Religion in a Consumer Culture
What is consumerism and why have our most two recent Popes condemned it? I suppose if I had to define the term, I would do so in reference to the Old Testament idea of idolatry; placing the pursuit of something other than God as the primary end or guiding purpose to my life. In other words, we obvious need to buy consumer goods to survive (clothing, houses, computers for work, cellphones (or phones), etc.), yet when we purchase these products as ends in themselves, we risk turning them into idols and abusing their purpose. Of course, there is nothing intrinsically evil in the products themselves (although one could argue that consumerism does breed an economy wherein a disproportionate amount of resources are dedicated to the production of goods and services that provide no abiding value at all), but only in how their acquisition and/or use is pursued.
With regards to consumerism, however, I would argue that idolatry is only illustrative in the broadest of senses, in the same manner that gluttony might be as regards the acquisition and over-consumption of food stuffs. One aspect of consumerism’s evil would clearly have to focus on the degree to which pleasure and its attainment is used to support our current economic system. Anytime pleasure is inordinately stimulated, addiction is likely to follow. Accordingly, more and more resources of a consumer culture become mired in the pursuit of comfort and pleasure for its own sake. This is as true of our own budgets as it is of the nation’s.
More fundamentally evil, however, is what happens when a consumer mindset begins to be applied to people; that is, when people, or the services they provide, become commodities in themselves. This quickly leads to the morally dangerous position of objectifying the human person as a means rather than as an end in himself. This tendency is now epidemic throughout our society. Contracting to utilize the services of another is certainly acceptable; what is not, is believing that such a contract gives us a right to treat another with disrespect. This is never the case, for the good of the other must always be placed above the provision of the services we’ve contracted for. Money does not give us the right to view the other as an object for our consumption.
Yet, that is exactly where our culture is heading. How often do we advise our children to prepare and adapt themselves in order to fit into the greater economic structure wherein they will seek employment? In other words, they need to learn how to acquire skills, degrees, contacts, etc. of such and such a type in order to therefore be able to “market themselves” as consumer products. All of this is so normal now we might miss just how much we are teaching each other to view ourselves as objects for sale and use, rather than as human persons created in the image and likeness of God. It is no mistake that as our young people’s social skills continue to erode into a haze of social networking and text-speak, their ability to marry and raise families diminishes. In St. Therese Parish as of this writing, there are NO weddings scheduled for the foreseeable future and I can count on one hand the number of infant baptisms that have occurred here in the past year. Family life is falling off a cliff at precisely the same time that more and more young people are being ensnared by pornography. It is estimated that 70% of the number of young married men in any given congregation on Sunday struggle to some degree with pornographic use. There is no addiction more indicative of viewing others as objects than this.
Of course, as we sink deeper and deeper into this view of persons as products, how quickly does the Church begin to become, not a community of the faithful bound together in love, but rather a purveyor of religious services? Don’t like the homilies? Let’s find another church. Don’t like the parking, the donuts, the singing, the Mass times? Let go shopping for another community. Don’t like the Catholic fussiness about marriage, contraception or abortion? Let’s join another Church! Or religion! Or make our own! When the Church and our faith is viewed as a product, something disastrous occurs. We move from being the worshipper to being the one in charge. Once we become the leader, religion, including God, becomes something under our control; something we make and manipulate. And now we’re back to idolatry! Religion exists to change us into men and women in God’s image; not to be changed and molded into our own.
Fr. Stephen Geer
