Following Christ in a Consumer Society
Zeik, Michael
The Christian as radical fool FOLLOWING CHRIST IN A CONSUMER SOCIETY THE SPIRITUALITY OF CULTURAL RESISTANCE John Francis Kavanaugh Orbls, $6.95, 167 pp. Michael Zeik A COUSIN of mine recently...
...These are, in the author's terms: the "Commodity Form," and the "Personal Form...
...Well, look at it this way...
...After a thorough examination, the doctor came out and said to her, "Your daughter's sore throat will be o.k., but I found something else more serious...
...passion for equality and human dignity," as well as his "commitment to a change in unjust social orders," frequently shames the bland churchy thing into which Christianity so easily devolves...
...The doctor said, "Your daughter is still a virgin...
...the Commodity Form emphasizes external observation and description, measurement, and control...
...If you are a married person with children, who enjoys playing and talking to them...
...He sounded ominous...
...The mother braced herself for the dreaded six-letter word...
...It is a state-of-the-art book about idolatry - the insidious tyranny of it...
...But, the statues of Zeus and Apollo now securely consigned to our museums, what is the nature of twentieth century idolatry...
...Marx, he says, relentlessly pointed out that the most philosophical and economic worldviews contained a hidden premCould it be that there are economic conditions that foster the breaking of the ten commandments...
...it merely dismissed it as "quaint...
...Their idols are silver and gold," wrote the Psalmist...
...if you get along well with your wife or husband, and enjoy conversing, and going to bed...
...So, the author maintains, Marxists and Christians have something to learn from each other...
...They have mouths that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear . . . Their makers grow to be like them," Psalm 115 concludes, "and so do all who trust in them...
...For in a society which considers life-commitment impossible - or, if possible, undesirable - and which looks upon sacrifice and self-fulfillment as mutually exclusive, anyone entering into an enduring personal covenant is a radical...
...But this is not, exclusively, a book about marriage and sexuality...
...It is the absence of spirit...
...Does a given economic or social system inhibit personal commitment, prayer, or the sharing of our goods...
...When it came, it had, indeed, six letters - but the word was not cancer...
...John Francis Kavanaugh Following Christ in a Consumer Society ise which itself had to be subjected to questioning and criticism: the premise that men and women had no right to their own labor, that they were subservient to the market, that they were somehow slaves to their own products...
...I know that economists often make economy "mystical...
...More "deviant," really, than hip, communal sex which is as manipulative in its own way as the Madison Avenue establishment against which it rebels...
...Its author is as much poet as priest, as much sociologist as theologian...
...In answering such questions, we might more fully realize that there is nothing in the realm of the social, the political, or the economic which does not influence or is not influenced by the realm of the spirit...
...if you like to get together with your friends for conversation...
...Male and female, he created them in God's image...
...Look at the pitch of modern advertising...
...For it is becoming more and more the case that, by the standards of modern society, Christianity is at least deviant, and potentially subversive...
...if you enjoy nature, and walking outdoors as well...
...All of this is by way of a little background for John Kavanaugh's claim in this excellent, hard-hitting book, that anyone trying to live a Christian life today probably feels (and should feel) like a freak, like a shipwrecked Martian...
...and if you feel no hole in your life, fear not, Madison Avenue will dig one...
...And yet, he adds, the classanalysis and rigid ideological structure of Marxism fosters violence and a metaphysics of fear...
...A radical fool...
...While the latter proclaims the uniqueness, the irreplaceable value of the person (created in God's image), the former finds that person valuable only to the extent that he or she is "successful," productive, marketable...
...and if you also enjoy intervals of quiet and solitude, periods for reflection and prayer: of what use are you to the gross national product...
...Does, for example, chastity (broadly defined as the integration of one's sexuality with one's whole personhood and life-commitment) have any economic reverberations...
...the latter affirms competition and retaliation...
...The New York Times, one of the world's papers-of-record, is less blatant...
...Even marriage, as a permanent relationship, is rapidly become "counter-cultural...
...Adam...
...Sound far-fetched...
...and how, socially and individually, we might chop our way free...
...The Marxist (not Soviet...
...And we so judge even ourselves, when we are in a nasty mood...
...The first encourages covenant...
...Where the former would suggest sharing and forgiveness...
...Michael Zeik A COUSIN of mine recently took her teenage daughter to the doctor...
...He wants contemporary Christians to have a vivid realization of the interconnected-ness of culture, economy, and spirituality...
...But what you may or may not have guessed is how invaluable the author finds Marx for a Christian critique of idolatry and dehumanization...
...the second, non-commitment...
...we are very likely to go out and buy something...
...You get the picture...
...At the center of Marxism is a gaping hole...
...Thus it is the totality of Marx's critique that fascinates Kavanaugh...
...Is there a cultural bias against the living of lifelong vows...
...the Commodity Form questions "How...
...the human race...
...There is probably nothing in the so-called secular realm which does not influence (or is not influenced by) the realm of the spirit...
...If, on the other hand, we are unsure of ourselves and our relationships, find no contentment in our family or sex life, if we cannot stand being alone or even conversing quietly with friends...
...Alienation and discontent are good for business...
...Does chastity have apolitical impact...
...I congratulate Orbis for bringing out still another fine book...
...And in 1982, two great value systems compete for our total allegiance...
...Is marital fidelity a social force for justice...
...You haven't spent a nickel yet...
...Indeed, Kavanaugh feels that the atheistic Marxist analysis of society may prove as useful to modern Christian thinkers, as the pagan Aristotelian metaphysics once proved to Thomas Aquinas...
...If Christianity has a future, and I believe it has, it will surely be as a"counter-culture...
...Holes are for filling...
...Marx offers Christians what the writer calls a "Totalizing Critique...
...The Personal Form asks "Why...
...This excellent book (which I only minimally describe in the space allotted) hit me with the force of an intensive three-day retreat...
...but not in the same way as does Kavanaugh...
...In a recent editorial on the problem of rising illegitimacy, the Times did not condemn virginity as malignant...
...Only to that, I think, will our youth respond...
...The Personal Form stresses interiority, self-awareness, understanding and trust...
...Kavanaugh points out that the same Yahweh who forbids us to make any graven image of the Godhead, gave us one himself...
Vol. 109 • September 1982 • No. 15
