Trophies
“Trophies,” Terren in Virginia, Flickr C.C.
I was a hypocrite this weekend and thankfully no one called me out. There was a twitter storm built around the hashtag #ResistCapitalism. So I thought it would be a good idea to crank out some tweets that fit the theme and put the link to the Amazon page where I’m selling my book. Until I was convicted. It’s a bit ridiculous to resist capitalism by selling books, but then again so is trying to get a hashtag to trend on twitter. So what does it look like to actually resist capitalism?
When I say the world capitalism, I’m not talking about the existence of a free market. I’m not even talking specifically about Wall Street. I’m talking about the spirituality and value-making that are produced in a world defined by profit. The problem with capitalism is that it inevitably invades every aspect of human life and turns everything into a commodity to be bought or sold, whether it’s sex, health care, education, selfie photos, or even the Christian gospel itself. Capitalism is the monetization of everything.
Capitalism is not just an economic system; it is a religion or rather an alternative to religion. It is the engine of secularism that turns every sacred aspect of every cultural tradition into a tourist attraction. Capitalism has no problem with ancient cathedrals as long as there’s an admission price for entering and the primary activity is snapping photos of all the pretty columns and stained glass windows. For capitalism, the only sin is to put a boundary around an aspect of your life and refuse to monetize it.
The only way to live within capitalism and stay healthy is to actively resist its invasive logic. It’s kind of like going into bars and drinking only club soda. Otherwise, you get drunk on the profit motive and your mind becomes completely utilitarian about all your relationships and activities. Everything you do, everything you say, and everyone you spend time with all serve the purpose of your brand development and leverage for future deal-making.
At least this is what can happen to you when you’re trying to sell a book. I can’t imagine what it would be like if my entire job involved persuading clients to buy products and make deals. Would it be possible to have genuine relationships and hobbies which were extrinsically worthless to my deal-making but intrinsically meaningful? I could not do it without engaging in some kind of spiritual practice that completely reconfigured my sense of meaning.
And that’s precisely what I do as an author and campus minister whose soul is laid waste by the constant need to engage in marketing. I need a different source of value. So I go to the weekday noon masses at Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral. It’s usually just the priest, me, and perhaps 1-2 other people. It’s not a place that fills me with the sense that I’m on the winning team like I might experience in the fog and lights of a megachurch service. Nothing of value to my platform building happens at that mass.
I am simply allowed to be alone with God and the priest and perhaps a couple of other people. I am allowed to become the body of Christ and taste the kingdom of God in a context where there is no audience. where nothing monetized can possibly take place. After the mass, I usually stay in the sanctuary to pray. And I do something that is completely socially uncouth but holy at the same time. I crawl on the dusty wooden floor from the back of the sanctuary to the front, saying, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
This liturgy is the foundation of my internal resistance to capitalism. I’m not saying that there aren’t important political ways to resist it through union organizing, living wage campaigns, protests at international financial gatherings, etc. But I think the error many people make is to neglect the spiritual corrosion that capitalism instills in us.
Our worth is not derived in the number of retweets we get on twitter, the number of books we sell, the number of attendees we have at our events, or the number of dollars they put in the offering plate. Those are all capitalist lies that I mostly believe. The only way I know to be liberated from those lies is to make time for the one whose love ought to be the source of my worth.
It is a war of liturgies. Every minute that I spend in the capitalist liturgy of scrolling anxiously through my phone looking for a way to promote my book must be counterbalanced by time spent in some form of eucharistic liturgy, whether it’s communion itself or prayer built upon my daily taste of Christ. That is my only hope of resistance.
The Rev. Morgan Guyton
The Rev. Morgan Guyton serves as the director of the NOLA Wesley Foundation, which is the United Methodist campus ministry at Tulane and Loyola University in New Orleans, LA. He blogs at Mercy Not Sacrifice on Patheos.com, from which this post is republished with the author's permission.