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"We live, and move, and have our being in a consumer cosmos. The global economy and interconnection of markets and resources means every time we eat a meal, listen to music, put on clothing, or read a …"

"Scripture and tradition tell us that formation into the likeness of Christ, also known as spiritual maturity, is not achieved by always getting what we want."

"The dilemma posed by consumerism is not the endless manufacturing of desires, but the temptation to settle for desires far below what we were created for."

"Modern people may express outrage at the horrors of the African slave trade or the Holocaust, but in truth the commodification of human beings that made those atrocities possible is more prevalent tod…"

"We have all swallowed the cultural punch that believes institutions are both the means and the end of God's mission in the world."

"Our imaginations can throw off the shackles of consumerism if we start to feel the infinite once again."

"The god of Consumer Christianity does not inspire awe and wonder because he is nothing more than a commodity to be used for our personal satisfaction and self-achievement."

"The alternative to prefabricated-experience spirituality is what has been practiced by Christians for centuries: prayer."

"History has shown syncretism to the culture is a chronic ailment of the church."

"Consumer Christianity, while promising to strengthen our souls with an entertaining faith, has left us malnourished with an anemic view of God, faith, church, and mission."

"We have a certainty about God and his ways that leads us to replace the mystery of faith with manageable spiritual formulas."

"Christ's true people are branded with love."

"Our longing to pass through the gates of eternity will not be satisfied by any external experience, but by the dwelling of God within."

"We are more than our base desires, and our lives are not sustained by gratifying them."

"Scripture champions contentment and self-control, not the endless pursuit of personal desires. Teaching and modeling these increasingly un-American values is not a high priority in most churches."

"Our culture has confined our imaginations with an uninspiring vision of God. He's been reduced to a manageable deity of consumable proportions."

"Approaching Christianity as a brand explains why the majority of people who identify themselves as Christians live no differently than other Americans yet spend enormous amounts of money on Christian …"

"Finding true silence requires more than quieting our surroundings. It also means quieting our souls. This is the real dilemma of living in a wordy world."

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"The personification of institutions in our culture means the institutional church, rather than the flesh-and-blood people of God, has become the vehicle of God's mission in the world. This is salvatio…"

"Has the contemporary church been so captivated by the images and methods of the consumer culture that it has forfeited its sacred vocation to be a countercultural agent of God's kingdom in the world?"

"Connected yet alienated - that is the paradox of our global digital culture. We have access to so many things, yet we are increasingly incapable of seeing those things, or ourselves, in any meaningful…"

"Commodification has led most people to view God as a device to be used rather than an all-powerful Creator to be revered."

"Let's break free from artificial relationships with unfeeling, uncaring, unloving institutions that cannot contain the unpredictable wind of God's Spirit, and focus instead on building soulish connect…"

"Divine agnosticism, the sort I'm advocating, affirms the existence of God but then acknowledges our human inability to fully grasp his infinite nature."

"Jesus isn't interested in negotiating. He knows that death, the surrendering of our immediate desires, is how we can take hold of an even greater joy."

"What might we learn about God and ourselves if our Bible study group gathered outside to stare at the stars in silence?"

"Rather than pursuing our calling to present a vision of a world filled with God's power and love, the contemporary church merely presents the world as a two-dimensional facsimile of the consumer cultu…"

"Since the Enlightenment's coronation of knowledge, generations of Christians had brains full of biblical knowledge and doctrine, but their lives showed little evidence of the transformation Jesus call…"

"It is recognizing God's eternality that liberates our minds from their consumer inclination to reduce him to a commodity."

"Jesus says God isn't like a gumball machine; he's more like the wind: unpredictable, uncontrollable, no more containable than wind in a bottle."

"Have we clothed our faith with the forms of our American culture to the point that our Christianity has morphed into something entirely different - a folk religion altogether consumerist in spirit and…"

"Whether by trials of circumstance or by disciplines of choice, we cannot escape our calling to suffer with Christ."

"The spiritual life must find its origin in silence."

"Properly understood, the church is not an institution. It is the community of Jesus' followers on earth - men, women, an children filled with God's Spirit, living in communion with him, one another, a…"

"The reduction of even sacred things into commodities explains why we exhibit so little reverence for God. In a consumer worldview he has no intrinsic value apart from his usefulness to us."

"When we expect transformation to occur through external experiences, we are opting for an inferior model of spiritual formation."

"Disciplines teach us to overcome the temptation to gratify our immediate desires so that we may attain a higher one."

"The "trials of ordinary existence" are the divine curricula for spiritual maturity."

"Sociologists can no longer differentiate the lives of Christians from non-Christians, or the behavior of churches from corporations. We have abandoned the vision that Christianity is an alternative wa…"

"The abundance of our definitive words about God shows that we don't view him as a great mystery anymore, but as a sterile calculation without ambiguity or obscurity."

"Job learned the wisdom of silence before God, but it appears many Christians have abandoned this value in our wordy world."

"The transformation of our desires happens like all spiritual transformation - by following in the steps of Jesus. In a word, I believe the answer is suffering."

"Ironically, it is often our zeal to protect our faith that leads to its loss."

"We've been conditioned to avoid silence at all costs lest we be confronted with our own inner chaos."

"In a culture that insists on making God small, we can counteract the trend by focusing our imaginations on what is big."

"Although the forces of consumerism would have us remain forever in Neverland by running after every product promising to satisfy our desire and alleviate our suffering, the invitation of Christ is pre…"

"In less than a century, Christians have gone from opposing over-consumption at Christmas to demanding it be done in Christ's name alone."

"Consumerism is the dominant worldview of North Americans. As such, it is competing with the kingdom of heaven for the hearts and imaginations of God's people."

"Maybe God is waiting for us to be silent long enough so he may begin painting a new picture in our imaginations, to begin transforming our image of a manageable deity into one that can truly inspire."

"How might our perception of God be changed if we turned off the radio station for a few minutes and walked in a thunderstorm?"

"Learning to see the world as it truly is - saturated with the presence and love of God - should be the essence of Christian discipleship, or what many call spiritual formation."

"Wanting to obey Christ but lacking his imagination, we reinterpret the mission of the church through the only framework comprehendible to us--the one we've inherited from our consumer culture."

"We need to see beyond our culture; we need to peer through the bars of commodification and alienation and catch a glimpse of a God far larger than our circumstances."

"Consumerism has created a culture that values style over substance, image over reality, and perception over performance."

"Jesus is offering us a holiday at the sea, but we must be willing to abandon our mud pies in the slums."

"We do not desire too much, but too little."

"We must learn to exist in a consumer empire but not forfeit our souls at its altar."

"In a commodity culture we have been conditioned to believe nothing carries intrinsic value. Instead, value is found only in a thing's usefulness to us, and tragically this belief has been applied to p…"

"Paralleling the corporate shift away from manufacturing goods to manufacturing brands, Christianity in North America has drifted from a faith of substance to a faith of perception."