Consuming Religion

I decided to reread a book from my seminary days called “Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture.” To be honest, I don’t remember much about the content of the book, but I can make a good guess of the overall thesis. We live in a consumer society and everything we do, including our faith, is influenced by this worldview. We can notice it, we can condemn it, we can decide to “not play” but the reality is, a consuming culture is part of us simply due to the nature of being born and growing to adulthood in American. The most idealized literal born again Jesus believers are American consumers as are the most progressive non-literal Jesus followers. My simply saying this emulates that we bring our consumer mentality to our faith. We decide to buy into or “consume” the Jesus we like the best. We can take this logic all the way through Christianity to individual congregations way of “doing church” including its liturgy or lack thereof, whether “I” like the pastor and the way “I” feel upon leaving worship, its methods of mission or lack thereof, its educational practices from teaching that the Bible is the “literal Word of God” to teaching the Bible is a book of myths, stories etc all to be read through a historical context. I could go on. The point is we “consume” the Christianity we like the best. I am sure that “out there” somewhere someone has made a list of what we can do to move away from a consuming religion (my book may even offer me one), but my hunch is it is one more methodology for consumption, which leaves us with a predicament. How do we answer the most innate desire for a sense of spirituality without becoming consumers? We don’t. We will continue to “buy into” the brand of spirituality, whether faith tradition or secular, that feeds our souls. Let those who have ears, hear.