Saturday, November 29, 1997

Let's call a truce to denunciations of commercialism

By Tom Schaefer

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

May we have an early truce on the denunciations of commercialism?

And let's cut back on sermon titles such as "They've Taken Christ Out of Christmas!" (Merchants who are reading this may now stop cheering.)

Yes, holiday shopping can be a real pain in the pocketbook, especially for true-blue believers who are starting to look pale from spending too much green. (The holidays always get me in a colorful mood.)

Thankfully, Leigh Eric Schmidt comes along to point out in "Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays" that commercialism and spiritual celebrations (Christmas, Easter, even Mother's Day) need not be mutually exclusive. There just needs to be some balance between them.

The issue he's addressing is not balancing a checkbook, but finding the right relationship between gift buying and committing oneself to the spiritual side of the season.

The fact is, the idea that commercialism undermines the noblest of human aspirations has been around since the earliest days of our country.

New England Puritans described Christmas observances as a form of idolatry. A judicial act by the Massachusetts General Court in 1659 banned their celebration, though the law was repealed in 1681. (Massachusetts didn't make Christmas a legal holiday until 1856.)

Today, the criticism, like Christmas music at the mall, still reverberates throughout the nation.

Schmidt, however, sees commercialism and sacred celebrations as contending forces, counterpunching and scoring points, with neither side coming away a clear winner.

In the 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi set up what some scholars think was the first Nativity scene. It featured gifts, evergreens and holly. People gathered at the site to sing spiritual songs. (The first Christmas carolers?)

Today, merchants sell crass religious imagery (Have you seen the Santa figurine kneeling by a manger?) while piping in a mix of seasonal music from "O Holy Night" to "Pot-Bellied Pigs Sing Holiday Favorites."

In 1992, the National Council of Churches launched a "Campaign to Take Commercialism Out of Christmas." Twenty-five leaders of Catholic, Protestant and Unitarian churches endorsed the effort. The campaign, however, was about as popular as a lump of coal in a Christmas stocking.

To be sure, anything can be done to excess during a holiday, notes the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus in the journal First Things. "But one should not protest too much when excess is on the side of good intentions or at least of intentions that we feel obliged to construe as good."

So celebrate the season, spiritually and commercially. And let your conscience and the balance in your checkbook be your guides.

X X X

If you hear the word Madonna, what's the first image that comes to mind?

Don't be embarrassed if your mind's eye sees a rock star in pointy attire. It's further proof how pervasive pop culture is, say two noted United Methodist communicators. They recently talked to a group in Nashville, Tenn., about the influence of the media on values and people's understanding of the world. Their presentations were reported by United Methodist News Service.

The Rev. William Fore, formerly with the National Council of Churches' Communications Commission, said churches have an opportunity and a responsibility to help people make sense of the culture as it's depicted in the media.

"The church is one of the last places in American culture where people meet together face-to-face each week," he told members of the newly formed Foundation for United Methodist Communications. The foundation is seeking ways to expand communication efforts of the church.

"Television has distanced us from all other community activity and mediated everything from sports to politics," he said.

The Rev. James Wall, editor of Christian Century magazine, said churches must help people learn "how to see and receive television, how to understand what's happening to them, how to identify the good and deplore the bad."

Studies show that people watch an average of 30 hours of television a week and spend only three-fourths of an hour reading a book, Fore said. If preachers refer to the Madonna, the mother of Jesus, in their sermons, he said, they shouldn't be surprised if what pops up in their parishioners' minds is a completely different image.

X X X

On another TV front, a panel discussion last week (Nov. 21) at Wichita State University, arranged by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., considered programming standards on television. The small number of people who turned out wasn't surprising.

People unhappy with television's offerings already have decided to turn off the tube. While they'll raise their voices publicly when they think it's appropriate to protest, more and more are doing the responsible thing and taking action on their own for themselves and their children.

And that, I might add, is always the best "censoring" policy.

In many respects, common concerns about television miss what I believe are issues just as crucial, especially for people of faith. We may decry the amount of sex and raw violence shown, but we often overlook the other "sins of the airwaves" the promotion of greed and covetousness in advertising, the focus on titillating gossip on talk shows and the overall disruption television has on family life.

My question to those who are still glued to the tube and who worry about the values that TV promotes is: Are you denouncing the obvious and ignoring the more pervasive?

Something to think about as the TV takes on a bigger role in holiday households.

(Tom Schaefer writes about religion and ethics for the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle. Write to him at the Wichita Eagle, P.O. Box 820, Wichita, KS 67201, or send e-mail to tschaefer(at)wichitaeagle.com )

(c) 1997, The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.).

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