Yesterday I led a brief discussion on the Christian retail industry as part of a Christianity & Consumerism series for my small group at church. (The Christian reatil industry, for the purposes of our conversation, includes everything from Christian books and music to Christian T-shirts and candy. All told, the industry does an estimated $4.6 billion in annual sales.) In preparing for the discussion, I came across a few quotes and links that I thought you might find interesting:
- Author Andy Crouch on copying culture (from Culture Making, p. 69)–”Another … approach to unsatisfactory culture is to imitate it, replacing the offensive bits with more palatable ones. A subculture within American society might decide that the best solution to the desultory state of the film industry is to start their own movie industry, complete with producers, directors, writers, actors and even theaters, and create a kind of parallel film industry that will fix the apparent problems in mainstream cinema … But if [the new movies] were never shown in mainstream movie theaters–if, indeed, they were created and consumed entirely by members of a particular subculture–they would have no influence on the culture of mainstream movies at all … Imitative culture might provide a safe haven from the mainstream–but those who never encountered it would keep going to the movies just as they did before. When we copy culture within our own private enclaves, the culture at large remains unchanged.”
- Crouch on consumer culture (Culture Making, p. 95)–”Consumption is the posture of cultural denizens who simply take advantage of all that is offered up by the ever-busy purveyors of novelty, risk-free excitement and pain avoidance … Consumer culture teaches us to pay exquisite attention to our own preferences and desires … But while all of this involves care and work–we might even say “cultural engagement”–it never deviates from the core premise of consumer culture: we are most human when we are purchasing something someone else has made … Consumption, as a posture, is capitulation: letting the culture set the terms, assuming that the culture knows best and that even our deepest longings (for beauty, truth, love) and fears (of loneliness, loss, death) have some solution that fits comfortably within our culture’s horizons, if only we can afford to purchase it. “
- Rather than imitating culture and finding our identity in products, I suggest we heed Paul’s instruction to be imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1-14).
- Here’s a short video produced by ABC News about the Christian retail industry.
- Here’s a page of Q talks, all of which are great, but one of which is Chris Seay’s talk on consumerism.
- Here, for your edification, are some of the newest Christian T-shirts around, including a GEICO parody in which we’re assured that salvation through Christ is so easy that even a caveman could do it.
Just some food for thought on a Monday afternoon.