Connected yet alienated - that is the paradox of our global digital culture. We have access to so many things, yet we are increasingly incapable of seeing those things, or ourselves, in any meaningful context.
Skye Jethani
In a commodity culture we have been conditioned to believe nothing carries intrinsic value. Instead, value is found only in a thing's usefulness to us, and tragically this belief has been applied to people as well.
culture belief people
The personification of institutions in our culture means the institutional church, rather than the flesh-and-blood people of God, has become the vehicle of God's mission in the world. This is salvation via institution, paradise via programs.
culture paradise people
Rather than pursuing our calling to present a vision of a world filled with God's power and love, the contemporary church merely presents the world as a two-dimensional facsimile of the consumer culture, albeit with a Jesus fish imprint.
vision culture power
History has shown syncretism to the culture is a chronic ailment of the church.
culture history
Have we clothed our faith with the forms of our American culture to the point that our Christianity has morphed into something entirely different - a folk religion altogether consumerist in spirit and content?
culture content faith religion
Wanting to obey Christ but lacking his imagination, we reinterpret the mission of the church through the only framework comprehendible to us--the one we've inherited from our consumer culture.
culture imagination
Our spiritual imaginations have fallen asleep on the comfortable mattress of the consumer culture, and before any remedy for the church can be prescribed our dormant imaginations must be stirred from their slumber.
Our culture has confined our imaginations with an uninspiring vision of God. He's been reduced to a manageable deity of consumable proportions.
vision culture imagination
In a culture that insists on making God small, we can counteract the trend by focusing our imaginations on what is big.
Consumerism has created a culture that values style over substance, image over reality, and perception over performance.
culture style perception
Has the contemporary church been so captivated by the images and methods of the consumer culture that it has forfeited its sacred vocation to be a countercultural agent of God's kingdom in the world?
culture method
culture paradox
We need to see beyond our culture; we need to peer through the bars of commodification and alienation and catch a glimpse of a God far larger than our circumstances.
culture circumstances
In a consumer culture incarnating Christ no longer carries an expectation of Christians loving God and their neighbors; but rather the perpetual consumption of Christian merchandise.
culture
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