Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are with What We Buy

by Tom Beaudoin

Americans search for identity through a paradoxical pair of spirituality and consumerism. On the one hand, we participate in religion or practice spirituality and on the other hand we are keen consumers. But, as Tom Beaudoin's Consuming Faith makes clear, if we truly seek to put our spirituality into practice, we must integrate who we are with what we buy. How are we linked to the rest of the world through our purchases? What does faith have to do with what we buy? With a new updated preface by the author, this paperback edition invites us to think about how our purchases affect who we are as individuals and as members of a global community.

Genres: Religion

148 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 2003

About the author

Tom Beaudoin is visiting assistant professor of theology at Boston College. He plays bass for a Boston area rock band.

Reviews

[Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beaudoin acknowledges that we need material things and that there is no need to "drop out" entirely of the systems that produce and consume these material things. Furthermore, brands do some of our "identity work," which is probably OK too, since it's just one more way of sending signals to other people and living in community. Spiritually shaming people about their consumption is not the way to go. "Demonizing or moralizing about our brand economy is too simplistic an approach when dealing with human beings who struggle secretly as well as publicly to make do in this economy, who have the power to resist its lures, and who often innovate nonspectacular ways to subvert its control over their everyday lives." (p.40) The practical challenge is not to be "governed by entitlement regarding who we are or what we buy" and to be "someone who stewards more life for others" (pp. 106-107) by paying attention to the human labor that creates the things we buy.

[Damecatoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

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