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The Sacred Santa: Religious Dimensions of Consumer Culture
The Sacred Santa is an inquiry into the religious dimension of postmodern culture, seriously considering the widespread perception that contemporary culture witnesses a profound struggle between two antithetical systems -- a collision of two worlds, both religious, yet each with vivid visions of the sacred that differ radically with regard to what the sacred is and what it means to human life and social endeavor.
224 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 21, 2012
The premise of this book is that Christmas is not being secularized, but rather shifting from Christianity to the postmodern religion that is overtaking it as the dominant religion: the economy. I've often seen this comparison made, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, but this book is quite serious about it, and considers it more than just an analogy. In fact, the economy displays all of the characteristics of cosmological religions of old. We don't recognize it as a religion because it doesn't resemble the transcendental religions we've come to equate with religion itself. Cosmological religions are folk religions, without formal institutions. Those who subscribe to these religions don't think of them as religions, but just life, the way things are, much like we consider the economy.
Religion is devoted to helping people get in touch with the sacred. People devote themselves to material wealth in a truly religions fashion, and treat this form of success as sacred, and will embrace opportunities to be in better touch with this, which our modern priests facilitate. We treat celebrities exactly like the old cosmological religions treated saints and heros of their myths. And what is our god? Santa. He symbolizes everything sacred in our economic religion.
This book goes through the aspects of the economy and compares them to cosmological religion. It's pretty hard to deny the parallels. It does show all the signs. It can seem a bit cheesy at times though, as he acts like an anthropologist visiting our modern culture, treating things we see all the time as strange artifacts of a bizarre culture. This feels pretty funny, since we're so much a part of this culture, but I do understand why he wrote it that way.
This book isn't just about Christmas, though it focuses on it. It goes through all the holidays, some of which can be pretty surprising. For example, did you know that, after Christmas, Easter is the most commercial holiday? Third is Valentine's Day, which isn't quite so surprising.
This book helped me make my peace with Christmas and the rampant commercialism in our culture, by helping me see just how much our culture is built on it. No doubt, I'm a product of this culture, and I subscribe to this religion too, though not quite to the same degree. I might as well admit it, and own up to it. Seeing it all in this new religious framework helps me make sense of it. I know its just people's religious impulses coming out. It's certainly no worse than any other religion in history.
Religion is devoted to helping people get in touch with the sacred. People devote themselves to material wealth in a truly religions fashion, and treat this form of success as sacred, and will embrace opportunities to be in better touch with this, which our modern priests facilitate. We treat celebrities exactly like the old cosmological religions treated saints and heros of their myths. And what is our god? Santa. He symbolizes everything sacred in our economic religion.
This book goes through the aspects of the economy and compares them to cosmological religion. It's pretty hard to deny the parallels. It does show all the signs. It can seem a bit cheesy at times though, as he acts like an anthropologist visiting our modern culture, treating things we see all the time as strange artifacts of a bizarre culture. This feels pretty funny, since we're so much a part of this culture, but I do understand why he wrote it that way.
This book isn't just about Christmas, though it focuses on it. It goes through all the holidays, some of which can be pretty surprising. For example, did you know that, after Christmas, Easter is the most commercial holiday? Third is Valentine's Day, which isn't quite so surprising.
This book helped me make my peace with Christmas and the rampant commercialism in our culture, by helping me see just how much our culture is built on it. No doubt, I'm a product of this culture, and I subscribe to this religion too, though not quite to the same degree. I might as well admit it, and own up to it. Seeing it all in this new religious framework helps me make sense of it. I know its just people's religious impulses coming out. It's certainly no worse than any other religion in history.
December 8, 2023
HAS CHRISTIANITY BEEN ECLIPSED BY A POSTMODERN ‘COSMOLOGICAL RELIGIOSITY’?
Author Dell deChant wrote in the Preface to this 2002 book, “[This book] takes seriously the widespread perception that contemporary culture witnesses a profound struggle between the two antithetical belief systems---a collision of two worlds… this book reads the struggle as a conflict between two distinct religious systems. The first of these systems, Christianity, has long been analyzed in the context of the ‘secularization thesis.’ … this thesis argues that with the rise of modernization Christianity became increasingly marginalized in the West as secular institutions began to replace it as the source of cultural meanings and values. The question at the heart of this book is whether this traditional reading may not perhaps be a little too simplistic and a little too quick to dismiss the religious dimension of secular culture---especially in the contemporary POST-modern world… I offer and alternative to the traditional interpretation, arguing that rather than being secular and nonreligious, America’s late capitalist, postmodern culture is actually intensely religious, and best classified as a contemporary version of ancient cosmological religiosity. In developing this argument, special attention is given to the religious function of contemporary holidays. And while most American holidays have certainly become secular events, I contend that precisely their ‘secular’ … dimensions makes them most obviously religious events in the context of postmodern cosmological culture. Christmas is certainly the most obvious example of a contemporary cosmological religious celebration.” (Pg. xiii)
He continues in the Introduction, “[This book] is based on the contention that Christmas has not lost its religious significance, only its CHRISTIAN religious significance. Further, I argue that the initial presupposition that Christmas has become a secular event may overlook the ways and occasions in which events typically classified as secular are more accurately characterized as religious… I propose an understanding of Christmas that sees it as not only decidedly religious but perhaps the best example of religiosity in our culture… In short, Christmas is a religious event, but it is not recognized as such… the religious dimension of Christmas is revealed in its embodiment of a new (decidedly postmodern) sense of the sacred… [The book] presents the American Christmas celebration as a religious experience sustained though normative rituals and legitimated by mythic narratives appropriate to this culture…. The Christian loss, then…may not have been to commercialism, consumerism, late capitalism, or some other expression of postmodern secularization. Instead, Christianity has lost to another type of religion---one more suited to twenty-first century America and one especially fitted for success in its emerging postmodern culture.” (Pg. 2-3)
He goes on, “If the interpretation advanced in this book is correct, two antithetical belief systems are in collision not as dichotomies of religious and secular but rather as two distinct religious worlds. Each offers vivid visions of the sacred, but visions that differ radically with regard to what the sacred is and what it means to human life and social behavior… The substance of this argument… is that the culture we increasingly understand as postmodern… may not be such a novel cultural system at all. Our culture may actually be quite PREmodern and have more in common with the grand imperial cultures of late antiquity than any seen in the West since the advent of Christianity. To overlook this possibility may overstate the extent to which Christianity still functions as a viable religion and understand the sacredness of our seemingly secular world.” (Pg. 6)
He concludes, “[This book] offers a reinterpretation of the long-standing secularization thesis that interprets postmodern culture as a battleground between secular and religious values. I have argued that the struggle is actually between two distinct and distinctly different religious systems and have further contended that some rather clear indications are that the traditional religion of America and the West, Christianity, has been eclipsed by a contemporary version of cosmological religiosity.” (Pg. 197)
This book may appeal to some seeking socio-cultural interpretations of modern religion, etc.
Author Dell deChant wrote in the Preface to this 2002 book, “[This book] takes seriously the widespread perception that contemporary culture witnesses a profound struggle between the two antithetical belief systems---a collision of two worlds… this book reads the struggle as a conflict between two distinct religious systems. The first of these systems, Christianity, has long been analyzed in the context of the ‘secularization thesis.’ … this thesis argues that with the rise of modernization Christianity became increasingly marginalized in the West as secular institutions began to replace it as the source of cultural meanings and values. The question at the heart of this book is whether this traditional reading may not perhaps be a little too simplistic and a little too quick to dismiss the religious dimension of secular culture---especially in the contemporary POST-modern world… I offer and alternative to the traditional interpretation, arguing that rather than being secular and nonreligious, America’s late capitalist, postmodern culture is actually intensely religious, and best classified as a contemporary version of ancient cosmological religiosity. In developing this argument, special attention is given to the religious function of contemporary holidays. And while most American holidays have certainly become secular events, I contend that precisely their ‘secular’ … dimensions makes them most obviously religious events in the context of postmodern cosmological culture. Christmas is certainly the most obvious example of a contemporary cosmological religious celebration.” (Pg. xiii)
He continues in the Introduction, “[This book] is based on the contention that Christmas has not lost its religious significance, only its CHRISTIAN religious significance. Further, I argue that the initial presupposition that Christmas has become a secular event may overlook the ways and occasions in which events typically classified as secular are more accurately characterized as religious… I propose an understanding of Christmas that sees it as not only decidedly religious but perhaps the best example of religiosity in our culture… In short, Christmas is a religious event, but it is not recognized as such… the religious dimension of Christmas is revealed in its embodiment of a new (decidedly postmodern) sense of the sacred… [The book] presents the American Christmas celebration as a religious experience sustained though normative rituals and legitimated by mythic narratives appropriate to this culture…. The Christian loss, then…may not have been to commercialism, consumerism, late capitalism, or some other expression of postmodern secularization. Instead, Christianity has lost to another type of religion---one more suited to twenty-first century America and one especially fitted for success in its emerging postmodern culture.” (Pg. 2-3)
He goes on, “If the interpretation advanced in this book is correct, two antithetical belief systems are in collision not as dichotomies of religious and secular but rather as two distinct religious worlds. Each offers vivid visions of the sacred, but visions that differ radically with regard to what the sacred is and what it means to human life and social behavior… The substance of this argument… is that the culture we increasingly understand as postmodern… may not be such a novel cultural system at all. Our culture may actually be quite PREmodern and have more in common with the grand imperial cultures of late antiquity than any seen in the West since the advent of Christianity. To overlook this possibility may overstate the extent to which Christianity still functions as a viable religion and understand the sacredness of our seemingly secular world.” (Pg. 6)
He concludes, “[This book] offers a reinterpretation of the long-standing secularization thesis that interprets postmodern culture as a battleground between secular and religious values. I have argued that the struggle is actually between two distinct and distinctly different religious systems and have further contended that some rather clear indications are that the traditional religion of America and the West, Christianity, has been eclipsed by a contemporary version of cosmological religiosity.” (Pg. 197)
This book may appeal to some seeking socio-cultural interpretations of modern religion, etc.
February 1, 2013
After being assigned this text in an Undergraduate "Growing Up in America" multi-cultural literature lower level(mandatory)elective Dell Dechant's "The Sacred Santa: Religious Dimensions of Consumer Culture" continues to be the most soporific of theoretical Christian sociology. I am not opposed to any argument that challenges the postmodern nihilism of consumer society (found in such pendantic dust collecting literary theory as Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" or the impenetrable and dull Jean Baudrillard's "System of Objects") but compose that argument in a less rigid and repetitive discourse. Attempting to equate consumption with Pagan "cosmological religions" as these belief structures are opposed to Christian "transcendent religions" would be an otherwise interesting read if every sentence did not contain these phrases which produce an unnecessarily cumbersome style.
January 26, 2009
Dr. Dechant was a college professor of mine. His classes and this book brought academic authentication to my nagging suspesion that religion isn't all I was raised to believe it was.
July 15, 2008
Brilliant ;)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews