We are exploring the mDNA component -disciple-making or discipleship from Alan Hirsch forthcoming book and how it applies to Northern Community. The other posts in the mDNA series are here

The context of consumerism

There has been much written about the new context of the Western church. In 2003, the Uniting Church in Australia’s working task force on theology and discipleship presented a discussion paper called ‘Becoming Disciples. This paper identifies that this new context is defined by the fact that it is post-Christendom, post-denominational and post-modern. The post-Christendom element recognises that we no longer live in a time where church and society overlap. A good society citizen is no longer necessarily an active participant in the local church. Society is post-denominational in that people today have much less loyalty to denominations than previous generations. Today, people find churches based upon their needs and are not as concerned with denominational labels. The third trait of post-modernity encompasses a number of aspects of modern society such as the fact that institutional authority is not recognised as much as it once was, that “it works” is very important and people are hungry for spirituality, relationships and first hand experiences.

Our context is a challenging one. Due to the three traits above, church attendances have been steadily decreasing and many church people can often be heard wishing for the “good old days” when the church was at the centre of society and people were committed to the institution. We might wish to debate whether the church was healthy and furthering the cause of Jesus in these “good old days”. However, we live in a time that is different to the past and our urgent task and challenge is to form discipleship practices that do indeed makes disciples that are committed to the missio deo. The future of the church rests on this challenge.

To these challenges, Hirsch adds another – that of consumerism. He writes that:

…the major challenge to the viability of Christianity is not Buddhism with all its philosophical appeal to the western mind, nor is it Islam, with all the challenge that it poses to western culture. It is not the new age that poses such a threat: in fact, because there is a genuine search going on in new religious movements this can be an asset to us who are willing to share the Faith amidst the search. These are challenges to us no doubt, but I have come to believe that the major threat to the viability of our faith is that of consumerism. This is a far more heinous and insidious challenge to the gospel because in so many ways it infects each and every one of us.

Consumerism attempts to capture our very sense of identity and purpose. Advertisers target this sense of identity and worth in order that we will buy their products. Advertising strategies encourage us to purchase items in order that our lives will have greater meaning. Marketing is at times so focused on this sense of image and identity that it is not immediately apparent what product is being advertised. In the Christendom era, this role now played by consumerism was an aspect of the life of the church. It was the church that provided identity, meaning, purpose and community. These factors are now targeted by advertising. Hirsch quotes Mark Sayers as saying that “one of the most alluring religious appeals of consumerism is that it offers us a new immediacy, a living alternative to what Heaven has always stood for in the Judeo-Christian tradition – the fulfillment of all of our longings”.

The impact of consumerism is not just seen in advertising campaigns, or our desire to buy products, or even the appeal for the new immediacy. Its impact is also seen in the way people have come to see the church as a provider of religious goods and services. The many options and choices that are now part of our everyday life have given us a mentality that we can pick and choose the religious services that suit us.

The church growth movement expends a great deal of energy on improving the religious service to the point that it becomes more attractive (and therefore more consumable). Hirsch asserts that the church growth movement has adopted the shopping mall model where participation in church is ideally attractive and hassle free. There is also a warning here for the emerging church. We put energy into creating new worship environments that are essentially based around the goal of making them more attractive which may be appropriate as we contextualize the gospel into the post-modern world. However, the post-modern service also needs to counter the consumeristic culture with high commitment and discipleship of the ways of Jesus. This is where the challenge lies. Can we as a post-modern church, in the midst of a consumeristic culture and as leaders who are influenced by this very consumeristic agenda create new faith communities and disciple-making techniques that can carry the faith appropriately?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 8:56 pm by phil and is filed under mDNA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.