Church Inc., cont.

How does this apply to a semi-naked woman on a cross? Good question. My argument is that the church has for so long endorsed profit and market capitalism, that it no longer has any standing to criticize its excesses. I have argued this for sometime, but this is a good example. This is not an anti-market screed by any counts. I respect that the market is amazingly innovative and excels at certain things. I want market forces driving innovations in medicine, automobiles, technology, etc. But the market is not some magic force that just does things right. It also does amazingly cruel things, rolls over people, eats workers and the environment up. It requires well-intentioned and moral people to make decisions, because of course, the market is an economic system, not moral and sentient beings.

But the church has sat back while a good many other things have been commodified and packaged and marketed, seemingly with either apathy or approval. Since the ultimate goal of profit has ceased to be a question, or accumulation of wealth, or materialism, then the means only have to be legal. So, when cities privatize their water systems, no one steps forward and wonders whether something so important for the public good is now a for-profit enterprise. We already do that with life and death in our medical insurance system.

I remember noting that recent ad campaigns that took historical events and turned them into ad campaigns. MLK speaking at the mall--a historic and noteworthy event--became an add for telecommunications. I remember asking what would come next? Jesus on the cross being used in an ad campaign for pain relief? I remember telling a friend, that if it is all for sale, then there is nothing stopping a corporation from appropriating those images and symbols that people find as most sacred. Why not? How do you justify opposing the commodification of children, sexuality, whatever? If profit is ultimately all justifying, then the only question is legality, not morality, or taste, or respect. If you have stood by while MLK's speech on the mall is turned into a commercial, then you have no standing to object when the crucifixion becomes one too.