Confronting Commercialism
Today, I was standing in line at a Bronx post office. Music from the radio filled the room serving to fill awkward silence and to cover over common complaints. Then, a commercial caught my attention. A church in Brooklyn was advertizing its Christmas Eve & New Year services.
One woman asked the other what her plans were for the holidays and proceeded to invite the other woman to a church service. Sounds good, right? But it goes on. The first woman mentioned the pastor and both agreed that the choir was "hot." They determined that they could fit the church service in and still make an anticipated party. The second one agreed to attend followed by the declaration from her friend, "You need all the prayers you can get!"
Does it bother me that she invited her friend to a church gathering? Of course not! I would celebrate that. What struck me was how this church ad was unlikely to be distinguishable from advertizements for Macy's, Disneyland, or Lite Beer. It was distinctly and unmistakably commercial. What broke my heart was the absence of Jesus, loving one another, the mission of God, social justice, life transformation, or the hope of resurrection. Okay, you might say Is this really so bad? I mean, you have to get 'em in the do, right? Yes, I might get 'em in the door (Of course I'm really interested in a much more missional -- less attractional -- perspective); however, but we have to ask: what sort of spirituality will this reproduce?
Merging Christianity with commercialism becomes something unrecognizable in light of the Gospel. We begin to ask, What does this do for me? Do I feel less guilty? Entertained? Am I inspired? (If the Jesus narrative doesn't inspire, then I don't know what to say!) Again, I think we are asking the wrong questions altogether. At the very heart of the Christian message is a call to something -- or rather Someone -- greater than ourselves. Some years ago Henry Blackaby helped us to rethink the question. And so did Roland Allen before him and Thomas a Kempis before him and so many others over the last two thousand years.
What is God up to, and how can I join Him? This is entirely different from our current worldview draped in commercialism. This sort of journey may call me to places that are new, uncomfortable, exciting, joyous, sometimes dangerous, or even... (this one's hard) unsuccessful. The catch is, it re-orientes our entire worldview. It moves us away from self-centered to a God-centered spirituality and away from self-satisfaction to God-glorification.
Heavenly Father,
Holy be Your name.
May your Kingdom come,
May your will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive others' sins.
And don't lead us into temptation, but protect us from the evil one.
The Kingdom, the glory, the honor is Yours alone, oh God.
-Jared
One woman asked the other what her plans were for the holidays and proceeded to invite the other woman to a church service. Sounds good, right? But it goes on. The first woman mentioned the pastor and both agreed that the choir was "hot." They determined that they could fit the church service in and still make an anticipated party. The second one agreed to attend followed by the declaration from her friend, "You need all the prayers you can get!"
Does it bother me that she invited her friend to a church gathering? Of course not! I would celebrate that. What struck me was how this church ad was unlikely to be distinguishable from advertizements for Macy's, Disneyland, or Lite Beer. It was distinctly and unmistakably commercial. What broke my heart was the absence of Jesus, loving one another, the mission of God, social justice, life transformation, or the hope of resurrection. Okay, you might say Is this really so bad? I mean, you have to get 'em in the do, right? Yes, I might get 'em in the door (Of course I'm really interested in a much more missional -- less attractional -- perspective); however, but we have to ask: what sort of spirituality will this reproduce?
Merging Christianity with commercialism becomes something unrecognizable in light of the Gospel. We begin to ask, What does this do for me? Do I feel less guilty? Entertained? Am I inspired? (If the Jesus narrative doesn't inspire, then I don't know what to say!) Again, I think we are asking the wrong questions altogether. At the very heart of the Christian message is a call to something -- or rather Someone -- greater than ourselves. Some years ago Henry Blackaby helped us to rethink the question. And so did Roland Allen before him and Thomas a Kempis before him and so many others over the last two thousand years.
What is God up to, and how can I join Him? This is entirely different from our current worldview draped in commercialism. This sort of journey may call me to places that are new, uncomfortable, exciting, joyous, sometimes dangerous, or even... (this one's hard) unsuccessful. The catch is, it re-orientes our entire worldview. It moves us away from self-centered to a God-centered spirituality and away from self-satisfaction to God-glorification.
Heavenly Father,
Holy be Your name.
May your Kingdom come,
May your will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive others' sins.
And don't lead us into temptation, but protect us from the evil one.
The Kingdom, the glory, the honor is Yours alone, oh God.
-Jared
posted by Jared | 1:06 PM
6 Comments:
May your knowledge and experience of the riches of God’s grace, abundantly lavished on us through the gift of His Son as our Savior and King, warm your souls and brighten your days through this holiday season. Merry Christmas! -bill
This is an area I've been exploring in depth the last few years. As a Christian and media professional (design, online web design & video production) I've long debated internally how to reconcile the "commercial" nature of my work and my role in the Church - and in the Kingdom at large.
I've learned a lot of skills that have helped us at PUMP - how to communicate our vision & what the Lord's doing in Portland; how to cast our vision in a language and cultural context that donors & supporters can rally behind; and make the arts more integrated with our ministry in a locally cultural way (i.e. urban/hip-hop culture).
I can see how the cart can get before the horse with media communication (such as your ad example, which to me has no real spiritual content). While I'm not ready to say that using commercial skills & tools are inherently damaging to the Gospel, I have to admit that it's my livelihood and look hard at my own motives.
I am very interested in how media can bring people together - in groups large or small - to experience the Gospel in person. I suppose a first-century analogy would be the letters of the NT (early blogs? =).
I want to think more on this topic. Thoughts from you? Questions for a media professional? awhitespace [at] gmail [dot]com.
oh - and consider disabling anonymous posting, or enable the CAPTCHA (the annoying type-the-letters-you-see thing). You're getting comment spam, which is as onerous as email spam is for us bloggers. Ping me if you have questions.
I appreciate your comments on commercialism. I just posted something similar a couple days ago. God bless
Allen,
I think that using your gifts for service in the Kingdom is very important. I wouldn't really distinguish between secular and sacred. We can work at professions for profit in a God-glorifying way as well as intentionally using our gifts/abilities in the context of our faith community & its particular calling.
I would venture to say that commercialism, materialism, etc. does not have to mean that we never use media. I do think that we need to address communication styles, organizational structures, etc. The medium is often the message. But again, we need to think out of the box. If a church has some gifted media moguls, celebrate their role. However, I would ask, 'Is media being used to promote professionalism over priesthood of all believers? Is it promoting passive participation as an audience or is it being used creatively to stimulate active participation?" There are numerous possibilities. But the core questions must not be ignored if we are to faithfully engage these issues. The details need to be worked out in each context.
Hope that's helpful.... and raises more good questions.
Yes - we postmoderns have nothing but questions!
" [Jared] ...is it being used creatively to stimulate active participation?"
I'm sure there's some good examples out there, but I have seen few. An engaging, Spirit-centered use of the visual arts have been either misused or marginalized (or purged entirely) from our religious heritage for so many centuries now, that it's hard to know where to begin.
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