religious consumerism

I am not so sure how Jesus has managed to gain billions of followers around the globe, all I know is that he has. If the same Jesus of Nazareth was to reappear amongst us today, I am sure he will sound more irrelevant to many than otherwise. Possibly, psychologists will term him a psychic case and the evangelists will turn their backs on their master. How can you convince me to sell off all my possessions and follow you? How foolish will I be? Who will take care of my uncertain future, take care of my aging parents, give me food to eat or water to drink? And how sure am I that I will attain an everlasting life just but by your words. I ‘m sure Jesus will have hard time trying to explain himself on this issues. I am also suspecting that with such radical demands and controversial way of life, he will either be a victim of suicide bombing or deleted from space by one unmanned aircraft, ones used to hunt ‘terrorists’ in Afghanistan and Iraq!

I am living in a materially possessed society. The proponents of this culture are the consumerists, whose main agenda is to make profit out of nothing and by all means necessary. They are the grandchildren of the pragmatists and the siblings of the capitalists, whose main focus is to get materially rich or die trying to reach such an end. For these groups, success and good life is assured by the amount of material wealth one amasses, and it does not matter by which means, for it is ‘God for us all and everybody for themselves.’ I guess it is based on the Machiavellian principle of the end justifying the means where man is part of those means and never at any point the end. This in brief is the society I am living in; a GREEDY SOCIETY, a consumerist culture, and it is because of the very same reason I am saying that Jesus will sound irrelevant and even look more ridiculous with such kinds of demands.

I am particularly concerned with the new product on the market; Religious consumerism! First, we have a group that preaches a gospel of prosperity, a gospel of ‘good life.’ How good that life will be is the question! There is a belief among many, that some pastors prayers are more powerful than other, that if I give this thousand dollars, the Lord will reward me with these bountiful blessings. These pastors and churches have come up as an instrument of tax collection, through the use of the gospels. The gospel has moved from being the word of life to an instrument of high profile theft, a theft without mercy! The churches are many, some will claim that ‘one suits all,’ while others only insist on the rich and the classy. Some have made it clear that they are for the ‘poor,’ of course in spirit, and that to get a little richer, in spirit, you have to pay the debts of your sins by use of your newly acquired credit card. Better still, we have a those members who choose a church according to the amount of cash they habour in their bank accounts or according to the gravity of their previous sins. It is indeed religious consumerism!