I’ve been reading another book. This time it is The Divine Commodity. It’s a challenging book that asks some tough questions about how Christianity should be spread and shared in our contemporary culture. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but so far it’s amazing how the book details what I’ve been dwelling on lately: the increasing commodification of humans.
The definition of commodity is as thus: “Something useful that can be turned to commercial or other advantage.” One can easily grasp that in some areas of the world humans have become items to be traded or sold for commercial gain when we start talking about human trafficking, child slavery and the sex trade. The world rightly recoils in disgust when we hear about these things because we all know inside our conscience that human beings are to be valued as special, unique individuals and it is wrong for people to reduce others to simply numbers, objects or a resource to be exploited for gain.
However, humans are becoming treated more and more like objects right under everyone’s noses. Consider how much advertising you see every day on television or on the billboards on your way to work. How are the people in it being used? Are they being used respectfully or in prurient ways? And what are they trying to get you to do and why? When we start to critique how we’re being advertised to, I think we’ll be surprised by what we discover.
I think it’s a shame that people have started to largely forget that people have an intrinsic value beyond what we can buy and do. We’re all God’s children, fearfully and wonderfully made. We are all bought and paid for in the highest possible way. And as Christians, we know that we have a bit of the divine inside and because of that we’re all valuable and we all are unique with our own stories to tell. Don’t let anyone else tell you different.
– Matt
Christianitycommoditydivinehumansobjects
The Divine Within
July 30, 2009
Calvary
Comments Off on The Divine Within
Matt
I’ve been reading another book. This time it is The Divine Commodity. It’s a challenging book that asks some tough questions about how Christianity should be spread and shared in our contemporary culture. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but so far it’s amazing how the book details what I’ve been dwelling on lately: the increasing commodification of humans.
The definition of commodity is as thus: “Something useful that can be turned to commercial or other advantage.” One can easily grasp that in some areas of the world humans have become items to be traded or sold for commercial gain when we start talking about human trafficking, child slavery and the sex trade. The world rightly recoils in disgust when we hear about these things because we all know inside our conscience that human beings are to be valued as special, unique individuals and it is wrong for people to reduce others to simply numbers, objects or a resource to be exploited for gain.
However, humans are becoming treated more and more like objects right under everyone’s noses. Consider how much advertising you see every day on television or on the billboards on your way to work. How are the people in it being used? Are they being used respectfully or in prurient ways? And what are they trying to get you to do and why? When we start to critique how we’re being advertised to, I think we’ll be surprised by what we discover.
I think it’s a shame that people have started to largely forget that people have an intrinsic value beyond what we can buy and do. We’re all God’s children, fearfully and wonderfully made. We are all bought and paid for in the highest possible way. And as Christians, we know that we have a bit of the divine inside and because of that we’re all valuable and we all are unique with our own stories to tell. Don’t let anyone else tell you different.
– Matt
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Christianitycommoditydivinehumansobjects