Culturally Shaped Desires
As we have been looking at Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians this Spring, it occurs to me that one problem of the Corinthian church is a problem of desire. Yes they knew and loved the Lord, but their hearts still desired the divisive debates of their culture; still desired the status of Roman cultic worship; still desired the pride in “superior” manifestations of the Spirit. Much of Paul’s letter could be seen, then, as an effort to reorient their (our?) desires, from that of the wisdom of the world to the wisdom of God which, as we’ve seen, is foolishness to the world. For the next three blog posts, we’ll take a look at our desires: 1) What do we desire? 2) Culturally Shaped Desires 3) Kingdom Shaped Desires.
In our last post, we considered that the practices and routines of our daily lives potentially have a formative influence on the desires of our hearts. Perhaps we can rightly call these practices “liturgies” in that they engage our whole bodies (we experience them rather than just think about them) and are formative in how we think about and interact with the world. These “cultural liturgies” orient our desires in the direction of their own gods and kingdoms that are not content to share the same stage with the God of the Bible and the Kingdom proclaimed therein (see Matthew 6:24). The challenge for the Christian, then, is to live and witness in a world of competing liturgies while at the same time resisting their impact on our lives. To do so we will need two things: 1) a recognition of these cultural liturgies; 2) an alternative liturgy to orient our desires to God. The first, recognition, we’ll address this week by looking at an example.
Consider the typical act of making a purchase at Target. The whole process, from seeing the commercial on TV to making the transaction to going back for more is designed to grab the desires and intentions of your heart. Imagine turning on the TV and seeing happy, good-looking people enjoying the latest gadget. The message is clear – you too can enjoy the good life! Our response to this commercial evangelism is to head to the store, where we are inundated with the sights, sounds, and smells of consumerism, all of which contribute to a full-body experience. Even the practices themselves become “liturgical” – perusing the goods, trying them on, making the purchase, grabbing a coffee at the Starbucks at the entrance. They combine to grab the attention of our hearts, so much so that many people turn to this consumer liturgy in times of loss and sorrow, or even victory and celebration, as a means of comfort, memorializing these life-changing moments in the liturgy of consumerism. However, even to its most devoted followers, this consumer liturgy cannot deliver what it promises. We won’t have the good life of the commercial evangelists, thus we are left wanting more – one more trip to Target, one more purchase, one more…
This is but one example, and a particularly Western one, of a cultural liturgy that Christians are called to recognize. We should not (and cannot, perhaps) avoid such liturgies as we are called to bear witness in the midst of them and recognize their desire-shaping agenda. How are we to combat these cultural liturgies once recognized? It is to this question we will return next week.
*The background for much of the thought of these articles, especially this one, comes from a book by James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom.
Thoughts to ponder:
What are some other “cultural liturgies” that compete for the attention of our hearts?
What practices do you engage in regularly that might constitute a “cultural liturgy?”
Have any of these, in particular, grabbed your heart and shaped how you interact with the world?