Incarnational or Commercialized?

How or where do we draw the line when it comes to presenting Jesus Christ to a culture -- the line between that which is incarnational and that which is commercialized?

There exists a growing disdain for the commercialization and commodification of the faith, and at the same time -- a growing desire for our faith to be incarnational. Perhaps it's just me, but I'm concerned that we may not know how to answer this question, and maybe we don't even care. But if we do care, then how can we tell if the gospel message has become too enculturated? Is such a thing even possible?

Comments

[Geoff Holsclaw]

i think this is the most pressing issue that the emerging church is facing (or not facing). We can't even speak of enculturation b/c in the West all 'culture' if prefabricated simulacra of something else which never existed. who's culture? which native?

and of course this leads back to the quesitons "what is the Gospel?" and "what is the Church?"

[Andii]

Pete Ward's book "Liquid Church" does a load of refelcting on this and related issues. Pete caused quite a stir a year or so before his book came out. He came to a chaplains' conference and did a seminar on the subject whcih was challenging. I think that he manages in the book to walk the line between selling out [!] to commercialism and incarnating into a commercial culture, but maybe not. It certainly seems to me that the kinds of objections we had to what he said about consumerism are represented in the book.

[dave]

chris-
I don't really know for sure, all I know is that Jesus is my Homeboy.

[Benjy (groovythpstr)]

Dave, that was too funny!

Chris, another great question, you are on a roll.

Maybe the answer lies in our motives?

[Chris (DesertPastor)]

Geoff -- do you think that more and more emerging leaders will begin wrestling with this tension? And do you think that we will change our understanding of culture at the same time as we change our (modern)understanding of the Church?

[Geoff Holsclaw]

the emerging church pastor (who are doing the real deal, not just the new seeker-service) are trying to deal with these issues. I've spent that last year learning my critical theory (marx, freud, and their postmodern followers who critical the West) and I'm come to realize that we might not be looking at the emerging culture the right way if we look at it missiologically. It is much more complicated that, "We want to speak the language of the culture (translation) and become natives (inculturation)." The Market does that already!!! and better than the church.

[Chris (DesertPastor)]

Geoff -- when you say "The Market" does this better than the Church, are you referring to the world of "marketing?" And if so, wouldn't this be a huge ouch to emerging church leaders?

[Geoff Holsclaw]

No, I meant the capitalistic "Market"ting machine that know how to sell things. "The Market" is short hand for global-capitalism.

[Justin Baeder]

I think consumer products can be, as Pete Ward says, appropriate ways of contextualizing the message of Christ. We have to be careful on many fronts, though.

First is the risk of simply encapsulating a formulaic gospel that can fit on a bracelet, and consequently has no life-changing substance.

Second is the risk of being lumped in with all the other brain-sucking advertisers. Advertising is evil to some extent in that it takes away the meaning of our symbols (see Neil Postman, Technopoly).

Third is the fact that the Market will do it better than the church unless we go out and hire Saatchi & Saatchi to market our stuff better. That won't do either.

I don't know that the products really add anything of value to the conversation. They certainly give teens something tangible to latch onto in their faith (e.g. WWJD bracelets), but that's something they eventually need to grow out of, isn't it?