Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are with What We Buy by Tom Beaudoin

I’ve just finished reading Tom Beaudoin’s book “Consuming Faith,” a follow on his book “Virtual Faith” in which he delves into the realm of the economy, spirituality, branding and theology. Tom writes that as he was on the speaking trail after writing “Virtual Faith” a number of people challenged him to look into the economy and it’s relationship to culture, something that he quickly realised was something lacking from his writing. Tom writes:

“talking about pop culture and spirituality without looking at the role of the economy was like writing about the rain forests without giving any indication that there are actually trees there” – Page xii

The book is almost a theological reader to Naomi Klein’s book “No Logo,” a book that explores questions of the relationship between our economic culture and our response to it as people of faith, it also asks theological questions of the branding culture, something that very few (if any) people have attempted to explore. Tom writes:

There is also spiritual power in these branded objects. Understanding ourselves as humans seems unavoidably indirect. We must always go through a third party. Individually and communally, we only come to know who we are in and through “mediations” other people, objects, symbols, language. Theological language makes this everyday reality sound elegant: the world is the potential sacrament of human becoming. – Page 7

Tom began his journey by exploring the relationship that he had with the branded objects, and the manufacturer’s relationship with it’s products and employers. Finding that all but one of the companies that he had invested his trust and money into, and for whom he had carried brands on his body were giving him the run around on his quest brought up questions trust and feelings of betrayal. Exploring this betrayal of trust he asked questions of the relationship between company and brand, brand and consumer, consumer and company as well as the relationship between the consumer and the economic culture itself, including those who make those products.

Questions of betrayal of trust posed theological themes of promises and covenant, how we respond to a covenantal relationship with a company or product that promises among many things the source of our own identity. Tom writes:

Contemporary philosophers emphasize that we all “perform” our identity. What they mean is that through speech patterns, gestures, clothing styles, and various verbal and nonverbal cues, we creatively put together who we are, as much as who we are is “given” to us naturally. We all have different personae that we “perform” or display, and those cues – verbal and nonverbal, clothing and makeup and energy and rhythm are all a part of the freedom we have to create who we are in different domains of our lives. – Page 5

Noting that the branding culture had a role in the development of one’s identity Tom began to delve deeper into the theological themes of our economy, the answer he finds is in Jesus’ role as God’s economist. Tom writes about Jesus’ teachings of an economic spirituality.

Jesus’ economic spirituality is strikingly simple, though far from simplistic. First he teaches that all resources are ultimately God’s. Secondly, Jesus teaches that one’s resources are to be used for the good of all. – Page 22

The term economic spirituality for some may actually sound like an oxymoron, however Tom makes an interesting observation…

“Corporate branding,” according to one manager, “is really about worldwide belief management.” The management of beliefs is the work of a spiritual discipline. – Page 44

Following on from this thought Tom likens the roles that the branding economy holds to that of a spiritual discipline, he reflects upon Ignatius’ Spiritual exercises, in particular those of teaching the imagination and sits them alongside the economic spiritual practices that do a similar role. Branding culture relies upon our imagination, we are taught brands, brands invade our imagination so that particular smells, sights, places remind ourselves of a brand and brands also inspire our imagination to think of ourselves and of the world in different ways, in Apple’s words “think differently.”

The formation of imagination, a true self, community, trust and new life are not only ways by which the economy offers a way of life. This dynamic is also found in many classic spiritual disciplines. – Page 44

Tom does some theological reflection on the human search for identity as well as some needed theological reflecting on the body, a theme that has been explored in feminist theological texts, but not as much in youth ministry or generational texts. Branding affects our understanding and acceptance of our bodies, of our very image, which then affects our image of God, as Tom writes:

Each of us, for example, relies on our own image – that is imaginative rendering – of God. Our experiences of God are drawn from our experience of our parents, our formal and informal religious education, and a host of other significant life experiences we’ve had. – Page 47

This book is a must read for those in youth ministry, as it offers something much more than Mike Warren’s skeptical exploration of youth culture and actually recognises the theological themes that arise out of the questions and needs of the consumers. Tom also goes further to reflect on how we, as consumers relate to those who produce the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the cars we drive…

I gaze down at my brands: shoes, jeans, shirts, gadgets, toys… at the same time I know that the materials that enable my comfort were forged under fluorescent lights in a large room of young women half a world away. I am thus doubly connected to even the far reaches of this planet. Those who make the stuff of my world, that i use and find pleasure and comfort in, in a way different from the stars, are already a part of me. Economic spirituality means fulfilling my part of my economic relationship with my global neighbor, the one who is part of the world on which my material or even religious body depends. – Page 88

Finishing the text Tom offers two different approaches to the questions that we are asked as a result of exploring Jesus’ economic spirituality, the indirect and the direct approach. In exploring these different approaches he provides some practical ways for Christians to respond to the searching and questions from his text and from the call of Jesus’ economic teachings, how we relate to one another and the world around us.

All up this is a great book, I’d suggest reading it alongside Virtual Faith, No Logo or Lovemarks, rarely have I found pieces of theological work that addresses so many themes, questions of human needs and a radical response to the consumer culture in which we live. Instead of guilt tripping his readers Tom explores the needs that are the reason for the spiritual search that people have placed in products and in the brands that they relate too. Instead of calling the culture evil and writing it off, which many have previously done Tom explores the deep theological themes that the culture and brands raise. Instead of asking the questions and leaving us empty handed Tom goes the next step urges the reader towards a mature economic spirituality, towards a spiritual discipline that challenges the way that we live as human beings, as consumers and as members of a global economy that is much larger than just the local shopping centre or McDonalds…

Book Details:

Hardcover: 180 pages
Publisher: Sheed and Ward (January, 2004)
ISBN: 1580511384

My Rating:

More great quotes from the book:

“The brand is the most important asset of the company and its management must be of primary concern for top management as well as the board.” the shift is summarized most badly by business authors Al Ries and Laura Ries, who write that “Building your brand on quality is like building your house on sand.” Quality “has very little to do with brand success in the marketplace.” – Page 4.

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By focusing on branding, companies hope to make their logos into a “personality” that is, a lifestyle, an image, an identity, or a set of values. Brands should, in the words of one business report, “emote a distinctive persona” – Page 4.

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“The average ten year old has memorized from three hundred to four hundred brands. Ninety two percent of kids request brand specific products.” – Page 4.

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Companies compete to be the corporate sponsors of young adult life. Our images of our successful and confident selves are often “brought to you by…” – Page 5

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“The effectiveness of the logo depends upon it’s transparency and the immediacy of it’s meaning. The logo is designed to be grasped in an instant. – Page 7

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Only then did i begin to think about the double function of the logo or brand. Not only must it instantaneously conjure up a “personality” with which consumers can identify, it must also draw our attention away from how it was produced. The brand both reveals and conceals, a blindfolding embrace… – Page 11

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Jesus is most clearly God’s economist when he talks about life’s big questions, such as the sense God makes of human life. When Jesus talks explicitly about God’s final judgment on out lives – which he rarely does – he continually refers not to sexual issues; not to proper deference to a pastor, bishop or pope; not to the inerrancy of scripture; not to membership in a church; not to himself as my personal Lord and savior; not to right ritual. He continually refers to economic spirituality. Jesus clearly made economic spirituality in everyday life the ultimate expression of faithfulness to God… – Page 23

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Branding is a sort of religious system, a spiritual discipline, that can provide as persuasive a world view as the scriptures or any traditional religion. – Page 39

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Branding also offers a consistent, coherent identity, in which you are told about your true self; it offers membership in a community; it issues an invitation to unconditional trust; it offers the promise of conversion and new life. Thus, there is a way of life, an identity, that can be had by participating in the logo-centric economy. These are, after all, worthwhile ends and even deep human needs. – Page 44

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Imagination is a power that all humans have to put together our observations and experiences in a particular way, to find patterns of meaning in the observations, insights, feelings, and experiences of everyday life. Far from being the preserve of Tolkienesque fantasy, we each live everyday life utterly dependent on out imaginations. Who do you imagine yourself to be now, and who do you imagine yourself becoming? As philosopher Paul Ricoeur observed, “in imagining possibilities, human beings act as the prophets of their own existence.” – Page 47

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In the branding economy, the true self is a many faceted economic being: a consumer of a favored brand; a producer of meaning, status, or identity through your interaction with brands; an advertiser for corporations when you willingly billboard yourself by displaying logos on your body, in your house, through your speech. What is most important about your relation to yourself, then, is the way that relation passes through the screen of the brand. – Page 53

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Corporations see brands as “expressions of the soul” of the firm, beneficently establishing “covenant” with consumers, and extending a “brand promise.” Consumers are invited to trust this promise and covenant, the soul of the firm. They are successful when, in the words of youth researcher Alissa Quart, teenagers “feel that consumer goods are their friends – and that the companies selling products to them are trusted allies.” – Page 56

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We live out our relation to our ultimate meaning through what and how we buy. Let the integration of faith and economy be the mark of the true spiritual seeker today, a consuming faith. – Page 107

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There is an authentic spiritual impulse at the heart of our branding economy. We use brands to do identity work for us, finally, out of our desire to be recognised by others, by a power greater than ourselves; and the desire to recognise and know others, to commune with others under a power greater than ourselves. And in this recognising and being recognised, we experience that great power that draws us inward and outward. – Page 106

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And so our brand economy discloses a task for spiritual maturity: knowing and being known by ourselves and others, without being governed by entitlement regarding who we are or what we buy. – Page 106

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