Commercialization of Religion – Recent Fad or Future Reality?

As capitalist culture inculcates itself whether through the commercial image of Che Guevara, mass-produced consumer magazines that preach the illusory virtues of fashion, or the nonsensical music that glorifies sex and materialism, it is hardly surprising that this degenerative cultural phenomenon has now trickled its way into religion.

Molding potentially subversive ideology into a commercial trend has altered and trivialized the very concept of revolution and civil dissent, thereby rendering such ideas useless. Once the artistic rebuttal to inequality and poverty, hip-hop has now become the musical manifestation of redundancy and insignificance.

The same holds true for political ideologies that challenge the status quo. The hammer and sickle logo and T-shirt’s bearing the images of liberal personalities have become so commercialized to the extent that they have lost all meaning. In our consumerist society it is just “cool to be the bad guy”. Osama bin Laden merchandise will become a hot commodity in 15 years when the U.S. will be busy invoking fear against another fictional enemy.

Power and profit are essentially the chief motivating factors that advance the capitalist/consumerist system. Mainstream corporate media veneration of societal scum such as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and other wannabe talent is not only a reflection of what society demands, it is also a means to keep the masses from critically examining issues that actually matter. Hence, the average, low income African-American does not wear a Malcolm X T-shirt because he is socially conscious, he wears it because 50 cent wore it during a hip-hop concert last night.

So the question arises: should we as a society let religion become prey to this monster? With clothing bearing text such as “Jesus is my homeboy”, the multitude of Muslim teenage boys donning over sized Allah medallions in a futile attempt to look “gangsta”, and the plethora of so-called designer Hijabs, it certainly seems as though religion is taking a step forward commercially, but a step backward from a spiritual sense.

My assertion is not of a dogmatic mullah, neo-conservative Christian, a Zionist Jew, or someone pretending to be religious (we have enough of those people), but as someone who sees religion as the deepest and most beautiful expression of human nature and does not want to see it corrupted. I cannot help but think that grills (diamond encrusted teeth worn by hip hop “artists”) etched with the star of David or the 99 names of Allah is not the type of religious expression God had in mind. On the contrary, such absurdity would only serve to trivialize the concept of religion as a whole.

Let’s not fall farther down into the commercial trap than we already have.