Black Friday Matters.
During my lifetime a new religious festival, a new holy day, has been developed in the Western World. The media treat this every year as though it were an established, centuries old tradition. My email and internet feeds have been filled with organisations telling me about Black Friday deals. Deals which no go on for the whole weekend.
I loathe ‘Black Friday’ and regard it as crass, commercial and cynical exploitation. Again, this meme sums up how we are being suckered.
It’s even more depressing that we still have ‘Black Friday’ in the midst of a pandemic.
Here is a fascinating – and typically perceptive – perspective from Russell Brand…Black Friday in a Pandemic World.
Look at some of the things Brand says: “This is a time for challenge – this is a time for awakening. This is a time of dealing with loss and alienation by looking within…not purchasing. We are ignorant of the fact that our structures and systems have failed us – what is being enforced world-wide is the man-based religion of consumerism.” I don’t agree with all his analysis and his solution is woefully short – but he is asking all the right questions.
One of the reasons I post Brand is because I find very little from a Christian perspective. In fact, the very opposite. Christian organisations have jumped on the Black Friday bandwagon. I was almost going to say that I was going to boycott any Christian organisation which sent me a Black Friday offer – but then I got one from The Banner of Truth! Et tu Banner?!
Why do Christian organisations feel the need to join in this crass commercialism? If your products are good enough, and they are for our spiritual edification and not for the purpose of making money or keeping your organisation afloat – then please spare us the special offers and commercialism. Remember the teaching of the Christ we follow – “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”
The solution that Brand is looking for, and which we should be presenting. Is of another Black Friday. What the English-speaking churches call ‘Good Friday’ the Germans call ‘Black Friday’ – it is the day when Jesus was crucified – the most solemn, serious and darkest day in the history of the Universe. And yet it is from that pit, that hope comes. Brand and everyone else will find what they are looking for when they come to the Cross. We preach Christ crucified, not Christ commercialised.
David Robertson
Sydney
28th November 2020
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