{"id":954,"date":"2013-02-21T21:25:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/front-porches-consuming-religion\/"},"modified":"2013-02-21T21:25:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T21:25:00","slug":"front-porches-consuming-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/front-porches-consuming-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Front Porches & Consuming Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I had the privilege of participating in a golf tournament near Celebration, Florida.\u00a0 This entirely planned community was built by and located near the fantasy land of Disney World.\u00a0 After the tournament, the organizers shared the benefits of living in a community dedicated to relationships and then took us on tour of this small town where one could walk to every shopping need and retreat to the days of black and white TV, when the world was perfect \u2013 if of course you were a white male \u2013 but I digress.\u00a0 One architectural feature however stood out.\u00a0 Every house had a large front porch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Randy Frazee in the Connecting Church<\/em> also speaks of porches – spiritual groups built around demographic areas and the importance of cultivating community through \u2013 front porches!\u00a0 Porches aide us in developing community \u2013 it\u2019s the Single-Family home model.<\/span><\/p>\n

But – in Consuming Culture<\/em>, Vincent Miller warns us to beware of \u201ctreating everything, including religion as an object of consumption.\u201d\u00a0 Surprisingly, the Single-family home is listed as a culprit! This new form of domestic consumption shows how a \u201cdream\u201d can turn into a nightmare.\u00a0 <\/span>The single-family home provided the infrastructure to encourage diminishing support systems and insulated us further because of distance.\u00a0 <\/span>It weakened the impact on parental influence as children moved away to establish their own \u201chomes\u201d and how automated appliances replaced traditional labor which traditionally had brought people together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My copy of the book was pre-owned, with notes written in the margin by a previous owner. Though the author states that as Christian communities, \u201cwe want to identify ourselves against the world; the church simply doesn\u2019t function as a complete culture.\u201d\u00a0 One marginal note written in red asks \u201cwhy is this bad?\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps the reader is unable to grasp the truth that if we are no different as a culture, what\u2019s the point of coming together in community?\u00a0 Naively we believe we are unique and that we are transformers of culture but Miller leads us to believe it\u2019s just the opposite. <\/span><\/p>\n

I want the Christian community to stand against consumerism, seeing our faith, symbols and icons through a redemptive worldview lens, rather than through the Dominate cultural lens.<\/span><\/p>\n

I finished the book while flying back from Mexico.\u00a0 Landing in Houston, hungry, the words of Consuming Religion<\/em> rang throughout my head.\u00a0 As I passed a kiosk, I noticed Naked Green Juice – All natural, employing \u201cfair-trade\u201d labor rules, recyclable bottle, and good for the environment.\u00a0 I paid $4.99 for one carafe. <\/span><\/p>\n

I felt good and smiled inwardly \u2013 I had fought \u201cconsumerism with no purpose.\u201d\u00a0 But then I reconsidered.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to fight commodification and the desire to fall to the idols of consumerism and immoral low prices when I use the church credit card.\u00a0 But would my convictions hold up next time I\u2019m thirsty – and it\u2019s on my dime?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hmmmm.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I had the privilege of participating in a golf tournament near Celebration, Florida.\u00a0 This entirely planned community was built by and located near the fantasy land of Disney World.\u00a0 After the tournament, the organizers shared the benefits of living in a community dedicated to relationships and then took us on tour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"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":[371,255,373,372],"class_list":["post-954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumerism","tag-miller","tag-porches","tag-religion"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}