tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054707203818412735.post1667613096195058598..comments2023-10-14T06:15:17.500-04:00Comments on Holy Skin and Bone: Wor(l)d and SacramentKevin Corcoranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17422789329481787215noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054707203818412735.post-33983715425481359902008-07-13T23:11:00.000-04:002008-07-13T23:11:00.000-04:00Ted and Stephen,Thanks for the input! To start, S...Ted and Stephen,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the input! To start, Stephen, I think we begin w/what Ted says about self-examination, what consumes our time, energy, thought-life? And, as Ted suggests, the practices/sacraments of the world are "ordinarily" quite contrary to those of the kingdom.<BR/><BR/>So, to speak to your worries, Stephen, I think it is fundamentally an issue having to do with the right ordering of our affections. There's nothing wrong w/an ipod (I have one b/c, as you know, I LOVE music) or a car or a television or what have you. So, the issue is not the stuff as such. The issue is the rituals and liturgies built around them by the economic empire, if you will. Consumerism, as I understand it, is the entire system of stuff and the practices the empire uses to enslave us to them, to move us to find our identity in possession, in consumption. <BR/><BR/>And they do this by manipulating, massaging and exaggerating very human emotions, like fear, longing, loneliness, emptiness, desires for connection, happiness, etc. The machine, I believe, functions a lot like the old time tent revivals where the preacher manipulated the emotions of the attendees, eliciting feelings of guilt, fear, emptiness etc. and then presented the solution, the answer, the balm to heal their empty souls. The machinery of consumerism functions the very same way, I think. Nothing wrong with those very human emotions; but, as Augustine taught us so long ago, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.<BR/><BR/>My thinking is that even those of us who take seriously our identity in Christ but who live under a regime of consumerism can find ourselves, quite against our wills btw, having our characters formed more by the alien rituals of the regime than by the rituals and sacraments of Gods kingdom.Kevin Corcoranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17422789329481787215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054707203818412735.post-38482506035433948642008-07-13T16:26:00.000-04:002008-07-13T16:26:00.000-04:00Kevin,Help me with a word. What is the definition...Kevin,<BR/><BR/>Help me with a word. What is the definition of consumerism? I know it is a word thrown around Calvin often and I know the SJC crowd sure doesn't like it, but I am not really sure what it is and I suspect a lot of people who decry it don't really know what it is either. I ask, because I think it is related to your post. I think you may have defined it, or touched upon it, when you wrote, <BR/><BR/>'In any case, we ought not fool ourselves. The life of consumption is, at bottom, a spiritual quest. It emerges out of the same restlessness and longing that are part of our created nature, and that drive us toward others, and God. Consuming may be a misguided quest, but it is a spiritual quest all the same.'<BR/><BR/>I think that is probably close to what we could call consumerism, making one's life meaningful by filling it with material things. I wonder; if this is true, do we decry the desire for material possessions, or do we decry the view that those material possessions are meaningful in their own right, are religious? While I would certainly condemn the latter, I (and most, I think) am not so quick to condemn the former. As Aquinas would say, so long as our desires are rightly ordered, with the highest and truest desire being friendship with God, we are allowed to desire things, physical things. In fact, sometimes our humanity is preserved by our things. In the first chapter of Rob Bell's, 'Sex God,' he recounts a story from World War II. British troops had liberated a concentration camp and were waiting for food stuffs to arrive in order to feed the prisoners. As the first trucks came to drop off supplies the only items found within the crates were vials of lipstick. Initially outraged, the British troops soon saw the genius of the delivery. The women in the camp were allowed to be beautiful again. They were allowed to make themselves up. They were allowed to be human, something which had been withheld from them from the moment they stepped foot inside the death camp. No compassionate human being, I think, should condemn these women for wanting to feel beautiful, something which is profoundly physical, material. <BR/><BR/>This last school year I taught a certain student whose life was in shambles. Without going into too much detail, his life was made a bit more comfortable every day because of his iPod. Amidst the turmoil of his home life, he could put his headphones on and leave the mess behind him for 20 minutes. He did not worship his iPod (perhaps the poster child product of consumerism), but he needed it to make sense in chaos, to protect himself from the world, and I can't imagine that God sees this as misplaced. <BR/><BR/>Why do I write this? Because, I think the easy answer to your question (the one many would be tempted to use) is that we as the church need to rise above the temptation to fall for such things. We must disavow the religion of culture. While I don't entirely disagree with that claim, I think it is largely both naive and harmful. Our society thinks and acts in the way that it does, because it is sick, hurting, and longing. When a sick man medicates himself with the wrong medication, you don't preach to him or shun his actions, you love him, and help him to proper recovery. I am not sure how we as the church can do this, but I don't think that an immediate reaction to contemporary culture is the answer. Of course, I don't think you are supposing that we ought to react in this way, but I was around Calvin long enough to know that this is the answer many would offer and it has always struck me as misguided.Stephen Kroghhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10000165989213732857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1054707203818412735.post-35697558878440489602008-07-13T14:13:00.000-04:002008-07-13T14:13:00.000-04:00Kevin,Interesting post, as always.I think we have ...Kevin,<BR/>Interesting post, as always.<BR/><BR/>I think we have to stop and examine just what we're all about. Why do we think and act in the ways we do? What consumes our time, and why?<BR/><BR/>If it's too much, or at all the value systems of this world, such as "get more and spend more", then we need to confess it as sin. And seek to get our value system in line with the Way of Jesus and in communion with the Body.<BR/><BR/>And we need to seek to do so as in process, since it will be an unlearning as well as relearning, for us. And we need to be well aware that this is a need for all of us. Even for those of us who are substantially living by the Word and Sacrament. We still have the world rubbing off on us, and its sacraments, as well. The two seem ordinarily to me, quite contrary.Ted M. Gossardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10580691315315271791noreply@blogger.com