Living Eccentrically

Faith Beyond a Consumer Spirituality

Abstract

This article articulates a notion of faith that seeks to be attentive to several pitfalls of consumer spirituality. It rejects a faith that is conceived solely as marking an inner self, inattentive to its object, Jesus Christ, and forgetful of repentance. Instead, the author emphasizes the eccentric dimension of faith (both at its source and its object), its bodily transformative nature, and its inextricable link to repentance. In doing so, the argument challenges the notion of a contemporary consumer mentality that bends faith toward a self-owning and self-directed manner of being in the world.