u2026 Traditional practices of self-transformation are subordinated to consumer choice.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Everything is Commodified!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was reading this book and thinking through this blog post when on a road trip with my husband and my 20-year-old son. Immediately upon bringing up the topic they jumped in to comment that not only have religious symbols been commodified, but EVERYTHING is commodified. We then tried to think of something, anything, that has yet to be commodified and we came up blank. The \u201dspirit of capitalism\u201d[6]<\/a> has become such a \u201cpower\u201d[7]<\/a> in our world it holds sway over every single thing we could think of. It would seem Miller agrees about consumerism\u2019s imperviousness of everything in our culture, even ideologies of resistance to the consumer culture![8]<\/a><\/p>\n

As a pastor, I could easily slide into pessimism (and I regularly do just that!) but Miller resists pessimism. He believes it is possible to live \u201ca more authentically Christian life in a culture that is neither entirely Christian in its logic nor entirely alien.\u201d[9]<\/a> Miller\u2019s suggestion to remedy our slip into consumerism is to first name commodification as the problem it is. Once the problem has been named one can begin with re-embedding practices and symbols in religious tradition.<\/p>\n

Thinking about Practices<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our congregation we try to remember to suggest to our congregation a practice to do at home each week. These practices are intended to remind them of how their faith is the foundation of their daily living. I\u2019ve also been thinking about how worship itself is a practice. We easily fall into the consumeristic trap of making a production out of worship when it is a practice it, which in turn, strengthens our faith and our relationships.<\/p>\n

Excellence in planning, writing, and the carrying out of worship elements is important, but not because we want those attending to be impressed or find it entertaining enough to return next week (commodifying worship). All aspects of worship leadership should be done with excellence as a practice of glorifying God.<\/p>\n

As I think through religious practices that have been meaningful to me, I also want to consider how they have been fragmented and commodified. I want to wonder how I might root them back into their original context and in turn find even deeper meaning. Dr. Jason Clark seems to wonder this as well in his doctoral work, Evangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogenesis in the relationship<\/em>. He writes, \u201cIt is here that we begin to nudge into the hopes for my thesis, the edges of the map of my account, that Evangelicalism contains within itself resources for a soteriology and theological anthropology which can place the desire for God into more affective worship practices. Worship practices that are, despite their previous problems, able to train and orient our desire \u2018rightly\u2019. Might there be the possibility for an alternative resonance through Evangelical worship practice that redirects desire, setting up resonances that lead to better practices, as \u2018counter-measures\u2019 to the deforming forces of capitalism?\u201d<\/p>\n

And finally, Walker, the Undefended Self, and Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

Miller believes re-embedding religious practices in their original culture will help to deepen and de-commoditize our faith. Clark goes further stating that \u201cThe scandal (of Evangelical Christianity) might be that because of consumer agency we are not free to be whoever we choose to be. We will only know who we really are by the re-ordering of our agency, the transfer of object and subject of self, in relationship to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.\u201d[10]<\/a> He continues, \u201cHere might be the relief from the very real suffering of life in late-capitalist societies.\u201d[11]<\/a> To me, this sounds very much like what Simon Walker refers to as being \u201cundefended,\u201d knowing who we are in Christ, rather than being caught in anxiety. When we are undefended we know who we are because of the Christ event, and in those moments we are free to be the leader God calls us to be.<\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/a> Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em>, Bloomsbury Academic, NY, (2003), 1.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 15.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Schultz, Will, Why This Text Matters, The Protestant Work Ethic, accessed on YouTube, October 14, 2023, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=D2SDBExBxHs<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Jason Paul Clark, \u201cEvangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogenesis in the relationship,\u201d135, quoting Polanyi 106, 107.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em>, Bloomsbury Academic, NY, (2003), 5.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Max Weber, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.<\/em><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Campbell, John, Recognizing and Transforming Principalities and Powers<\/em>, (2021), https:\/\/www.transylvaniatimes.com\/church\/recognizing-and-transforming-principalities-and-powers\/article_b3a1c35e-ba1a-506f-805b-43e3f8b083a4.html<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Matthew Hedstrom, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em>, Cambridge University Press and Assessment, 2008.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture,<\/em> Bloomsbury Academic, NY, (2003),15.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Jason Clark, \u201cEvangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogenesis in the relationship,\u201d 236.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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