Consumerism, Christian Discipleship and the Digital Age

What follows is a post I recently wrote for my Christian Discipleship in a Consumer Society journal, a semester-long assignment regularly making entries for a course at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, where I'm currently in my last year of a Masters of Divinity program. It's definitely just a bit of free-form, unedited thinking, but I'd love to hear what you think.

So I've been thinking a great deal about the many concepts we've talking about in the course so far, and given that we're almost halfway through the semester, I figured I'd try to articulate my thinking thus far. This won't be pretty, it's just a lot of raw, stream of conscious writing, but here we go...

Throughout the semester something's been hanging on me a bit... I sort of had a general notion that things were changing, that the advent of a variety of web 2.0 platforms and especially social media was revolutionizing how we identify ourselves, what we desire, and how we define ourselves. In other words, I thought social media was changing many of the factors involved in what we create and how we can consume... yet, I could never really articulate what I was trying to get at.

Last week, when discussing Pastor's Zandstra's article "30-cent Deal of a Lifetime," what I was trying to get at became a bit clearer. A major argument of Pastor Zandstra's piece was that we don't primarily purchase/ consume commodities because we desire the physical object, but rather that we desire a certain identity that various commodities signal to others (and ourselves). Essentially, for many millennials, and increasingly folks of older generations as well, Pastor Zandstra's apt observation no longer holds true. With social media revolutionizing the way we identify ourselves and the way we make meaning, a decreasing percentage of the commodities many younger folks buy has very much to do with identity at all. Sure, if I ever buy brand new clothes (I usually just thrift shop), its at LL Bean, primarily so I can return the commodities I purchase once they wear out, but also because the whole woodsy Maine thing is a part of the identity I've constructed for myself. A Facebook profile is such a stronger, more interactive way of signaling identity though, so if my online persona greatly contradicted the whole woodsy thing, folks would probably think of me more based more upon what they see online. In this way (and its only one of two ways I've so far identified), purchasing commodities of a specific brand is increasingly less important in constructing an identity for one's self.

I just analyzed my own spending over the past month in order to provide some factual evidence to back up this idea. Here's the categories I spent on:

- Rent: 26%
- Food: 22%
- Entertainment (mostly beer & concert tickets): 16%
- Health: 10%
- Transportation: 8%
- Books: 8%
- Investment: 7%
- Miscellaneous: 2%
- Charity: 1%

Outside of the charity number being so low (that definitely something I need to work on over the next month), the only category that really has much to do with identity at all is the books (I like identify as a proud member of the liberal intelligentsia haha). The local microbrews and folk-rock concerts can probably be added in as well as having to do with identity (I'm a bit of a hippie), as can the charity (I'm an overly cheap Christian) but that really only makes up one quarter of my spending for the month.

On another level, social media is also beginning to subvert the original purpose of brands to begin with. As we discussed in class, brands only became important when folks began buying commodities from a third-party, rather than directly from a local producer whose reputation the purchaser would have known about. With the advent of modern capitalism, brands were necessary to signal reputation of the producer, since the original producer may have been half a world away from the purchaser. Now however, with social media, anyone can talk about the quality of any sort of product with folks all over the world. Thus, while brands are still important (I'm typing on my MacBook Air right now), the consuming public increasingly has the power to discuss and define a brand, subverting the producer's ability to define their brand to a certain extent.

Two more quick points I'm only starting to think about. I'm in the midst of reading Karl Marx's Capital, and I've started to further nail down the whole identity creation through social media thing. In Marx's read on a capitalist society, the problem with the capitalist class is that they privately own the means of production, and thus can extract surplus value from the laborer, which turn leads to an increasing concentration of capital... did I get it right? If we take as a given that creation identity is a central factor in capitalist consumption, then capitalism is at very least on the verge of changing its form. This is because an increasing percentage of individuals (one third of people globally currently have internet access and another third have mobile phone access), now control their own means of identity production in the form of blogs, Facebook accounts, YouTube accounts and the like. This idea needs to be fleshed out a great deal still, but I'd like to think I'm on to something.

So, what does Christian discipleship look like in this digital age, where the masses increasingly control their own means of identity production? I haven't fleshed this out yet, but I've been repeatedly drawn to a Gustavo Gutierrez quote from A Theology of Liberation when thinking about this:

Men are called together, as a community and not as separate individuals, to participate in the life of the Trinitarian community, to enter into the circuit of love that unites the persons of the Trinity. This is a love which "builds up human society in history." The fulfillment and the manifestation of the will of the Father occur in a privileged fashion in Christ, who is called therefore the "mystery of God." For the same reason Sacred Scripture, the Church and the liturgical rites were designated by the first Christian generations by the term mystery, and by its Latin translation, sacrament. In the sacrament the salvific plan is fulfilled and revealed; that is, it is made present among men and for men... The sacrament is thus the efficacious revelation of the call to communion with God and to the unity of all mankind (Gutierrez 259).

As Christians in community, as the Church, Christ's body on earth, increasingly both has individual and collective access to our own means of identity production, it becomes increasingly easier for God to work through Christian community as a sacrament to the world.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

A Reformation of Christian Education, Pt. 5: Networked Advocacy & PA General Assistance

Just as a recap, this series of blog posts was written as an assignment for a Technology and Adult Education Seminar led by Pastor Keith Anderson at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.  So far, over four posts I've introduced the series, explained the old "broadcasting church" system of communications, shed some light on the emerging "networked church" system, and critiqued to #Kony2012 movement in light of the tenets of networked communication.  In this final post, I intend to take what I've learned from the seminar, the book Tweet If You <3 Jesus by Elizabeth Drescher and my own writing process to help cultivate a community around advocating against Gov. Tom Corbett's planned removal of the General Assistance program from this year's Pennsylvania state budget.  As I am currently in the final months of my time as a field intern for Lutheran Advocacy Ministries of Pennsylvania, this is also exploring the use of social-networking technology in my own ministry context.

Photo: Neal Santos/City Paper

The PA General Assistance fund is a program of last resort for the state's 68,000 most needy residents, providing a maximum of $205.00 each month in most counties to folks like battered women fleeing abusive households, children living with unrelated adults, adults in intensive drug and alcohol treatment programs and those waiting to receive long-term disability benefits from the federal government.  Many citizens receiving benefits from PA General Assistance only can do so for up to nine months, so its essentially serves as a transition program that helps folks on the road to recovery.  Whether or not you agree with supporting PA General Assistance from a moral perspective, from a financial perspective it makes sense as well.  While the Corbett administration would argue that cutting the program could save the state $150 million a year, as this calculator from PA Cares for All shows, the program would result in many more individuals landing in homeless shelters, mental hospitals, foster care and prisons, resulting in a net loss of millions for Pennsylvania.  For instance, folks like Anthony Grasso (pictured above), who runs Next Stop Recovery house in Philly's Frankford neighborhood, runs his program largely on PA General Assistance funds... without the program, he would likely have to close his doors to addicts seeking recovery.

There is current coalition website PA Cares for All supported by over religious and social justice organizations, and they've already done a great deal to foster community around supporting PA General Assistance by following the tenets of networked communication.  Their website already features many stories of folks who have received help from the program (including some pictures).  There is also a great media section that compiles editorals, radio broadcasts and the like from local media on the subject.  PA Cares For All also operates a pretty decent Facebook page that provides links to many of the same stories the website does.  Finally, the website makes direct advocacy fairly easy by helping you sign-up for alerts to email Gov. Corbett.

That said, there's a lot folks can do (especially ordinary citizens... the folks running the program are already really swamped, I imagine) to further cultivate community around supporting the PA General Assistance program.  First, after a number of searches on Twitter it seems like there is very little conversation on the subject.  Folks should be encouraged to use a specific hashtag, lets say #KeepPAGA, to help develop an affinity group around the subject online.  Second, Governor Corbett's Twitter username, @GovernorCorbett seems to used fairly frequently... advocacy messages that are publicly visible could be directed there as well.  Third, you can't underestimate the power of narrative and video in the networked communications era... instead of just writing quick tweets to the governor, folks could be encouraged to tweet links to YouTube videos they post of either stories about how they have benefited from general assistance or their reasons for why the PA General Assistance program should be maintained.  Finally, those running PA Cares for All could encourage people to make sure all those tweets and videos were also posted on the group Facebook page.  They could also continue to encourage real-life meetups on the subject across the state.

As Elizabeth Drescher in Tweet If You <3 Jesus states, "... as the online encyclopedia Wikipedia testifies, the relatively small efforts of a very large number of people aggregate in support of a very small number of people who provide the larger commitment necessary to make things happen."  While there will only be a small number of professional advocates running the #KeepPAGA campaign, those folks can cultivate and attend to wider advocacy community around the subject through practicing the tenets of networked communication.  Finally, please feel free to post additional ideas about ways to cultivate a #KeepPAGA community here or any questions about the program you might have.  Happy advocating!

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is a Masters of Divinity candidate in his second year of study at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

A Reformation of Christian Education, Pt. 4: #Kony2012 As An Advocacy Model

Sure, say what you will about the #Kony2012 movement... it may oversimplify the issue, it may do a bit of the "great white savior" thing and it may encourage unnecessary militarization in central Africa, but whether you think its important or not, you now know who Joseph Kony is... Jason Russell and the rest of the folks at Invisible Children have already succeeded in making Kony famous, no matter what folks decide to do on April 20th.  Essentially then, no matter what you think about the aims of the #Kony2012 campaign, it's pretty fair to say that it can provide folks involved in advocacy ministries with a really powerful model to conduct their own social justice campaigns.  Following the pattern of our emerging system of networked meaning-making, what did #Kony2012 do right?  Furthermore, how could folks involved with advocacy improve upon that model in their own ministries?

Before doing so, if you haven't already seen the #Kony2012 film, here it is:


So #Kony2012 definitely picked up on the meme of web-based activism and ran with it.  Time's 2011 Person of the Year, after all was the The Protestor, a new type of activist largely propelled by social networking technology... think #Occupy and the Arab Spring.  Furthermore, #Kony2012 also took very seriously the idea of teaching through personal narratives... the promise Jason makes to Jacob early in the film and the conversation with little Gavin are both extremely powerful.  Part of their success was also one of their greatest weaknesses... they were able to boil down a very complex issue into an extremely simple one... "Joseph Kony is the worst," and he must be stopped.  They also made contacting policy makers very easy, and specifically by listed folk's Twitter names, they made those advocacy actions publicly visible to other Twitter users: "Engage Your Policy Makers."

Finally, despite very strong push back, Kony2012 was able to engage their critics in conversation, at least somewhat through their #AskICAnything tag and responses on YouTube.  Here's an example:

Unfortunately, many of #Kony2012's weaknesses come from its use of broadcast era communication strategies in the emerging era of networked communications.  Essentially, most of the campaign's communications were largely one-directional... they came up with a great film, have a great website and a pretty decent Facebook Page, but they haven't spent much time attending to the folks involved in the movement.  If you look carefully at their Facebook Page for instance, it's made of "announcements" from Invisible Children, but folk's comments are never really responded to.  Perhaps this wasn't always the case, but at this point comments on their YouTube page are entirely turned off and its the same thing on their blog.  While the #Kony2012 video argues that a "bunch of littles could make a big difference," all they ask of folks in the video is to 1) sign a pledge, 2) buy a kit and wear a bracelet,  3) donate money and 4) share the video.  There's no invitation to learn more through conversation, share personal stories and create content.  Why not supply folks with an image to make their own stickers and posters with?  Why not help folks to design their own posters?  Why not ask people to tell stories of their own activism through YouTube and communal blogging?

Let me be clear... except for the "great white savior" thing, I really appreciate what #Kony2012 is trying to do, and overall, they created a very powerful model for web-based advocacy.  I'm interested to see a second video they're publishing this Thursday, and excited to see what happens on April 20th.  As they say at the beginning of the first video, their movement was an "experiment" at the beginning of the networked communications age, and it was largely successful.  Still, even for folks as smart and creative as the ones at Invisible Children, letting go of all our broadcast-age habits can prove pretty difficult.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is a Masters of Divinity candidate in his second year of study at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

A Reformation of Christian Education, Pt. 3: The Networked Church

As I wrote about in my previous post, sometime between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, we reached the peak of the “broadcasting age” of communication, an era marked by top-down, one-to-many, and creator-to-consumer processes of information sharing and meaning making. On December 25th, 2006 however an event took place that heralded in the rising of a new era of communication. While the Internet had been around as early as 1982, and social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube and Myspace had already been in use for a couple of years, it wasn’t until roughly 2006 that the idea of technology-assisted social networking hit mainstream culture. The idea of social networking became a “meme” or a culture wide narrative that year, a fact reflected on December 25th when Time’s 2006 Person of the Year was announced as not a famous politician, celebrity or athlete, but as simply… you!  Here are two of the most compelling things the traditional meaning-makers of culture at Time wrote in that article about what they were calling "Web 2.0":

… look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men... It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. 

This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person. It's a chance for people to look at a computer screen and really, genuinely wonder who's out there looking back at them.

Wow… now six years later, it’s fair to say the folks at Time were right in recognizing the rising of a new system of meaning-making over the old broadcasting model… the era of networked communication is indeed upon us, and it has huge ramifications for the future of the Church.

In the networked communication model, it’s not all about reaching the most numbers of folks or creating the largest community, but rather attending deeply to the connections one holds in community.It’s important to underscore here that at its best, the networked church is incarnational, meaning it enhances rather than entirely replaces in-person ministry. And it’s also not just the broadcasting church on steroids… it’s not simply sending out a Tweet each day or posting a sermon on your blog and hoping for responses, but rather listening, attending and connecting with folks wherever they might be. In some instances, that might mean spending more time in a coffee shop rather than your church office. In other instances, that might mean leading worship in a public park rather than your sanctuary. Basically, the networked church is about finding folks in their “third places,” wherever they are, and going out to meet them there. “Third place” is a term coined by Ray Oldenburg to mean a place where folks spend their time when they’re not either at home or at work… in The Great Place, the Good Place Oldenburg argues that third places serve as anchors of community life and therefore places of meaning making. At it’s best, the networked church recognizes that more and more individuals identify social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube as some (although not all) of their third places. Following the Great Commission then it simply makes sense to go out where folks are, including online… wish folks happy birthday on Facebook, watch their YouTube videos, read and comment on their blogs. Only once we know what folks are talking about does it make sense to engage them in conversation with relevant additional information.  And as my own pastor, Pastor Scott Cady reminded me in response to the first post in this series, make that conversation as wide as possible. While online ministry may seem entirely new and scary, part of it is paying reverence to the great theologians who have come before us, and bringing them in as conversation partners when appropriate as well.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is a Masters of Divinity candidate in his second year of study at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

On Friedman's 'The Clash of Generations'

I couldn't help but briefly comment on Thomas Friedman's 'The Clash of Generations' piece in the New York Times yesterday.  I often try to shy away from sweeping statements about generational differences, but Friedman isn't listing off subjective notions here, instead simply reflecting history and current sentiments:

Indeed, if there is one sentiment that unites the crises in Europe and America it is a powerful sense of “baby boomers behaving badly” — a powerful sense that the generation that came of age in the last 50 years, my generation, will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids. 

To be sure, we have a lot to thank the boomers for as well... the furthering of civil rights, strengthening of the environmental movement and of course some really amazing music are just a few of the things achieved by that generation.  On the other hand, there is a growing sense amongst folks my age of being left in a real tough spot by those who came before us.  It doesn't just play out in fiscal policy either (and now I guess I will indulge in a couple generalizations)... I for one think about the hold 1950s/ 60s culture seems to have on our shrinking congregations as well.  With God's help I pray we can move past the ideological hangups of previous generations (somewhat mirroring what needs to happen in the current debt debate in Washington) to find more practical and sustainable ways of living in Christian community.

I realize this is a pretty basic post, full of criticism and generalizations with no real solutions... the things I mention really deserve much deeper discussion.  It's my hope that it'll add just a bit to the ongoing conversation to find such solutions.  I look forward to your comments, please check out the Friedman article in full, and thanks for reading friends!

God's peace,
Dustin