Skye Jethani sees the tragedy in divine commodification, but he does more than critique the darkness. He uses it as a mirror to help all of us find colonies of religious consumerism growing in our own hearts. And he uses the light of great saints and artists to lift our sights to something higher and deeper and wider than personal religious customer satisfaction.
BRIAN MCLAREN, author/speaker (brianmclaren.net)
The Divine Commodity is a probing look at how the tentacles of consumerism have wrapped themselves around the American church, nearly choking it to spiritual death. Jethani manages to name the beast without condemning the many practitioners of consumer Christianity, and he speaks not only the hard word but also suggests ways that can help us break free.
MARK GALLI, Senior Managing Editor, Christianity Today author, Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God
Salted with moments of delightful humor and fortified by sympathetic anecdotes and insights from the life and work of Vincent van Gogh, Skye Jethanis critique of a church without imagination is as persuasive as it is accessible and engaging.
PHYLLIS TICKLE, author, The Great Emergence
Jethani makes a compelling case that consumerism isnt simply a matter of Christians spending too much on themselves (which is true). Consumerism is a diabolic cancer that is subtley undermining the core values and practices of the kingdom. All American Christians need to read, discuss, and digest this book!
GREGORY A. BOYD, Senior Pastor, Woodland Hills Church author, The Myth of a Christian Nation
Skye Jethani skillfully guides us in what it means to be faithful disciples in a culture that has literally sold its soul to the devil of consumerism. The Divine Commodity is a great antidote for the venomous spirit of our age.
ALAN HIRSCH, author of The Forgotten Ways and reJesus a founder of shapevine.com
What an irony when the church turns the living God into a religious commodity, a cheap mirror of culture rather than a vivid reflection of Gods revelation. Skye Jethanis winsome, artful, passionate, and compelling book is an antidote that can help undo this distortion and reopen our imaginations to the God who speaks true hope in Jesus Christ.
MARK LABBERTON, Senior Pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley author, The Dangerous Act of Worship
Navigating American consumerism requires both the aptitude of a scholarly mind and the observational skills of a culture junkie. Skye Jethani exhibits both in this book. With care, subtlety, cultural savvy, and theological acumen, he guides us through the consumerist maze that threatens Christian discipleship in our day. In so doing, he makes The Divine Commodity a primer for discerning a new Christian faithfulness amidst the market forces that so dominate American life today.
DAVID FITCH, Reclaimingthemission.com Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology, Northern Seminary author, The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business
Even if it is doing so seductively and with a velvet glove, consumer capitalism is choking American evangelicalism to death. The church and real Christianity will survive, in various forms. But nothing short of the resuscitation of gospel imagination... can now save evangelicalism. As vividly true and quietly brilliant as a van Gogh painting, Skye Jethanis book is an urgent, loving application of CPR. Evangelicals who read it may begin to breathe again.
RODNEY CLAPP, author, Border Crossings
Skye artfully examines ways we have become McChurch in America. He boldly calls us to an alternate way of being without selling out to the consumer culture of our times.
DAVE GIBBONS, author, The Monkey and the Fish
This book is a well-written diagnosis of what is seriously ailing the American church. If you want to address some of what is keeping us from being a positive influence in our society today, I highly recommend it. If you want to wake up in your bed tomorrow and go on believing everything is fine, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!
NEIL COLE, Director of Church Multiplication Associates
author, Organic Church, Cultivating a Life for God, Search & Rescue, and Organic Leadership
Skye Jethani reflects on the Consumer Church and Consumer Christianity with incisive wit, wisdom, humility, humor, and prophetic insight. He juxtaposes the ideal of the franchise church with childlike faith, imaginative wonder, and nonconformist community, drawing on the examples of misfits like Vincent van Gogh and his art. Skye doesnt just talk about the imagination; he captures it.
DR. RICK RICHARDSON, Associate Professor and Director of the Masters in Evangelism and Leadership, Wheaton College author, Reimagining Evangelism and Evangelism Outside the Box
ZONDERVAN
The Divine Commodity
Copyright 2009 by Syke Jethani
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.
ePub Edition January 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-57422-4
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jethani, Skye, 1976
The divine commodity : discovering a faith beyond consumer Christianity / Skye Jethani.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-310-28375-1
1. Christianity and culture. 2. Consumption (Economics) Religious aspects
Christianity. I. Title.
BR115.C8J47 2009
261.0973 dc22
2008036197
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version , copyright 2001 by Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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For Life , Laughter , and Light .
Surely the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.
