Companions,
It's time to #OCCUPYCONSUMERISM.
I
know that this is not original to me.
But in continuing to ponder some of Elaine Heath's
comments at the Wesleyan Leadership Conference (which sort of doubled as an emerginumc gathering, 2.5 perhaps, this year) about the ways our bodies and souls get colonized and we need
to be delivered from that colonization, plus whole OCCUPY movement thing
going on, plus years of being really annoyed by having my humanity and
citizenship reduced to being a cog in the culture's feeding machine by
the word "consumer" have left me, now, to issue a call for #OCCUPYCONSUMERISM.
Now, there is a blog by that name out there. It's sort of against buying things. In using this hashtag or issuing this call, I'm not endorsing that blog or its views. It probably has some good things to offer, too.
But this call is different. It's against allowing ourselves to be called
consumers instead of people by anyone else-- government, business,
economists, you name it.
We are not consumers.
Refuse that label, and all the ways it can colonize us.
We are all humans, created in the image of God.
And we Christians, disciples of Jesus, most of all, are not consumers.
We are the baptized. We are new creatures in Christ. We are the generous
stewards of all God's gifts. We feed the hungry-- not gorge ourselves.
We clothe the naked-- not make ourselves into fashionistas. We visit the
sick and imprisoned and others whose condition makes them unable to
consume like we could, and others tell us we all should.
For
freedom, we have been made free! So let us no longer submit ourselves to
this yoke of slavery, and its name for us: consumer.
And let us seek Christ's power and the Spirit's cunning to help others be freed from this yoke, too!
Peace in Christ,
Taylor