PATTERN RECOGNITION
"Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson, is a sci-fi set in 2003, which only underscores the fact that we are living in the future today. It's really not a sci-fi, although Gibson is immortalized for writing "Neuromancer" which predated the Internet and, if you read it today for the first time, you would think he ripped off "The Matrix"...until you looked at the publication date and realized that he wrote his book a good ten years before Keanu ever said "Whoa".
It's funny to me how a good book, in this case a great book, can influence your way of seeing the world and moving through space. The book's protaganist has a gift for sensing "Cool". She is hyper-sensitive to marketing and is psychologically offended by logos and advertising, which is why she can sense the "next big thing" before it crests the horizon. Her sensitivity to brands and iconographic advertising has made me more aware of how enslaved we all are to marketing. Branding is pervasive. You cannot stand anywhere without being marketed to. You cannot wear anything without being told, on the outside as well as on the tag, who made it and that it is "Cool" to have one.
The character in this book is so oversensitized to logos that she clips the tags and removes the logo from her clothing, her glasses, her watch, her shoes, her computer, etc. It almost made me want to do the same.
It approaches something called by Richard Foster, "The Discipline of Simplicity". I believe there is an inherent human desire for simplicity, and yet at the same time a hunger for something beyond ourselves. Marketers (and I am one of them) take advantage of the human desire for something beyond ourselves and twist that into a desire for a product that will fill that emptiness. This is why television commercials and glossy magazine ads suggest, or even overtly declare, that owning or using the product in question will make you popular, or fulfilled, or beautiful, or complete in some way that you are now aware that you are not.
It's easy to say that one desire is of the flesh and one desire of the Spirit. I know I've talked that way in the past myself, but now I think this is wrong. I believe that the desire for simplicity is a desire of the soul, and the desire for something beyond ourselves is also a desire of the human soul. Both are "of the Spirit" or Spiritual desires because this is what makes all of us Human.
Marketing plays one of these desires against the other. We are told we can fill our empty places with stuff, and so we try to do that, while at the same time our desire for simplicity disappears beneath a mound of receipts and boxes of junk in our garage.
There is a point, and I believe it is early on, when the things we own begin to own us. Once this happens, we are hooked and we continuously create mental shopping lists of things that we want or need or desire. I do this. You do this.
What if we could silence the coarse whisper for "more"? What if we could close our eyes and strain to hear that faint echo for "Less" instead?
A friend of mine used to regularly "De-Accumulate" his life. He would come to work with a box of goodies he had decided he no longer needed and start passing them out as gifts for his co-workers. I have a lot of cool stuff in my garage that I inherited from him this way.
I think the concept of "De-Accumulation" is a good one, but maybe we could modify it a bit? Maybe we could find people who really need what we don't need? Maybe no one really needs our junk? Maybe we could stop buying and start sharing?
These thoughts have lingered on the fringes of my brain for years now. When we moved into this house about a year and a half ago, as I was moving box after box of my junk into a storage unit, I found myself apologizing for the obscene amount of garbage I had acquired. My friends all told me to stop apologizing.
I remember taking a sweep of the orange and white storage farm we were in the middle of and realizing that, in our society, we all own so much junk we have to pay someone to keep it for us in the event that we ever need it. There is a multi-billion dollar industry built around the American acquisition sensibility. Do they have these things in India or Africa, I wondered? Probably a few, I thought, but I'm sure we Americans have more, as usual.
How has the shopping mall replaced the cathedral? How have we allowed the pursuit of happiness to become an endless hunt for more objects and gadgets and trinkets and adornment? Maybe it was when the Church started entertaining us? Maybe it was when we realized that people would buy products created just for Christians? I'm not sure of the timeline, but I do know that we are now living in a Pop Christian Consumerist Culture and I want off the merry-go-round.
Maybe I'm recognizing a pattern too? Maybe the character in Gibson's book is helping me to see something that's been there all along?
Either way, it's worth exploring.
Time for my second cup of coffee.
Peace,
kg
**Orignally posted August, 2007
Showing posts with label consumerism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consumerism. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
MILTON GLASER: THE TRUTH
*Note: The following article was written by Milton Glaser and appeared in the AIG publication: "The Truth Issue". I have reproduced it here without permission. Mainly because I could not find it anywhere else online and because I wanted to share it with all of you.
Some of you know that my day job is in the field of marketing and advertising. I work as a copywriter and penning headlines, taglines, corporate advertising slogans and compelling editorial copy is what I do to put food on my table.
In this world of advertising and marketing, Milton Glaser is something of a legend. All you need to know about him is that he invented the "I (heart) NY" graphic which has since become synonymous with the city of New York. He's a genius. He's also something of a philosopher of advertising (if you can imagine such a thing) and at times his articles and interviews even take on issues of ethics and conscience - something sorely lacking in most marketing firms around the globe.
Because of this, I reprint this article by Milton Glaser on something quite rare for this field: The Truth.
See if you find any parallels to modern culture or christianity.
-kg
**
Subject: MILTON GLASER: THE TRUTH
I went to Las Vegas for the first time to participate in the AIGA conference. I was booked at the Venetian – a hotel whose vast vistas of painted, cloud-filled skies had required the skills of more mural painters than had ever existed in Venice during the entire 15th century.
On my first day at the hotel, I noticed a sign that said, “Grand Canal.” I asked the concierge at the reception desk where it was. “One flight up,” she said. The earth reeled beneath my feet. A canal one flight up; what a concept.
The canal was, in fact, upstairs, complete with gondola and gondolier who would cheerfully take you around a bend to the Piazza San Marco. Later that same day, the hotels plubming broke down, and suddenly the entire ground floor began to smell like Venice on a warm day. I actually found myself wondering whether the hotel had planned it. Is there such a thing as virtual smell?
On the Dallas leg of the flight from Las Vegas after the AIGA conference, the hostess entered the aisle with a vigorously steaming tray of hot towels. I noticed that a wine glass filled with water was the source of the steam.
“What is that?” I asked the hostess, pointing to the glass.
“Dry ice and water,” she replied.
“Is that for drama?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
Even to a dormant mind, a trip to Las Vegas inevitably raises the question, “What is real?” and, by inference, “What is truth?”
Obviously, “What is truth?” is one of humankind’s most persistent questions, but it seems ever more insistent at this moment than at any other time. What can it mean when a freezing glass of dry ice is used to simulate a steaming towel on a plane trip? Can this modest deception benefit either the airline or its passengers? Where was the decision made to do it? In the boardroom? In the advertising agency? On the flight itself? Does the airline believe that the drama of the steaming towels will suggest a policy of concerned service? What happens to the customer in the last row of the plane when he is handed a cold towel while the tray above his head is steaming madly? Doe he doubt his own nervous system? What makes me uncomfortable with all of this? Why do I believe that harm is being done? All of which leads us in a convoluted way to the question of professional ethics.
“How can we tell the truth?” can be thought of as two separate questions. The first part asks why we believe what we believe; the second, where ethical questions begin, involves our responsibility to others.
One must start with the presumption that telling the truth is important for human survival, but at this moment of relativism and virtuality, I’m not sure how many would agree on what truth is or how important it is in our private and professional lives.
But we must begin somewhere. The question becomes a professional one, because as designers or communicators (the preferred current description), we are constantly informing the public, transmitting information and affecting the beliefs and values of others. Should telling the truth be a fundamental requirement of this role? Is there a difference between telling the truth to your wife and family and telling the truth to a general public? What is the difference?
In a profession that defines itself by effectively persuading others, it’s impossible to consider our work outside the context of advertising, an activity that is so fundamental to our economy and so pervasively influential that it may have informed our idea of what truth is, more than any other single thing.
We drown in the sea of relentless persuasion that we help create as well as receive. There are now ads under our feet in supermarkets. I opened a fortune cookie the other night and found that an advertisement for an e-commerce company had replaced my fortune. (I am not kidding!) And some weeks ago, we were informed that the pauses in Rush Limbaugh’s talk show had been electronically eliminated to gain six more advertising messages per hour. All these messages intend to sell rather than inform, and tend to distort or modify the truth in ways that we can no longer see. Our brains and sense of truth cannot be unaffected by this onslaught.
For years, I have struggled with the question of whether the designers, by virtue of their positions as communicators, should have more ethical responsibility than the average citizen. Perhaps a better questions would be, “Should they have less?”
**
ABOUT MILTON GLASER – Creator of the iconic “I Heart NY” image, Milton Glaser helped revive illustration in the 1960’s when photography was thought to have swept the field. After studying at the High School of Music & Art, then Cooper Union in New York, Glaser studied etching in Bologna with the painter Giorgio Morandi.
Find out more at:
MILTONGLASER.COM
Some of you know that my day job is in the field of marketing and advertising. I work as a copywriter and penning headlines, taglines, corporate advertising slogans and compelling editorial copy is what I do to put food on my table.
In this world of advertising and marketing, Milton Glaser is something of a legend. All you need to know about him is that he invented the "I (heart) NY" graphic which has since become synonymous with the city of New York. He's a genius. He's also something of a philosopher of advertising (if you can imagine such a thing) and at times his articles and interviews even take on issues of ethics and conscience - something sorely lacking in most marketing firms around the globe.
Because of this, I reprint this article by Milton Glaser on something quite rare for this field: The Truth.
See if you find any parallels to modern culture or christianity.
-kg
**
Subject: MILTON GLASER: THE TRUTH
I went to Las Vegas for the first time to participate in the AIGA conference. I was booked at the Venetian – a hotel whose vast vistas of painted, cloud-filled skies had required the skills of more mural painters than had ever existed in Venice during the entire 15th century.
On my first day at the hotel, I noticed a sign that said, “Grand Canal.” I asked the concierge at the reception desk where it was. “One flight up,” she said. The earth reeled beneath my feet. A canal one flight up; what a concept.
The canal was, in fact, upstairs, complete with gondola and gondolier who would cheerfully take you around a bend to the Piazza San Marco. Later that same day, the hotels plubming broke down, and suddenly the entire ground floor began to smell like Venice on a warm day. I actually found myself wondering whether the hotel had planned it. Is there such a thing as virtual smell?
On the Dallas leg of the flight from Las Vegas after the AIGA conference, the hostess entered the aisle with a vigorously steaming tray of hot towels. I noticed that a wine glass filled with water was the source of the steam.
“What is that?” I asked the hostess, pointing to the glass.
“Dry ice and water,” she replied.
“Is that for drama?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
Even to a dormant mind, a trip to Las Vegas inevitably raises the question, “What is real?” and, by inference, “What is truth?”
Obviously, “What is truth?” is one of humankind’s most persistent questions, but it seems ever more insistent at this moment than at any other time. What can it mean when a freezing glass of dry ice is used to simulate a steaming towel on a plane trip? Can this modest deception benefit either the airline or its passengers? Where was the decision made to do it? In the boardroom? In the advertising agency? On the flight itself? Does the airline believe that the drama of the steaming towels will suggest a policy of concerned service? What happens to the customer in the last row of the plane when he is handed a cold towel while the tray above his head is steaming madly? Doe he doubt his own nervous system? What makes me uncomfortable with all of this? Why do I believe that harm is being done? All of which leads us in a convoluted way to the question of professional ethics.
“How can we tell the truth?” can be thought of as two separate questions. The first part asks why we believe what we believe; the second, where ethical questions begin, involves our responsibility to others.
One must start with the presumption that telling the truth is important for human survival, but at this moment of relativism and virtuality, I’m not sure how many would agree on what truth is or how important it is in our private and professional lives.
But we must begin somewhere. The question becomes a professional one, because as designers or communicators (the preferred current description), we are constantly informing the public, transmitting information and affecting the beliefs and values of others. Should telling the truth be a fundamental requirement of this role? Is there a difference between telling the truth to your wife and family and telling the truth to a general public? What is the difference?
In a profession that defines itself by effectively persuading others, it’s impossible to consider our work outside the context of advertising, an activity that is so fundamental to our economy and so pervasively influential that it may have informed our idea of what truth is, more than any other single thing.
We drown in the sea of relentless persuasion that we help create as well as receive. There are now ads under our feet in supermarkets. I opened a fortune cookie the other night and found that an advertisement for an e-commerce company had replaced my fortune. (I am not kidding!) And some weeks ago, we were informed that the pauses in Rush Limbaugh’s talk show had been electronically eliminated to gain six more advertising messages per hour. All these messages intend to sell rather than inform, and tend to distort or modify the truth in ways that we can no longer see. Our brains and sense of truth cannot be unaffected by this onslaught.
For years, I have struggled with the question of whether the designers, by virtue of their positions as communicators, should have more ethical responsibility than the average citizen. Perhaps a better questions would be, “Should they have less?”
**
ABOUT MILTON GLASER – Creator of the iconic “I Heart NY” image, Milton Glaser helped revive illustration in the 1960’s when photography was thought to have swept the field. After studying at the High School of Music & Art, then Cooper Union in New York, Glaser studied etching in Bologna with the painter Giorgio Morandi.
Find out more at:
MILTONGLASER.COM
Monday, November 23, 2009
RE-POST: CONSUMPTION, EXPRESSION, IDENTITY
By Keith Giles
As a society, we are conditioned to find our identity in what we own or purchase. As Christians, we are conditioned to express our faith through the sanctified products we purchase, own or consume. This is the perversion of Christ into Capitalism and an expression of faith through consumption of products. It is wrong.
A good friend sent me an article he found that provided an intriguing historical perspective on our evolution from artisans to consumers. I've pulled out the quotes I found most fascinating below:
"A Short History of Consumption
With the rise of the Industrial Revolution, the relationship between people and the goods that they made was broken. No longer did peasants plant, tend, and harvest their crops; now agricultural workers labored over someone else’s crops in exchange for wages. No longer did artisans design, plan, craft, and sell; now factory workers repeatedly carried out a single step in the production of a product, again in exchange for wages."
"In short, people were no longer producers, they were now consumers."
"Our identities were no longer tied up with the work we did, but with the buying power our work left us with."
"So people found their identities not in their work but in the things they could buy by working."
"People became consumers, not just in the way they got what they needed but in who they felt themselves to be."
"Unlike the artisan who could express his or her identity through the things s/he created, we have learned to do so through the things we buy"
*Full article HERE
**
The entire article is mainly looking at consumption from an environmental impact perspective, but the points made about our lifelong indoctrination to consumerism as a society are very eye-opening to me. Especially in light of the ongoing series of articles I've been writing lately regarding the evils of the Christian Subculture over on my weekly e-newsletter [Subversive Underground].
Here's what I think we need to understand, as followers of Jesus, regarding the observations made in this article above.
CONSUMPTION IS SELF-EXPRESSION
We, as a society, have made consuming and purchasing products part of our identity structure. This is why people will fork out $30 for a t-shirt with some corporate logo and walk around as a billboard for them, not because they love that company or product, not because of their loyalty to the brand, but because they think that logo makes THEM look cool. It says something about them, and so they willingly become walking advertising...and they PAY for the privilege. Amazing.
CHRISTIAN IDENTITY
Honestly, this really does help me to formulate a clear picture of what's going on in the Christian subculture. We're finding our identity as "Christians" in the products we purchase. These products brand us and identify us as a subset of people. Instead of finding our identity in Christ by the way we relate to Him daily, obey His teachings, and emulate His example of service and unconditional love, we now identify ourselves as Christians by our t-shirts, bumper stickers, books and CD collections.
ARTISTS AND CONSUMPTION/IDENTITY/EXPRESSION
It's also fascinating how this shift in our society stems from the devaluing of artisans in our culture. People now express themselves by what they own or purchase more than by what they create with their hands or their imaginations. Artists within our society are influenced by this consumerist identity structure. Artists of faith are compelled to create art that can be sold, or that conforms to the acceptable Christian marketplace. Art in this context is devoid of pure self-expression, unless that expression conforms to the acceptable branding and messaging of the sacred market.
More from the article:
"The rise of consumption as our primary interaction with the rest of our society has had profound effects. For example, social status is obtained and marked by the things we buy and use. A car, for instance, is not just a way to get from one place to another but has to “say something” about who we are — and even the lack of a car says volumes. Unlike the artisan who could express his or her identity through the things s/he created, we have learned to do so through the things we buy: the t-shirt with the logo of our band or team, the bamboo towels that show our environmental commitments, the alternative album that shows off our indie cred, the designer shoes that place us as part of the trend-setting elite, the minivan that shows us to be part of the dependable, hard-working, family-oriented suburban middle class, and so on."
SUBCULTURE AND IDENTITY
The Christian Subculture has a market. That market embraces a brand. That brand has a message connected to it. That message serves the market and encourages ongoing participation in that market. It means providing reasons to continue purchasing these products day after day and week after week. The market serves itself. It exists to keep itself in business.
The Christian Subculture provides an oasis made of soothing products that help us escape from the Big Bad World that is "Out There". It's a sacred version of "Calgon-Take Me Away!" only our message is more pervasive. It's not just one soothing bath to calm our fears of being trapped in a world of sin, it's music and movies and clothing and books and toys and key chains and license plate frames and decals and candy and pens and pretty much every conceivable object and piece of product that can ever be branded with our message. It's nearly a complete world unto itself, and it's exactly what Jesus prayed to God would never happen to us. (see John 17:15)
THE CART THAT PULLS THE HORSE
I'm not against art or music or expressions of faith. Most of my favorite musicians are believers and their music contains references to our Lord and to faith in Him. Many of my friends are Artists who paint and sculpt and create art to communicate a Kingdom reality. The issue is not that creating art or any sincere expression of devotion to Christ is wrong. What is evil is the marketplace we've created to showcase product. In the beginning the market existed to serve the Art, now the Art exists to serve the marketplace. We have lost focus. Making money is now the main objective. Evangelism or edification or worship is secondary at best, if considered at all.
During my six years in the Christian Music Industry I slowly began to realize the sickness of it all. At first I saw the industry as a way to spread the Gospel and to provide a voice for talented musicians of faith. But soon I realized that it didn't matter if your music ministry was responsible for leading thousands to Christ each year. What mattered was record sales. If your CD's weren't selling at least 20,000 units per sales cycle you'd be dropped from the label in a heartbeat. It was, after all, a Record BUSINESS, and like every business making money and selling product is the very bottom line. Ministry is incidental, and sadly only useful in the context of marketing the product to your target audience, in order to drive more sales.
Like the money-changers in front of the Temple that Jesus chased away with a whip, the original idea was a good one; To provide animals for sacrifice so that people could enter the Temple and participate in the worship of God. However, when money got in the way the original vision was corrupted and the Temple became a marketplace which obscured access for the common man and made a mockery of real worship. The same is true today.
BACK TO JESUS
The tension still remains between the clear command of our Lord to "Go into all the world.." and a subculture that bears His Name, yet encourages a full retreat from the World and identifies membership based on purchasing the acceptable, branded product. The product carries a message that we should fear those outside of our group. It encourages non-involvement with the culture. It makes minimizing contact with those outside the subculture a preferable reality.
If Jesus modeled radical inclusion and commanded us to be known by our love for everyone, especially those who hate us, and a subculture emerges with His Name on it that encourages us to be radically exclusive and creates behavior by which we are known for our intolerance, hatred and condemnation of those outside our group, we must make a choice. Do we choose Jesus or do we choose the man-made subculture with his Name on it?
I choose Jesus.
If Jesus clearly teaches something, and another organization or person teaches the exact opposite we call that "Anti-Christ". To me it's plainly obvious that the Christian Subculture is "Anti-Christ" because it contradicts His message of inclusion, involvement and meaningful relationships with sinners.
I've said it before and I say it again; "Death to the Christian Subculture!"
BRINGING A CHANGE
Where can we fashion a whip and drive out the money-changers from the Temple? It's difficult because we now deal with this on a massive scale. Participation in this market-driven Christian Subculture is pervasive and intangible. There is no physical structure to kick over. There is no clear method for applying the whip necessary to drive them out.
All we can really do is to begin, one person at a time, to disassociate ourselves with this subculture. Stop participating. Stop identifying yourself as a follower of Jesus based on your purchases. Stop pandering to what the Christian Marketplace finds acceptable and palatable. Make Jesus your single source of Truth. Ask God to show you where you have replaced a Jesus way of life with a carefully branded subculture way of life. Escape the false notions of "Sacred" and "Secular" and just start living, as a disciple of Jesus, in this World (the only World), right now.
I declare a personal War against the Christian Subculture.
kg
**
NOTE: Originally published here in October, 2007 and republished here for your edification.
As a society, we are conditioned to find our identity in what we own or purchase. As Christians, we are conditioned to express our faith through the sanctified products we purchase, own or consume. This is the perversion of Christ into Capitalism and an expression of faith through consumption of products. It is wrong.
A good friend sent me an article he found that provided an intriguing historical perspective on our evolution from artisans to consumers. I've pulled out the quotes I found most fascinating below:
"A Short History of Consumption
With the rise of the Industrial Revolution, the relationship between people and the goods that they made was broken. No longer did peasants plant, tend, and harvest their crops; now agricultural workers labored over someone else’s crops in exchange for wages. No longer did artisans design, plan, craft, and sell; now factory workers repeatedly carried out a single step in the production of a product, again in exchange for wages."
"In short, people were no longer producers, they were now consumers."
"Our identities were no longer tied up with the work we did, but with the buying power our work left us with."
"So people found their identities not in their work but in the things they could buy by working."
"People became consumers, not just in the way they got what they needed but in who they felt themselves to be."
"Unlike the artisan who could express his or her identity through the things s/he created, we have learned to do so through the things we buy"
*Full article HERE
**
The entire article is mainly looking at consumption from an environmental impact perspective, but the points made about our lifelong indoctrination to consumerism as a society are very eye-opening to me. Especially in light of the ongoing series of articles I've been writing lately regarding the evils of the Christian Subculture over on my weekly e-newsletter [Subversive Underground].
Here's what I think we need to understand, as followers of Jesus, regarding the observations made in this article above.
CONSUMPTION IS SELF-EXPRESSION
We, as a society, have made consuming and purchasing products part of our identity structure. This is why people will fork out $30 for a t-shirt with some corporate logo and walk around as a billboard for them, not because they love that company or product, not because of their loyalty to the brand, but because they think that logo makes THEM look cool. It says something about them, and so they willingly become walking advertising...and they PAY for the privilege. Amazing.
CHRISTIAN IDENTITY
Honestly, this really does help me to formulate a clear picture of what's going on in the Christian subculture. We're finding our identity as "Christians" in the products we purchase. These products brand us and identify us as a subset of people. Instead of finding our identity in Christ by the way we relate to Him daily, obey His teachings, and emulate His example of service and unconditional love, we now identify ourselves as Christians by our t-shirts, bumper stickers, books and CD collections.
ARTISTS AND CONSUMPTION/IDENTITY/EXPRESSION
It's also fascinating how this shift in our society stems from the devaluing of artisans in our culture. People now express themselves by what they own or purchase more than by what they create with their hands or their imaginations. Artists within our society are influenced by this consumerist identity structure. Artists of faith are compelled to create art that can be sold, or that conforms to the acceptable Christian marketplace. Art in this context is devoid of pure self-expression, unless that expression conforms to the acceptable branding and messaging of the sacred market.
More from the article:
"The rise of consumption as our primary interaction with the rest of our society has had profound effects. For example, social status is obtained and marked by the things we buy and use. A car, for instance, is not just a way to get from one place to another but has to “say something” about who we are — and even the lack of a car says volumes. Unlike the artisan who could express his or her identity through the things s/he created, we have learned to do so through the things we buy: the t-shirt with the logo of our band or team, the bamboo towels that show our environmental commitments, the alternative album that shows off our indie cred, the designer shoes that place us as part of the trend-setting elite, the minivan that shows us to be part of the dependable, hard-working, family-oriented suburban middle class, and so on."
SUBCULTURE AND IDENTITY
The Christian Subculture has a market. That market embraces a brand. That brand has a message connected to it. That message serves the market and encourages ongoing participation in that market. It means providing reasons to continue purchasing these products day after day and week after week. The market serves itself. It exists to keep itself in business.
The Christian Subculture provides an oasis made of soothing products that help us escape from the Big Bad World that is "Out There". It's a sacred version of "Calgon-Take Me Away!" only our message is more pervasive. It's not just one soothing bath to calm our fears of being trapped in a world of sin, it's music and movies and clothing and books and toys and key chains and license plate frames and decals and candy and pens and pretty much every conceivable object and piece of product that can ever be branded with our message. It's nearly a complete world unto itself, and it's exactly what Jesus prayed to God would never happen to us. (see John 17:15)
THE CART THAT PULLS THE HORSE
I'm not against art or music or expressions of faith. Most of my favorite musicians are believers and their music contains references to our Lord and to faith in Him. Many of my friends are Artists who paint and sculpt and create art to communicate a Kingdom reality. The issue is not that creating art or any sincere expression of devotion to Christ is wrong. What is evil is the marketplace we've created to showcase product. In the beginning the market existed to serve the Art, now the Art exists to serve the marketplace. We have lost focus. Making money is now the main objective. Evangelism or edification or worship is secondary at best, if considered at all.
During my six years in the Christian Music Industry I slowly began to realize the sickness of it all. At first I saw the industry as a way to spread the Gospel and to provide a voice for talented musicians of faith. But soon I realized that it didn't matter if your music ministry was responsible for leading thousands to Christ each year. What mattered was record sales. If your CD's weren't selling at least 20,000 units per sales cycle you'd be dropped from the label in a heartbeat. It was, after all, a Record BUSINESS, and like every business making money and selling product is the very bottom line. Ministry is incidental, and sadly only useful in the context of marketing the product to your target audience, in order to drive more sales.
Like the money-changers in front of the Temple that Jesus chased away with a whip, the original idea was a good one; To provide animals for sacrifice so that people could enter the Temple and participate in the worship of God. However, when money got in the way the original vision was corrupted and the Temple became a marketplace which obscured access for the common man and made a mockery of real worship. The same is true today.
BACK TO JESUS
The tension still remains between the clear command of our Lord to "Go into all the world.." and a subculture that bears His Name, yet encourages a full retreat from the World and identifies membership based on purchasing the acceptable, branded product. The product carries a message that we should fear those outside of our group. It encourages non-involvement with the culture. It makes minimizing contact with those outside the subculture a preferable reality.
If Jesus modeled radical inclusion and commanded us to be known by our love for everyone, especially those who hate us, and a subculture emerges with His Name on it that encourages us to be radically exclusive and creates behavior by which we are known for our intolerance, hatred and condemnation of those outside our group, we must make a choice. Do we choose Jesus or do we choose the man-made subculture with his Name on it?
I choose Jesus.
If Jesus clearly teaches something, and another organization or person teaches the exact opposite we call that "Anti-Christ". To me it's plainly obvious that the Christian Subculture is "Anti-Christ" because it contradicts His message of inclusion, involvement and meaningful relationships with sinners.
I've said it before and I say it again; "Death to the Christian Subculture!"
BRINGING A CHANGE
Where can we fashion a whip and drive out the money-changers from the Temple? It's difficult because we now deal with this on a massive scale. Participation in this market-driven Christian Subculture is pervasive and intangible. There is no physical structure to kick over. There is no clear method for applying the whip necessary to drive them out.
All we can really do is to begin, one person at a time, to disassociate ourselves with this subculture. Stop participating. Stop identifying yourself as a follower of Jesus based on your purchases. Stop pandering to what the Christian Marketplace finds acceptable and palatable. Make Jesus your single source of Truth. Ask God to show you where you have replaced a Jesus way of life with a carefully branded subculture way of life. Escape the false notions of "Sacred" and "Secular" and just start living, as a disciple of Jesus, in this World (the only World), right now.
I declare a personal War against the Christian Subculture.
kg
**
NOTE: Originally published here in October, 2007 and republished here for your edification.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Undercover Christian
Fascinating story on NPR about a young Brown University student who went undercover at Liberty University in order to better understand Evangelical Christians.
The article is full of amazing insight and irony. One of my favorite observations by the author was this:
"Roose, the product of the "ultimate, secular, liberal upbringing," got the idea to go undercover after meeting a group of Liberty students while a freshman at Brown. "I had never really come into contact with conservative Christian culture," he says. "It became clear very quickly that we had almost no way to communicate with each other."
How can it be that we have no way to communicate with other human beings? Why do they have to learn our Christianese and participate in our brand of Christian consumerism before they can understand us?
Can you imagine a first century pagan having to do all of this just to find a way to communicate with followers of Jesus in Jerusalem?
This is part of why I want to destroy the Christian Subculture. It puts us on an island away from the people we are commanded to love and serve.
Read the full article (and the insightful comments below it)
HERE
The article is full of amazing insight and irony. One of my favorite observations by the author was this:
"Roose, the product of the "ultimate, secular, liberal upbringing," got the idea to go undercover after meeting a group of Liberty students while a freshman at Brown. "I had never really come into contact with conservative Christian culture," he says. "It became clear very quickly that we had almost no way to communicate with each other."
How can it be that we have no way to communicate with other human beings? Why do they have to learn our Christianese and participate in our brand of Christian consumerism before they can understand us?
Can you imagine a first century pagan having to do all of this just to find a way to communicate with followers of Jesus in Jerusalem?
This is part of why I want to destroy the Christian Subculture. It puts us on an island away from the people we are commanded to love and serve.
Read the full article (and the insightful comments below it)
HERE
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