consumerism

I Own 44 Slaves

Carrie Nye — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:58:13 -0800

According to a survey by the Fair Trade Fund, I have 44 slaves working for me.

I took the survey on a website called Slavery Footprint. I answered a total of 11 questions regarding items I have around the house and the type of food I have waiting to be devoured in my fridge. Based on my answers, I own 44 slaves. That means that 44 individuals in various parts of the world worked by force and without compensation to make, build, develop, farm, etc. a number of ‘things’ and food that are right now sitting around my house.

Of course there is no way for the site to calculate the exact number given the fact they have no idea when and where I made the purchases I did to obtain the food and items that I have. But that isn’t the point is it?

The point is that we live in a global world of global trades and consumerism. Shoes, clothes, that new pair of jeans that fit oh-so-well, chocolate, coffee, light bulbs and just about any and all electronic devices could very well be tied to modern day slavery. The bricks holding up that building on the corner you pass everyday may have come from a brick kiln in India and made by the hands of slaves; many of who are just children and all of who do not deserve to be there. The delicious grilled fish had for dinner the other night may have been fished by young slave boys off the coast of South America or Africa.

The answer is not to stop building with brick or to stop eating tilapia. It’s not to stop buying light bulbs or a pair of jeans. Boycotting is not the answer. In fact, boycotts can cause significant damage to areas where our purchases are what’s keeping an economy active. However, we can become more aware, more creative and more proactive with our purchases in a way that sends a clear message against enslaving people.

I do think however, that as consumers, we must be aware of the global market we live in. When we purchase a dark chocolate-salted-caramel chocolate bar (my new favorite) or any other chocolate for that matter, we should know where that chocolate came from. Unfortunately cocoa fields in Ivory Coast (a West African country where a vast majority of the world’s chocolate hails from, is also home to thousands of child slaves working the cocoa fields. I don’t know about you, but as much as I love a good piece of chocolate, I’ll pass on it any day if it means ending the demand and therefore the need to enslave children to satisfy a craving.

Fortunately modern day slavery has caught significantly growing media attention and is no longer an issue largely ignored. Actually, it’s quit the opposite. Ten years ago it was difficult to find products not made on the backs on the slaves. Today that is not the case. There are many places to which we can buy products and be confident no children, woman or man was enslaved for it.

Here are a few things we can do to make sure what we are buying is legit and not made by slaves:

1. Read the Bible and Pray. The most important thing we can do, those of who are Christ followers, is seek God and learn what his stand is on justice and injustice. Check out the Justice Journey Handbook for some study help. "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you." -Ps. 89:14 And read Is. 58. It will knock your socks off.
2. Educate yourself. The Polaris Project is a great place to start. Learn the facts and the realities of modern day slavery. Be aware of what products come from what countries in the world. If you’re a big coffee drinker like me, do the research and find out where the coffee you’re buying comes from and make sure it’s slave free.
3. Get involved. Contact your local police department and inquire about any human trafficking task forces in your area. Get in touch with your local church to see if they are aware of the issue. If not, point them to step 1 and learn together as a church. Discover what’s already going on in your area and help out.
4. Talk about it. It’s a social age. Use social media to help others know and understand the issues. Show a film on human trafficking in your home and have a discussion after about ways to get involved. Offer to speak about it at your church, school or tupperware party.

January 11 is national anti-human trafficking awareness day. Slavery is not a politically issue. It’s not a race issue or a people group issue. It’s not something that only happens in Southeast Asia or in developing countries. Modern day slaves exist in every part of the world, regardless of color, political association, economics or religious affiliation. And by the products we buy, we’ve now the marks of slavery have made their way into our homes.

Slavery has been around for a long time but it doesn’t mean it should continue to be around.

As mentioned, tomorrow is National Anti-Human Trafficking day. I’d love to know about what activities or events you might be participating in to help spread awareness and advocate this week or this month.

I have listed below a starter list of online companies from which we can make purchases of clothing, jewelry, bags, etc. What company do you know of that you can add to the list?

How many slaves do you own? Take the survey and find out.

Etsy

Better Way Imports

International Sanctuary

International Princess Project Punjammies

Shop at markets that sell local grown produce and fish

Shop to Stop Slavery

Slavery and What We Buy

Not for Sale

“It has been called by a great many names and it will call itself by yet another, and all of us had better wait and see what new form this old monster will assume.” –Frederick Douglass

The Problem of Christmas

Holly Ordway — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 09:37:13 -0800

Christmas often reveals our emptiness. In a season dedicated to giving, we discover our own neediness; in a season dedicated to family and friends, our loneliness comes into sharp focus.

Two voices offering solutions to the problem of Christmas can be heard above the background voice of “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Winter Wonderland.” The first is the voice of consumerism. Buy stuff! Find the perfect gift for others, get the perfect stuff for yourself, decorate your house perfectly, and you will happy and joyful. The second voice counters by reminding us that people are more important than things, that we should focus on the really important part of Christmas: love, joy, peace.

It’s easy to critique consumerism, because it’s so evidently shallow. But the problem is that both voices are partly true and partly false.

The problem with the “shop your way to happiness” is not that it doesn’t work. The problem is that it does work, in the short term.

I am perfectly aware that shopping cannot bring me lasting happiness, but in the short term, buying stuff has a desirable immediacy and objectivity: you hand over the cash or the credit card, and you get something. A sandwich. A pair of new shoes.

Those shoes really will bring me a kind of happiness. If I’m in a bleak mood, buying something pretty, or treating myself to something indulgent to eat, actually makes me feel more cheerful. It really does. It won’t last... and if I rely on this kind of comfort, it will yield less and less each time... but it’s real while it lasts.

That’s why critiques of consumerism (including my own) are so often off the mark. We try to convince people to let go of a fleeting but real source of happiness, and what do we put into their empty hands?

Often nothing at all.

We may offer alternatives like “putting family first” or “enjoying family togetherness,” but these are abstract statements. In order to be meaningful, they have to be expressed in concrete actions.

Putting family first might mean skipping a friend’s Christmas party because your kid has a Lego League competition that day. Enjoying family togetherness might mean going to that party, or having a picnic at that Lego outing. The problem here is that as soon as we put these actions in the center, as a means of getting the happiness that we seek, they are sure to disappoint. If you are looking at your time with family as justifying the energy and attention of the holiday celebrations, then you’ll be calculating (consciously or unconsciously) whether you’re getting enough joy and cheer at any given moment. Family dinners rarely embody perfect joy and togetherness; they are usually either rather ordinary, or interwoven with tensions and personality conflicts. I’d like my holiday visits with family to be a “Family Joy Video Montage,” but in reality there are no edits, no smooth fades from one moment of cheer to another, and no background music to set the tone. Friendship is equally difficult to put in the center: what makes a friendship is the day to day connection, often mundane, sometimes difficult. We may not even recognize the “best of” moments when they’re happening.

If we put family, joy, and togetherness in the center of our expectations, then those expectations will inevitably be disappointed. No human being can hold up to the pressure of our desperate need for love, forgiveness, connection, and peace. I can speak from experience – when I am loaded with that burden, I am likely to crack, and lash out in frustration and anger. Not exactly what the Christmas specials promise.

Time alone isn’t necessarily the answer; if I am not at peace, then I will find my own company to be unsatisfactory.

When family, friends, and even solitude disappoint, shopping starts looking appealing again.

The little glow of pleasure from having something nice to wear, the satisfaction of being able to act and get a response right away, is real. And when the thrill wears off... the shoes will not be angry or disappointed with me. I can go shopping again.

And yet, and yet, we know that’s not the answer. As Christians, we try to get people to look further or deeper, but at what?

We cannot love the idea of Love, we cannot derive joy from the idea of Family.

We forget that Christmas is not a celebration of family, or togetherness, or love in the abstract.

Christmas celebrates the Incarnation of Our Lord. The Son of God took on flesh, took on a human nature, so that we might know him, not just know about him.

Christmas is not about the idea of family, but rather, about the most real family there is: God drawing us into the divine life of the Trinity, as adopted brothers and sisters of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the face of human loneliness and need, we can offer nothing ourselves. Let us remember that. But we can point to the Son of God, who took on a human body, rose in that same human body, and remains Incarnate, now and forever.

I cannot turn to Christ as an abstract idea, or a set of propositions. I can only turn to him as a Person. I encounter him when I read Scripture and know that, somehow, in the power of the Spirit, the words he speaks in Scripture are words to me, today. I encounter him in private prayer when, setting aside my awkwardness and embarrassment, I speak to him directly as one who knows me better than anyone else. I encounter him in the presence of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and especially when we pray together in his Name. Most deeply, I encounter him directly in the Eucharist, in the physical elements of the consecrated bread and wine. One day I will encounter him face to face.

And so, in the end, Christ is the only one who can bring all our needs together and meet them in himself. Christ himself, not merely as a symbol of Christmas festivity, not as a set of ideas about how we should live, but Christ encountered as the living Person who he is.

The shepherds and the Magi did not just acknowledge the idea of the Incarnate Lord; they came into his presence and knelt before him. They did not simply think good thoughts about him, but they honored the King of all creation by laying gifts before him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

In this season of Advent, may we reflect on our own need, and look forward to the celebration of God’s gift to us, the gift of His Son – not an idea, but a Person. May we come to know him ever more fully and deeply, and may all that we do, and all that we say, and all that we are, point beyond ourselves to him, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Network of Consumerism

Daniel Hodge — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 11:48:35 -0800

On this day saturated in the praise, worship, and deification of consumerism, I thought it be good to reflect on an old film that gets at the heart of where a society is embedded. When California is at a 22% unemployment rate (that figured factored by looking at the state average of unemployed plus those whose unemployment benefits have run out, those who have worked multiple jobs who do not have unemployment insurance, those are considered “discouraged” workers, and those who are small business owners who do not “show up” on the economic map), a national average of at least 15% unemployment (same equation used above, but we’re not considering those who are also too sick and or incapable of working due to mental illness), and an economy that does not seem to be “restarting” as quick as the propagandized pundits would hope, you would think that people would think twice about buying that iPad or X-Box. Yet, people have been camping out for the last week just to get “50%” off of something that was marked up to begin with.

Moreover, much of society has become increasingly selfish and self-centered as it relates to actual sharing and the spreading of wealth. Folks see the “poor” as lazy, ineffectual and a scourge on societal resources; of course until they themselves end up there, which seems to be happening more frequently these days.

We seem to capitulate to the insanity of spending more while numbing ourselves with the material goods of our day; only to need the next hit once the “second edition” is revealed. Now, I make no bones about me being a consumer as well. However, over the last few years my family and I have had a chance to step back and look at some of our spending habits in contrast of our love for people. As I have stated prior, our society and American Dream has become less about “life” and more about the love of things and the use of people; rather than the other way around.

This clip below is from the 1976 film Network. In an almost prophetic voice, the clip illustrates where our culture has gotten in relation to consumerism, materialism, and the dis-enlightenment of the American mind. As Neal Postman has articulated eloquently we as a society have “Amused ourselves to death.”

Thus, as we sit back and reflect on food, family, and friends, let us also begin to peer deeper into the habits of our American mind in relation to community and those who “have not.”

Could the iPhone be Fueling a War in Africa?

Carrie Nye — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:25:54 -0700

NY Times journalist, Nicholas D. Kristof, wrote an article published in today’s paper he titled Death by Gadget. It’s a timely article in light of the release of the latest iPhone. Would you believe that by purchasing the iPhone and most electronics, for that matter, you might be funding one of the deadliest wars in history?

Kristof has this to say about the conflict in Congo:

I’ve never reported on a war more barbaric than Congo’s, and it haunts me. In Congo, I’ve seen women who have been mutilated, children who have been forced to eat their parents’ flesh, girls who have been subjected to rapes that destroyed their insides. Warlords finance their predations in part through the sale of mineral ore containing tantalum, tungsten, tin and gold. For example, tantalum from Congo is used to make electrical capacitors that go into phones, computers and gaming devices.

To read the entire article click here .
Kristof, offers a brief insight into just how serious this conflict in Eastern Congo really is:

A word of background: Eastern Congo is the site of the most lethal conflict since World War II, and is widely described as the rape capital of the world. The war had claimed 5.4 million deaths as of April 2007, with the toll mounting by 45,000 a month, according to a study by the International Rescue Committee.

Watch this video to see Kristof in Congo.

The Congo is considered the worst place in the world to be born into. Girls are raised knowing they will be raped. Boys are raised to be violent and to trust no one. Forty-five thousand deaths in a 30 day time period is mind blowing. That is 1500 people a day.

But the Congo is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from those of us in the United States. Should their problems really be our concern? Can we really do anything to stop the chaos that Congolese men, women and children struggle to survive in everyday while we're here in America or in any other country for that matter?

What if we stopped buying electronics containing the conflict minerals, tantalum, tungsten, tin and gold? Could we save lives? Could we stop a war simply by not purchasing electronics? What if the people of the free world used their voice, their freedom to vote and their consumer power to end a war? Can it be done? Should it be done?

There are plenty of activists groups who are working tirelessly to bring the electronics companies dirty little secret into the light and allow the consumer to vote and make a statement via their purchases. One such group produced the video shown here.

I don’t want to knock the iPhone and I surely don’t judge people for their electronics purchases. In fact, I own a Blackberry and I am watching "one of the most dramatic seasons of the Bachelorette" on a giant flat screen TV right now. I am impressed by the technology of today and the creativity it took to produce it.

But I have to ask myself, are the advantages of our electronics worth a life in Congo? I know my answer to that question, but I want to hear what you think about all this. Is it the consumers responsibility to ensure what we are purchasing was not made at the expense of another? Or is it someone else’s problem like the companies in the electronic industry? Should we be concerned with lives of people we know nothing about?

I traveled to the Congo in 2003 and I can tell you that I encountered some Congolese who are not happy with Americans and white people in general. Their anger is deeply rooted in history and is understandable. Should this concern us? Is it our problem?

As you can see, I have a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. But I’d really like to hear what your thoughts are on this. Thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio’s, Blood Diamond, some exposure was made into the jewelry industry, but what will it take for people to see the damage that our cell phones and WII’s are causing?

Kristof ends his article with a profound statement that I’ll use to end this blog:

We may be able to undercut some of the world’s most brutal militias simply by making it clear to electronics manufacturers that we don’t want our beloved gadgets to enrich sadistic gunmen. No phone or tablet computer can be considered “cool” if it may be helping perpetuate one of the most brutal wars on the planet.

By the way, if you haven't seem Blood Diamond, you might want to add it to your Netflix Queue.

Scratching Where They Itch?

Brett McCracken — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:07:05 -0700

One of the most troubling things I see when I look at contemporary Christianity is the mentality that the church should fashion itself according to the needs and wants of the “audience.” It’s an idea that grew out of the evangelical church growth and seeker movements and is practically an epidemic today. Almost every evangelical church these days is to some extent thinking in terms of what the audience wants and how churches can provide them with a desirable product. It’s unseemly, to be sure, but it’s just a symptom of the consumerist culture we live in. Presumably, it’s how things must be done. Whatever else you might say about a product you’re trying to sell, the one thing you know for sure is this: the audience is sovereign.

But of course, the question the church must reckon with is this: is Christianity a “product” we must sell? Looking at the language many pastors and Christian leaders use today, it certainly sounds like it. In Pop Goes the Church, Tim Stevens argues that effective churches are those that identify the needs of their audience, speak their language and “scratch where they itch.” In Branding Faith, Phil Cooke says that the church needs to “start thinking in reverse,” by focusing on the audience rather than the message and realizing that “it’s not the message you send, it’s the message that’s received that counts.”

Cooke also says this: “Pastors, Christian leaders and broadcasters always thought they had the answers to what their audience wanted and, more important, the audience would listen. Today the audience is in charge. In a virtually unlimited channel universe, the audience has more choices than ever before, and for us to justify their attention, we need to get on their wavelength.”

Indeed, it may be true that people have more choices than ever before and that Christianity is competing for increasingly depleted pockets of attention, but I hardly think the answer to this dilemma is to start with the conceit that “the audience is in charge.” Especially for Christians, it should be clear that the audience is not and should not be sovereign! The audience consists of broken, depraved, n’er do well sinners. God is sovereign. He comes first, not the audience’s idea of what they want God to be or what they want from religion.

The problem with the “audience is sovereign” approach is that audiences rarely want what is really in their best interest. Giving audiences what they want might make a company money, but it rarely satisfies the audience in the long run. And it hardly ever edifies their soul. Furthermore, in terms of Christianity, what the audience “wants” has very little bearing on what Christianity actually is. In a market economy, consumer needs are those that consumers identify for themselves. But as David Wells points out in The Courage to be Protestant, “the needs sinners have are needs God identifies for us, and the way we see our needs is rather different from the way he sees them… The product we will seek naturally will not be the gospel.”

To “scratch were they itch,” then, seems like a futile pursuit for a church trying to win converts to the Gospel. People are itching for a lot of things, and some of them might actually add up to what the gospel of Christ offers, but at the end of the day the gospel is defined outside of and with little regard to whatever it is people think Christianity is or should be.

The logic of consumerism is that people want what they want and get what they want, for a price. It’s all about ME—the brands I buy, the products I consume, the “gimme more” mindset of never having to wait long to have any desire fulfilled.

I’m not sure there are any circumstances under which Christianity fits comfortably into this paradigm.

To position the Gospel within this consumerist framework is to open the door to all sorts of distortions, mutations, and “to each his own” cockamamie variations. If it’s all about selling a message that scratches a pluralism of itches, how in the world will a cohesive, orthodox, unified gospel survive?

In his article “Jesus is not a Brand” in Christianity Today, Tyler Wigg-Stevenson raises the warning that by adopting a marketing mindset, the church “will subtly contort the gospel into mere personal fulfillment,” focusing only on the benefits of becoming a Christian and presenting a message “not fundamentally different from commercial advertising about the existential benefits of this car or that soap.” And this sort of “what can the church do for me?” mindset is completely contrary to living a God-centered, neighbor-focused life.

To conceive of Christian identity in terms of consumer satisfaction is the wrong way for the church. We cannot let ourselves—or our message—be form-fit to the fickle demands and fluctuating interests of the market.

As Wells puts it: “Relevance is not about incorporating something else as definitive in the life of the church, be it the hottest marketing trend, the latest demographic, the newest study on depression, what a younger generation thinks, Starbucks, or contemporary music. None of these is definitive. None should be allowed a defining role in how the church is strengthened and nourished.”

There are a lot of things that scratch were the average person itches. Things like aspirin, coffee, reality TV, cookies, cigarettes, sleep, sex, and orange juice. To place Christianity in that category of just “one among many” desires that people might have is to do it a monumental injustice. Christianity transcends all that. It is much bigger and above all earthly whims, fads, desires and emotional cravings. If we think we can “sell” it best on the terms of the consumer, we are gravely mistaken.

The Season of Prom Frenzy and Why This Year Was Different

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:35:21 -0700

Boys usually get only two cracks at attending their high school prom, and girls not much more. I, on the other hand, am one of the few people who have finally lost count. I started my prom run as a nervous Texas teenager in a hoop skirt before I was promoted to student teacher at the water table in a tiny high school in Missouri. Since then I’ve been the chaperone with the flashlight, the door checker, the dress code enforcer, the clean-up crew, the impromptu romance counselor, the freak dancing monitor, the restroom attendant, and ticket-taker.

My memories of each one are shaped by the themed photo backdrop created in the fantasy-driven imaginations of an eleventh grade committee: the NYC skyline, a jungle tiki room, an English garden, the red carpet at the Oscars, a Paris boulevard, and even a ghastly pumpkin carriage made of light blue crepe paper, presumably waiting for a bootleg Cinderella.

Teenagers are still ripening, and prom showcases the way that human beings morph into adults practically overnight. The boys who flop into my classroom desks on Friday become grown men in shiny shoes a day later. Ashley and Carmen, two average girls in sweatpants, can drop some serious coin at the salon and frighten their fathers with their gorgeous updos and strapless dresses.

I always tell my students the same thing year after year. Don’t let the anticipation kill the event. Like Jay Gatsby, I tell them, you will build up the night in your head until it cannot possibly live up to its billing. But still, all over America teenage girls are waking up Sundays at noon and wondering what all the fuss was about.

This year, I was determined to harness some of that raw enthusiasm and put it to better use. With eighty-one juniors in my Advanced Placement English class, I made a proposal: let’s do a little research and see if we can’t turn an American tradition into something more worthwhile than limo rides and awkward dancing. We discovered that teenagers spend about four billion dollars every year on an event that rarely lives up to its hype. We discovered that consumerism might not equal happiness. We discovered the word promenade sounds a lot like Prom-n-Aid. We researched different charities and figured that while we were getting an education why not try to raise money for others to do the same?

We got into groups according to our gifts—graphic design, public speaking, performing, video production, journalism, technology—and we formed a nonprofit organization on our campus. Our goal? Encouraging studentsand their dates to give up one luxury item and donate it to our cause. Some girls gave each other manicures, borrowed dresses, made their own corsages, and went without new earrings. Some dates skipped the awkward dinner reservations and found creative ways to enjoy a meal together. There was even an idea for a Prom-n-Aid Limousine, an old van with a crummy sound system strung with lame party lights designed to transport couples back and forth.

I learned that if you give kids a little nudge, they will push over all the dominoes themselves. Of course, it wasn’t always smooth. We disagreed on logos and slogans (“Give it up for prom this year!”) and some talents went unused. You can’t convince everyone (like the girl who famously bought a $300 pair of heels in Beverly Hills for the occasion), and some people still thought we were a little crazy.

As a public school teacher, my spiritual influence has its limits. I cannot share why, explicitly, my heart has been changed over the years by Jesus Christ, why I’m motivated to do more than push papers around. They might simply guess I was a good-deed-doer or hoping to get a commendation in my employee file, but I hope not. Prom-n-Aid, for me, was not simply about volunteerism or fundraising, but about letting God’s love leak out in new places—even public schools. Where will God’s love leak out of you today?

Capitalism and his Girlfriend Original Sin: Let’s Just Say It’s Complicated

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:44:20 -0700

This is a re-post of a former essay. Let's just say I liked it when I wrote it the first time, and I still do. It forced me to articulate new thoughts, which is exactly why I love to write. So, here it goes to the top of the rotation.

If you follow ConversantLife somewhat regularly, you’ll notice a trend lately toward anti-consumerism (including some of my own posts). It seems the right thing to be—a lover of God and humanity more than a lover of things, a Christ follower who chooses abstracts like love and peace over crass commercial objects. I’ve been feeling the vibe myself. Christians, you know, can be very anti-establishment when it suits us.

All the talk of philanthropy and anti-consumerism has gotten me thinking. I’m sure lots of other people have thought about these things longer than I have. I’ll bet I could find a hundred books debating the virtues and vices of capitalism. I am not a student of economics, so pardon any embarrassing gaps in my understanding, but here’s a simple layman’s exploration.

I am struggling with the link between greed and capitalism. What would happen if all the corporate moneygrubbers converted this year and everyone became a philanthropist? Truth is, most of the things that I enjoy in my home were made by companies whose founders, at some point, were hungry for a profit. What man finds meaning and pleasure in manufacturing toilet paper or aluminum siding, for example, just for the joy of it? So, if God wants all of us to share, conserve, reduce, and give away, what would become of America? Someone else’s greed has enabled me the freedom to live humbly or to live extravagantly. Thus is the thorny way of capitalism.

Now this leads me other things that give me a headache. What if every family in America was sincerely convicted to withhold its money from the Big Box retail conglomerates and give it away to noble foreign causes? No doubt, the Targets and Best Buys and Wal-Marts would collapse, leaving many manufacturers to fire their employees. Ah, but there’s the catch, for if man’s heart were pure around the world, then noble capitalists wouldn’t need to pay out to war torn countries in the first place. Nor would I give away my old clothes to the homeless, for under God’s principles, the complex conditions leading to homelessness wouldn’t exist.

And what if all the abortion clinics suddenly adopted God’s view of the sanctity of life? If we would reverse every abortion in American this year, imagine the economic impact all those children (many of them in situations of poverty and dysfunction) would have on our culture? But there we go again, for if we were really doing things God’s way, then many of those desperate children wouldn’t have been desperate in the first place (nor even conceived in an unhallowed place, for that matter) . . . and so goes our endless rewind. Every charitable act is predicated on the sin that required it. If that doesn’t blow your mind, read that sentence again.

And now, my head throbbing tonight, I realize that sin seems to be part of the American Dream, and I’m having trouble with that. I’m a product of this centuries-old year national experiment, finding value and comfort in a world with good roads and clean water and entertainment and a sturdy paycheck and light bulbs that go on and off on command. Profit and innovation and greed and curiosity and convenience and narcissism and sin get so mixed up together that I can’t figure out how to get to the beginning of the string. So when I say a sweet prayer with my kids at night that goes something like “Thank you, God, for blessing us with a warm house and food to eat,” it’s starting to feel positively weird. Should I not pray instead, “Thank you, God, that American self-absorption and corporate greed paved the way to our comfort”?

The more I unravel this ball of yarn, the more confused I become. The what-ifs are keeping me awake, and I keep going back and back and back to the beginning of the problem, trying to figure out God’s purposes. And you know where I end up?

The Garden of Eden.

That’s the only place where all the bohemian dreams and political hopes can hope to thrive, and I’m afraid we already missed that train. I understand a little better why hippies wanted to shut out all the capitalist noise, and why human beings dream up utopian societies. We’re all trying to get back to the Garden of Eden, if you ask me.

Perhaps capitalism is the best we’ve got in a fallen world. You may complain that nothing on the ideological menu looks very good to you, including democracy and its free enterprise system, but the alternatives--such as dictatatorship, poverty, injustice, and civil war--will give you food poisoning. The same system that allows us to squash the little guy and over-consume also allows us to love our fellow man. Sin might be part of the human equation, but with Jesus’ help, I’m doing my darndest to make it not so.

It’s complicated and I’m sure somebody’s got a book title they can recommend. But I’m an essayist, and it’s my job to get in and get out for the sake of time and space. In a phrase, original sin always gets us into trouble and God’s grace always gets us out. Tonight, that’s good enough for me.

Simons in the Pews

Manuel Luz — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:41:44 -0800

Hair fashionably mussed, a soul patch beneath his lower lip, the Singer steps onto the small stage and eyes the small audience seated before him. A man in a dark T-shirt impatiently eyes the Singer. Pen fidgeting in his mouth, he inquires tersely, "Okay, what do you have for us today?"

The Singer takes a deep breath before answering. "Well, I'd like to start out with 'Not to Us' by Chris Tomlin."

"Okay," the man responds without emotion. "Good luck."

Apprehensive, jittery, nonplused, the Singer takes a step forward. And with all that he has, and all that he is, he opens his mouth. And sings.

"Not to us, but to Your name be the glory," he proclaims. "Not to us, but to Your name..." he repeats, each time with greater conviction. The certainty of his beliefs seem to steady his voice, and he digs into the phrase deeper. Taking a deep breath, he readies himself for the first verse.

"I'm sorry," another man in the group interrupts bluntly. "I think I've heard enough."

"You have a very nice voice," the woman beside him advances, trying not to sound condescending. "And I really like your look. But I'm afraid it's...well, it's just not good enough."

"Yes, thank you very much," the first man concludes. The verdict is sudden and final. The group will not be listening to the Singer any more.

No, this isn't a scene from American Idol. This is a scene from a typical Sunday morning worship experience. Every Sunday, our increasingly consumeristic congregations take their specific wants and desires and preferences into church services and rate them: Song selection, quality of the worship leader's voice, how loud or how fast the songs are, how much the band rocked, even the appearance of the worship leader. Our congregations have become Simons (as in Simon Cowell) in the pews.

And that consumeristic mindset spills into the entire Sunday experience: how big (or small) the church is, the length and content of the sermon, how many people greeted them that morning, what ministries does the church offer, how long the service lasts. And in their self-evaluations, they ask the "me" questions: Do I like this? Does this meet my needs? Does this make me happy?

They have bought into the lie that the church—the bride of Christ and the hope of the world—is simply a purveyer of religious goods and services. And as it is for all good consumers, it is our right to have our needs met, even as it relates to the things of God. And so they vote, mostly with their attendance, but also with their giving, and in other ways as well.

The biggest problem in my mind is not that people take their highly-honed and highly-personal consumeristic expectations and apply them to the church. It is that they do this—and they don't see anything wrong with it. They have forgotten that to be a Christian is not to be a consumer, but to be a disciple. And the two are diametrically opposed in so many ways.

As a worship leader and pastor, I find that our Simonized culture becomes an increasing distraction on a Sunday morning. And because of that, we as church leaders must strongly resist the ever-increasing forces that prompt us to feed the Simons in our pews.

I don't see my job as pleasing people; it is helping people please God. My job is not to compete with the church down the street; it is to unite with them to make a difference in our community. My job is not to meet people's consumeristic desires, but to call people to be disciples of Christ—you know, to love your neighbor, to put others before yourself, to live in a such a way that one's preferences are merely interesting diversions on the way toward dying to self.

I meet regularly with a group of worship pastors and leaders in my local area. (If you are a worship leader, I strongly urge you to start meeting regularly with your local peers.) We share ideas, pray for one another, try to help one another through the various struggles of doing ministry in the twenty-first century. I take no delight in knowing that my church is larger than my friend's church down the street. I get no pleasure in knowing that our congregants church shop among us. But I do delight in seeing the church act like the Church, in worship and ministry and life.

Do you have something to add? Please let me know about it.

The Culture Industry of Christmas

Daniel Hodge — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:31:40 -0800

As I sit here reflecting on this past Christmas, the Holiday season, the days leading up to Christmas, family, friends, and our society, I also reflect on the past year, the mistakes, the accomplishments, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I am reminded that the culture industry of Christmas is a machine that gets going long before December 25th. I am also reminded that Christmas, at least here in the States, has taken on a commercial form that is trumped by little to nothing. I am even further reminded that the culture industry of Christmas has globalized itself and turned a Holiday that is supposed to be about a spiritual connection to Christ, family, religious traditions, humanity, and people in general more into cultural mores focused around buying, spending money we don’t have, getting that “good deal,” consuming products we don’t need, and waking up at ungodly hours to get a toaster oven for $4.99. Are we all consumed with just buying as a society? Where did the spirituality go? Yes, I’m sure that the praise and worship music blared through the speakers at Wal Mart gets us in the “mood” for Christmas and the blatant manger scenes at our local churches give us reflection on the “reason for the season.” I’m also sure that the once-a-year- giving spirit causes us to feel good about ourselves when we acknowledge the homeless person on the corner and give her/ him a couple of dollars because “Jesus would have done so.”

Now, am I some pessimistic, narcissist who hates the Holiday season? No. Of course not. But our society has turned the Christmas season into quite the buying frenzy followed with the guilt-ridden mantra of having to lose all that weight and get out of debt in the New Year, which most fail after the first 30 days anyways. I love the Christmas season. It gives my family and I time to reflect, connect, and prepare for the New Year ahead. It is also a time to see friends and get that “cozy” feeling that we have all come to love around this time of year. No, no, I love this season. But, I’m troubled when I see fights, people getting trampled, cars getting scratched, and even people getting shot over the tickle me Elmo doll—or whatever “must have gift” craze is dominating the buying frenzy that year.

This year we didn’t really do gifts. My wife and I bought a tree, decorated it, and Mahalia was happy with the boxes and fuzz that came in the boxes. Before you go and feel sorry for us or judge us for not celebrating Christmas “the right way” with our little one, let me tell you: this year we were really forced to “trim down” our spending—like so many other Americans in this economic recession. Money has not been our friend this year and work is even harder to come by—thus, no gifts. However, what it forced us to do was to refocus back on the real “reason for the season”: Christ, family, friends, good times, and memories that will last a lifetime. And guess what, it was really good!

Not having money was a real worldview shifter and gave us some perspective on where our priorities really lie. It also helped us to enjoy each other as people and to reflect on what Christ has done in our lives over the last year. This doesn’t mean I’m hating on anyone who went out and got that 60 inch plasma with the Bose sound system—no, no. Go on with ya bad self. Hell, I can’t lie and say I don’t want that at some level. But in the end, we came to realize just what the culture industry of Christmas has done to our own perception and social understanding of this Holiday season.

The great social critic and philosopher Theodor Adorno defined a culture industry that, “…involves the production of works for the reproduction and mass consumption, thereby organizing ‘free’ time, the remnant domain of freedom under capital in accordance with the same principles of exchange and equivalence that reign in the sphere of production outside leisure, presents culture as the realization of the right of all to the gratification of desire while in reality continuing the negative integration of society” (The Culture Industry [1991: Blackwell Publishing] p.4). Adorno was concerned with looking at how hyper-consumption actually degraded us and turned us into blind consumers with a focused groupthink only to buy and consume for sole gratification. Adorno had it right in many ways, he asserted that “under capitalism all production is for the market; goods are produced not in order to meet human needs and desires, but for the sake of profit, for the sake of acquiring further capital” (The Culture Industry pp.5-6).

We have, in essence, a capitalistic market that operates, as Naomi Klein has reminded us (Anti Globalist and author of No Logo), as a crack addict, seeking its next hit and feeding. No other “season” demonstrates this better than the Christmas season here in the States. Moreover, with more U.S. citizens going into debt and living beyond their means, what does this mean for our future? Does this make us venerable to a different type of “terrorist” attack?

The culture industry of Christmas gets to me. It really didn’t hit me until my economic back was pressed against the wall this year. Our little girl was fine this Christmas year; she never knew the difference; she had one of the best Christmas’ ever with grandma in town. My wife had a great time as her and I had a chance to catch up on the year, our life, our marriage, and where we go in the New Year. It was great because I didn’t have to fight crowds, look for the “best parking spot” at the mall, and I spent time with the family and with good friends. Can this keep up every year though? What will happen once we do get some capital and income? I don’t know. But I do know that I want to continue this trend and focus less on the pure consumption of material just for the sake of consumption.

Because as Adorno posits, “The mass culture…absorbs the truth content and expends itself in the material but all it has left as material is itself” (The Culture Industry p. 65).

Celebrate The Day

Jim Farmer — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:53:26 -0800

One of my responsibilities as a blogger is to start dialogue and conversation on controversial topics. In order to effectively set up these conversations, it is important that I remain truthful, open, and honest. In that spirit, I have a two confessions to make. Here’s the first: I am a choir boy.

When I was in elementary school, my music teacher, Mrs. Neidringhaus (who, coincidentally, just became my Facebook friend last week), suggested I join a local professional boys choir, The All American Boys Chorus. Lured by the promise of international travel and missed school days, I auditioned. I was never really a singer before that moment, but that started a new journey for me as a chorister.

I continued singing after my voice changed at my high school, college, and now, even my workplace. (My one singing regret - telling people that I lettered in choir in high school. Good thing that secret hasn’t gotten out! Oh, wait, people are actually reading this thing? Crap.)

So, here’s my second confession: I start listening to Christmas music on November 1st.

I know what you’re thinking - “Geez, Jim, that’s only the day after Halloween!” or “You’re the reason our malls and stores feel justified putting out Christmas displays in August!”.

I actually blame my early Christmas music habit on being a chorister. Understandably, the holidays are a busy time for most choirs - with a whole catalog of Christmas songs to learn. So, most groups I sang in began practicing Christmas carols in the months of August and September. By the time November rolled around, I was ready to get a jump on the Christmas music scene in full force, since it had already been hiding in the background of my life for two months!

This early exposure to Christmas music comes at a high cost though - Christmas music numbness. I sang many songs proclaiming the birth of Christ and His impact on us in many secular choirs for many years. Before I was a Christian, even. And the familiarity of those songs has watered down the message and impact the words should have on my soul. I’ll listen to “O Holy Night” and admire the pretty tune, but completely ignore how the song beautifully lays out the awe-inspiring worship of our new Savior - and the “chains he shall break”. “Silent Night” is reduced to a simple lullaby - sung in the peacefulness of a winter evening, instead of towards an infant Christ, lying in the manger, in complete admiration.

The thing is, many of us feel the same way, whether we grew up singing in choirs or not. Christmas is so commercialized, so pervasive, it’s easy for the message of Christ’s birth to be lost in any number of ways. It is important to realize our apathy towards Christmas - and work to find ways to counteract that tendency in our spirit.

There are many ways to counteract our Christmas apathy. Focusing on volunteerism, focusing on the amount of quality time spent with friends and family instead of the quantity of gifts, and creating space to pray and reflect. Donating to various non-profits is also a great way to give the spirit of the season. In fact, to read more about how to “Give Christmas Away”, check out fellow ConversantLife blogger, Carrie Ngangang’s post on the topic here.

For me, this issue started with Christmas music, so it’s fitting that I have gravitated to a Christmas song to counteract my own apathy. I stumbled across a modern song, "Celebrate The Day", written and performed by Relient K. Since it’s not a standard carol, the words don’t have to fight through centuries of variation and overuse - allowing the true message to shine through. When this song comes up on my iPod, I’ve made a point to listen to it twice. The first time is to let the truth and beauty of the words truly sink in. The second time is to sing along myself as an act of worship. (To hear the song check them out over at www.imeem.com.)

The true reason for Christmas can be summarized in this lyric, sung towards the end of the song:

And I, I celebrate the day

That You were born to die

So I could one day pray for You to save my life

We're not just celebrating winter, or gifts, or even the birth of a cute baby. No, we're celebrating the beginning of a life that conquers death so we can be reconciled with God, the Father, who created us.

Listening to this song is just one way I can cling to the beauty and meaning of this season. What are some other ideas out there for fighting through the apathy of Christmas?