A Congregation of Customers
23rd October 2007
Read it. Shopping for God in all the wrong places.
Mr. Twitchell manages to reduce this profound idea to the dictates of basic consumer theory. Sacrifice, he says–not least, tithing–signifies value. The more you sacrifice, the more you visibly value the product for which you are giving something up, and the more you show other people that you value it, too. “Why do true believers sometimes puncture themselves, walk on their knees until they bleed, fast until they are skeletal or join a monastery and go mum?” Mr. Twitchell asks. “Brand allegiance.”
This is obviously someone who knows as much about religion as Hillary Clinton knows about life in Omaha.