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.<\/p>\n
-Jason Clark-<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There was a Sunday School song that was sung quite often when I was little. The lyric quote is as follows: \u201cWhat are people looking for? Money! What are people looking for? Money! What are people looking for, morning and afternoon, evening and night? Money, money, money, not the Lord Jesus!\u201d The continuation of the song says: \u201cWhom does God seek? Me! Who is God looking for? Me! Who does God look for, morning and afternoon, evening and night? Me, me, me, a sinful man!\u201d My Sunday School teachers taught me that the meaning of the song implicitly shows two kinds of desires. The first refers to human desires today where the tendency of their hearts and minds is only towards money or possessions to satisfy desires and gain recognition from other people. Meanwhile, the second is the divine desire of the Lord Jesus, a very great desire that is visible through His actions in seeking and loving His people.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I heard the explanations from my childhood Sunday School teachers, my feelings were like those of a typical child who is happy to get new information. But as I grew older, questions arose in me regarding the meaning of the song. The big question is, is it true that today’s human desires tend to focus on material things because they want to satisfy their desires and gain recognition from others? Thus, what about the church regarding this problem? What can the church do so that Christians center their lives solely on Christ and put material things in proportion so that they can exercise their agency in the world?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Vincent Miller in his book, Consuming Religion, explains that human desire drives humans to consumptive behavior and gain recognition. This opportunity is then captured by the market which takes advantage of this opportunity by using various methods to obtain large profits. Miller writes:<\/p>\n \u201cBy exploiting the human desire for meaning and membership, marketers can be said to be positioning their products to compete with religion. What is perhaps less obvious but more important is that the pursuit of fulfillment also changes in the process. As people are trained to find fulfillment in consumption, they are also, in effect, trained to carry habits and dispositions from the realm of consumption to traditional sources of meaning, including religion.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Miller shows that when the market exploits human desires, the big impact that will be faced is the shallowing of the value and meaning of religious life, which means the shallowing of the appreciation of spirituality in human life. Reduced religion and shallow spirituality will distance Christians from carrying out their agency role in this world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The problem, according to Miller, is that desire in consumer culture is similar to human desire in the Christian tradition in terms of longing for God. Miller says, \u201cConsumer desire is similar in form to traditional religious desires.\u201d[2]<\/a> Miller shows that the problem is not as simple as the conflict between loving God and loving material things. Miller insists, \u201cThe problem arises not from conflicting goals in desire, for example, love of God versus love of things, but rather from the focus and texture of desire itself. Consumer desires are actually not so much about being attached to things as they are about the excitement of the desire itself.\u201d[3]<\/a> Therein lies the danger. Miller warns:<\/p>\n \u201cThis similarity in form raises the danger of subtle deviations from basic Christian desires, such as the desire for God and the desire for justice. It also tends to erode our ability to focus on one single thing. This kind of desire formation weakens our ability to commit to others and accept the suffering that their limitations bring. It also reduces our capacity for gratitude and sacrifice, both things that are also tied to particular things.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The deliberate act of commodification in culture and religion is one of the main causes. Miller says, \u201cOur interest here is not consumption but the cultural dynamics of commodification. Various tactics are considered to counter the most culturally significant impact of commodification: abstraction.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Talking about consumer culture and relating it to my NPO which focuses on marital enrichment, I also find similar problems in it. The commodification of culture and religion that has given rise to consumer culture has also more or less influenced husband-wife relations. Regarding this, William J. Doherty says in his writing, \u201cConsumer culture teaches us that we never have enough of anything we want, that the new is always better than the old\u2013unless something old becomes trendy again, and teaches us not be loyal to anything or anyone that does not continue to meet our needs at the right price: Customers are inherently disloyal.\u201d[6]<\/a> Consumer culture has the potential to cause married couples to continually be dominated by the desire to look for something better, something perfect. This culture degrades the sense of contentment and gratitude among them. This can cause dissatisfaction with each other which ultimately leads to infidelity and divorce because they are dominated by the thought that there is always something better than what they currently have.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If consumer culture has such a dangerous impact on the spiritual life of people in the church and married couples in marriage, then how to counter it? To encounter consumer culture, we will use Miller and Clark\u2019s writing. Miller offers a solution to counter consumer culture by proposing the idea of sacramentality. According to Miller, \u201cSacramentality is an interesting example of a religious resource for countering consumer culture because it challenges consumer culture not by critiquing consumption but by challenging the abstracting dynamism of commodification itself.\u201d[7]<\/a> On the other side, Jason Clark, in his prodigious writing offers evangelical worship as a solution to encounter the consumer culture. He says, \u201cEvangelical worship and practices should therefore bring people into a \u2018practical-prophetic\u2019 ecclesiology where the mission of God comes into all social realities, and simultaneously orders all those social realities around mission.\u201d[8]<\/a> Based on Clark\u2019s perspective, \u201cFor Evangelical the recapitulation of the Christ-event is about the freedom that can only come when God seizes us, and, through worship, we discover how there are no limits to the depths of identity-formation in the Christ-event.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In my perspective, both Miller and Clark help us to counter the customer culture that has taken hold. Both have important starting points for us to study so that ultimately customer culture can be eliminated from Christian life, namely by bringing Christians back to the roots of their faith through the appreciation of sacraments and worship. I also want to add to this process by renewing our perspective as Christians in looking at the Bible. I use David Jensen’s thinking which offers to approach the Bible as a narrative of desire. The basic idea is that throughout the Bible it expresses relations or relationships, namely the relationship between creation and God, the relationship between humans and each other, the relationship between God and the chosen people in a covenant, and the extension of that covenant to the world through Jesus Christ.[10]<\/a> In my point of view, these three approaches can be used to intervene in the influence of consumer culture which has penetrated various aspects of human life and Christianity. Thus, Christianity can rediscover its substance as a community of believers whose desire to seek God has been fully fulfilled through the work and love of Christ as recorded and witnessed by the Bible.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture<\/em>, (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 88.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion<\/em>, 144.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Vincent J. Miller, Consuming <\/em>Religion, 7.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Vincent J. Miller, Consuming <\/em>Religion.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Vincent J. Miller, Consuming <\/em>Religion, 10.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> William J. Doherty, \u201cConsumer Marriage and Modern Covenant Marriage<\/a>,\u201d Marriage and Families: Vol. 3, Article 4 (2000): 19. https:\/\/scholarsarchive.byu.edu\/marriageandfamilies\/vol3\/iss1\/4<\/a>. Accessed in November 8, 2023.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Vincent J. Miller, Consuming <\/em>Religion, 189.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Jason Paul Clark, Evangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogenes in the Relationship <\/em>(2018), Faculty Publications – Portland Seminary, 235.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Jason Paul Clark, Evangelicalism and Capitalism<\/em>.<\/p>\n