Abstract
In Commodified Communion, Antonio Eduardo Alonso proves that the burgeoning market in theological engagements with contemporary capitalism is not yet saturated. The primary mode of exploration thus far in this field has been a theologically informed critique of capitalism marked by a call to resist the consumerist culture of our age. Against the market competitors, Alonso offers a distinctive product with unique characteristics.
The basic argument of the book is that the ‘Eucharistic resistance’ response to our capitalist societies, which he primarily associates with Geoffrey Wainwright, William Cavanaugh, and Vincent Miller, ‘undermines our ability to talk about the activity of God within a consumer culture, binds grace to human activity, and instrumentalizes the Eucharist into ethics’ (p. 3). Framed in this fashion, it gives the impression that Alonso is offering an entirely different response to the challenges of following Jesus in an age dominated by Mammon. As the argument works out, it lands more as a corrective than a rejection of this seam of moral theology.
And this nuanced point is significant. There is a deep problem with any and every theological project that seeks to propose a program of resistance to capitalism. In proportion to how compellingly the case is made, the market will co-opt it and repackage it as a commodity, a lifestyle choice to distinguish the wannabe-disciple as a discerning consumer of fine philosophy. Sacramental accounts of moral formation must be alert to this risk. As Alonso puts it, ‘In a culture in which even products and practices that we think are helping us resist the market end up reinforcing it, the legibility and the measurability of the ways that the Eucharist makes us into better consumers or our churches more impervious to culture seem destined for particular failure’ (p. 101, original emphasis).
The argument proceeds across four chapters. Alonso sets out his stall by describing the pre-existing literature he intends to correct—specifically the three figures already named
In the third chapter, Alonso, an acclaimed composer of liturgical music, launches a robust attack on accounts of moral formation that give pride of place to liturgical and sacramental influence (he gives particular attention to Mary Douglas, Victor Turner, and Aidan Kavanagh). He points out that while such claims are amenable to empirical investigation, the advocates for the formative potency of Eucharist do not pursue scientific verification. He goes further, suggesting that ‘a circular logic constrains much of that reflection on liturgy, merely confirming the very assumptions with which the scholars began’ (p. 87). In the closing chapter, Alonso does not continue to tear down the idea of Eucharistic resistance, but drawing on the conversion of the slave-owning, slavery-endorsing Dominican preacher Bartolomé de Las Casas, argues that the materiality of the Eucharistic feast is the basis upon which we can go on being Christians in communion with our Lord even though we live in a world compromised by consumerism. Building on the work of Louis-Marie Chauvet, he insists that ‘the Eucharist confronts us with the corporeality of a faith that is always mediated through the body of culture, tradition, and nature’ (p. 119, emphasis original). The problem, in other words, is not that the ‘resistance’ model seeks a kind of retreat, but that there is nowhere anyone can retreat to. Sure, we are surrounded by capitalism. But we have always been surrounded by socio-economic context which has required negotiation. Eucharist is not utopian, which is good news.
This is clearly a very interesting argument, one that warrants attention from anyone concerned with Christianity's entanglement with capitalism, wealth, and consumerism. But I have thus far left one of the most striking elements of the book unmentioned. Before every chapter of detailed theological argument, Alonso offers a reflection on some element on contemporary Christian practice within our consumeristic society, written in eminently readable prose, which serves as a sort of literary tuning fork for the analysis to follow. He is clear that these vignettes are not accessories supplementing the substance of the book found in the main chapters. Rather, they are ‘the constructive heart of the argument for the ways that they reveal what is at stake in failing to account for such practices and also for the ways that they perform the very kind of lived theology this project seeks forth’ (p. 8).
The first of these descriptive passages consists of a close reading of his abuela's home altar, a riot of ever-rotating religious icons, prayer cards, notes, clippings, and appointment reminders. The boundaries between devotional practice and the mundane labour of organizing her life are blurred in this physical space demarcated in her house to help her in her daily prayer. Alonso reads the theologies of Eucharistic resistance and sees no recognition that this faithful woman's vibrant spiritual life is inextricably tied up with consumer capitalism. ‘Her faith was not articulated apart from these objects but through them, even in their commodified state’ (p. 16).
The second interlude traces the liturgical revolution that followed Vatican II that was also mediated through the work of publishing houses compiling books of praise music that sought to reconcile the older modes of worship with the new vernacular. Alonso notes that ‘many theologians have lamented the loss of Catholic materiality with the ushering in of the reforms of Vatican II. But that materiality didn’t end; it just shifted to new things’ (p. 49). These books, so easily and commonly mocked, were the first books Alonso ever fell in love with. Is the liturgical revolution diminished because it was achieved through the efforts of market-based corporations? Alonso allows the reader to see the sentimentality hidden behind such instincts—when has it ever been different?
The third vignette considers the efficacy of marketing, focusing on the ways in which the slogans of the Apple Corporation worked on the author. And the final descriptive episode is the most striking, where Alonso tells the story of the commodification of communion breads in the USA. With the most sincere and well-grounded intentions, the reformers of Vatican II called for ‘greater reception and new ways of expressing the material significance of Eucharist’ (p. 113) and it was inevitable—and yet somehow not foreseen—that the mechanics of how this liturgical revolution would take place would involve industrial processes driven by the profit motive.
These four reflections illuminate the argument made in the main chapters. But I was also struck by the ways in which the structure of the book reflected the argument Alonso was making. The writing of academic theology is necessarily governed by norms. These unwritten rules shape the expectations of expert readers and allow us to digest arguments promptly and efficiently. Seen in a certain light, we who are theologians are people trained in the labour of consuming commodified intellectual products for the advancement of the different institutions we represent. We all know that experience of chomping through the chapters. I had to pause with this book however, change gears, shift into a different mode of reading, before accelerating back into the main arguments. Alonso is not resisting the structure of academic theological publishing. He is not even critiquing it. But through these entertaining digressions—which structurally are anything but—he exposes the commodified experience that is making a living from reading.
Commodified Communion is an important contribution to the field. I suspect that the main writers he takes issue with have within their work robust responses. I know the works of Wainwright, Cavanaugh, and Miller best of those engaged with here and I can already see how a critical response to Alonso might work out. Cavanaugh's theopolitical imagination, for example, has a much greater attentiveness to the political shape of contemporary capitalism. The critique of Eucharistic resistance has its place, but Cavanaugh's work remains fundamentally rooted in the sacramentally shaped opposition to Pinochet's torture regime. Alonso talks often of consumerism and commodification but pays little attention to the details of neoliberal capitalism that sit behind these terms, giving them their substance and shape (the ‘Kyrie eleison’ call on p. 121 is a notable exception). This may seem like too detailed an observation but in his interlude on the effect of Apple's rhetoric, he talks of the suicides that have occurred at Apple factories (p. 83), when the security nets he discusses were erected at the Foxconn facilities in Shenzhen which were contracted by Apple for production of their devices. These details matter because a tangled web of greed, ingenuity, and human misery is hidden behind these supply chains.
Again, concerned with the shape of the economic system that undergirds the inescapable consumerism in which we live our lives and practise our faith, reading Commodified Communion, I was struck by the absence of an ecological concern, or any serious discussion of preaching. What difference does climate collapse and biodiversity breakdown make to our understanding of consumerism that, for all its potential benefits, is still accurately described as a throwaway culture? While speech can certainly be co-opted, the homily as a mode of reflection on the Scriptures has a different kind of potency from the sacrament which warrants attention from theologians seeking to make sense of our capitalist age.
Criticisms—which it should be noted are of the minor variety (‘Things that weren’t in the book that I would put in the book’)—aside, Alonso's intervention regarding the limits of Eucharistic practice in generating justice—both as a theological claim and a liturgical reality—is important. Eucharist is composed of food products (p. 119). The shape of the sacrament means it implicates us in social practices that are inextricably economic. Whatever ‘resistance’ is funded by the worship of the church must resist the utopian urge to retreat and Alonso has given us a skilfully crafted reminder of this.