Consumerism is shaping us more than our faith is.

I have been increasingly convinced that we are needing to face the forces that shape us in new ways.

This is not a new thought. I wrote a few years ago that I had a strong sense that it was time for the Christian church to face the forces that had shaped it, based on a Winston Churchill quote that has challenged me ever since I heard it:

“We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.”

This Sunday I am preparing to talk about the dominant worldview that is shaping those of us in the Western world: Consumerism.

Author William T. Cavanaugh says:

Consumer culture is one of the most powerful systems of formation in the contemporary world, arguably more powerful than Christianity.

If he is right then most of us have been shaped by consumerism in ways we are not even conscious of, and that shaping has had a huge impact on how we think about what the church is meant to be. Theologian and Old Testament scholar Walter Bruggeman agrees with Cavanaugh. He says:

The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or act.

Even if he is only half right I know my job as a pastor is to work out how consumerism has shaped both me and the church and find ways of naming how I, and we, can find a different way.

Consumerism is a concept that first appeared in the late 1950’s and is basically the idea that the goal of a healthy economy is the continual expansion of the consumption of goods and services.

So what is wrong with trying to continually increase consumption? Why has that shaped us so significantly?

As I have wrestled with these questions and read two very helpful books (The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani  and Being Consumed by William T. Cavenaugh) I have come to see that consumerism has shaped our thinking in at least five ways:

1. The biggest driver of the consumerist dynamic is a constant drive for “more” and a requires an ongoing dissatisfaction with our lives as they are.
2. We have come to see ourselves as individually sovereign choosers based primarily on our own identities rather than interpreting our decisions based on our place in a community.
3. We have come to value things based on what we can get from them or for them rather than recognising innate value. (commodification)
4. Products are disconnected in our minds from the means of their production and the context of that production. (alienation)
5. Because value has become determined subjectively rather than by the cost of production (commodification) and also because we don’t see the context of the production (alienation), we determine value based on brands rather than on the nature of things themselves. Author Douglas Atkin writes: “Brands are the new religion. They supply our modern metaphysics, imbuing the world with significance. Brands function as complete meaning systems.”

These five things have had a direct correlation on the way we think about church and faith.

1. The drive for “more” means that there is always a sense that we need to be finding new levels of spiritual experiences. As Skye Jethani says: ” The philosophy of spiritual formation through the consumption of external experiences creates worship junkies – Christians who leap from one mountaintop to another, one spiritual high to another, in search of a glory that does not fade. In response, churches and Christian conferences are driven to create ever-grander experiences and more elaborate productions to satisfy expectations.’
2. Our understanding of church has moved from corporate to individual. Churches provide a “service” and we become a consumer of that service provided by paid professionals rather than contributors to a family.
3. We value God and faith based on what we get out of Him and it (commodification) rather than understanding his innate value.
4. We disassociate God from the context of the whole story of scripture (alienation) and instead focus on little catchphrases and our own experiences so we end up serving a God we create in our own image.
5. “Christianity” has become a brand that we identify with rather than a whole worldview that shapes us. Because we have commodified and alienated God we can get away with fitting him into our busy lives rather than being conformed to his image or being in any way directed by him.

As you look at this list how do you respond? Do you think I’m close to right?

If I am then all of these basic assumptions that frame our approach to God and faith will need to be challenged and changed.

What do you think?