Colosseum
Image by Wikimedia Commons user Diliff. Cropped from original.
… the People have abdicated our duties. For the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.“ -Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81
Distractify
Politicians are smart. Not just smart, but cunning. Cunning and clever. The cleverest ones have discerned a terrible truth about the mass of humanity: We are very easy to distract.
In Ancient Rome, it was the Colosseum that distracted citizens from the injustices committed by the worst emperors. Incredible economic disparity between the rich and poor? Give them a show. Sons and fathers taken off to die in war for the emperor’s greed? How about a chariot race! Violent persecution of religious minorities, like the Jews and Christians? Let the lions eat one of the gladiators – any compassion for the oppressed will be drowned out by the din of bloodthirsty cheers.
In 1844, Karl Marx looked at Germany’s “heartless” society and concluded that religion had become the new circus. As he put it, religion in Germany was the “opium of the people.” It numbed the masses to the injustice in this life by pointing them toward the next life for hope of happiness. Religion itself was not the problem, but it colluded with economic powers of oppression to mask the very real suffering of the people.
Today, in an increasingly globalized and technological world, what is the opium of the people? What is the new circus?
Consumerism
Yes, politicians continue to distract with misinformation and unrepresentative legislative agendas. But politicians do not hold the cultural sway Roman emperors once did and they are more often than not guided by the economic interests of corporations. Some religious groups still try to ignore the realities of this world in hopes of a better one to come. But those that do are increasingly irrelevant to culture at large – at least in developed countries.
No, beyond clergy and congressmen, corporations now offer consumerism as the new circus. In fact, some forms of consumerism look remarkably similar to ancient Rome. Guy Christopher poignantly compares the Colosseum to the Super Bowl, noting how the NFL even invokes Roman numerals for its annual homage to the Roman circus.
Distraction is more than sports, though. An overabundance of television and movies leaves us to either binge-watch the latest Netflix series or be out of touch in social settings. Social media prioritizes our projected self-image over any attempt to actually embody that image. And let us not forget consumerism’s all-encompassing obsession with Things.
Why change the world when you can just re-tweet a quote from @Pontifex while streaming Mandela on your new LED Ultra HD TV?
Distraction from What?
Our endless need to consume is not evil. Corporations are not evil. But consumerism distracts us from caring for our neighbors, and it keeps us from caring for ourselves.
To be clear, I see no need to shame myself or others about consumerism. There is no “you should do this instead of that.” Rather, I simply look at my own life. And I find that the addictive consuming of our culture only hurts me, which in turn hurts others.
You see, there is hole in my soul – I think most everyone has a hole of some sort. When I stop trying to fill that hole with the next product that promises salvation, however, I can begin to see it more clearly. I learn the contours of its edges, locating the individual wounds and the history behind them. As I learn about myself, I begin to open up to real healing. And the more I heal, the better equipped I am to heal others.
“Healed people heal people, and hurt people hurt people,” as one of my professors often said.
At the same time, an outward orientation helps heal my inner turmoil. When I love God and love neighbor, I show love to myself. It is good for the soul.
Clothes, accessories, sports, Facebook, food, games. These things are not evil, and often they can be great tools for relaxation. But the way we consume them in the developed world, they so easily distract us from what matters.
The other day, Hannah Adair Bonner called us to “sustained discomfort” – the willingness to not let the next distraction cover our discomfort at the brokenness of this world. Our individual souls join the soul of the world in crying out for an alternative to consumerism.
Soul Knowledge and Prophetic Imagination
Richard Rohr calls the antidote to consumerism “soul knowledge.” As he puts it, “Soul knowledge sends you in the opposite direction from consumerism. It’s not addition that makes one holy, but subtraction: stripping the illusions, letting go of the pretense, exposing the false self, breaking open the heart and the understanding, not taking my private self too seriously.”
This idea of a “spirituality of subtraction” comes from the 13th century German mystic Meister Eckhart. Letting go of these things we cling to actually opens our eyes to the truth underneath. When I let go of that which covers the hole in my soul, I then have to feel the pain of that inner wound. But I can only find true healing by first knowing the wound that needs to be healed. And healed people heal people.
How are we doing as a church? Do we act more often as an opiate or as a catalyst for change and healing? Are we distracting people from what matters, or are we pointing them to an alternative vision of fullness of life? I think most churches do a little bit of both.
Walter Brueggemann writes, “The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act.” Do you find this to be true?
Against this enculturated consumerism, he argues that leaders and churches with a prophetic imagination will “nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”
What an order! Where do you see people and groups nurturing an alternative consciousness? Who is pointing us in the right direction?
Share your stories, that our collective imagination might expand!
Gabe Horton is a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School and a pastoral intern at Belle Meade United Methodist Church in Nashville, TN. This article is reprinted with permission from the collaborative blog, UMC LEAD.