COMMODIFICATION OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY: UCLA INTERVARSITY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP

Religion, Culture, Personal

Introduction

Many claim that in a capitalist society, commodification occurs ubiquitously, transforming seemingly irreplaceable concepts such as culture and beauty into commodities or objects of trade. Through an ethnographic study of UCLA InterVarsity Christian Fellowship this paper bridges the gap between theory and reality, picking up on themes related to this topic that emerged from a roughly ten-week study of the on-campus organization.

For context, it is important to understand the background of the organization, my relation to the organization, and the methods of this project. Regarding background, InterVarsity (IV for short) is a national inter-denominational, college, Christian organization. UCLA’s chapter (with around 80 regular members and around 200 total members) has diversity of both denominational and racial backgrounds. There are people of many different denominations and sometimes even different faith. Regarding race, while the majority is East-Asian-American, there subgroups catered specifically to certain racial identifications. The structure of the club is such that there are “small groups” that either organize people based on the area they live in (such as Rieber or Off-Campus) or the aforementioned identity-based label (such as Black Christian Ministries or International Student Ministries). These small groups range from three to twenty members and one to four volunteer student leaders (depending on size) who often operate in pairs. Each of these small group leaders is advised by what is called an “Area Leader,” who are interns that are usually recently graduated students from UCLA. Above the interns, are staff who work officially for Intervarsity (most are young adults in their late twenties to early thirties). In addition to small groups, there are also large group meetings where all the small groups gather in one space and run a program more akin to a church service with an icebreaker, musical worship, a sermon, and closing time of prayer and reflection. In addition to these, there are meetings for leaders on Sunday afternoons for planning and community building. Regarding my relationship to this organization, I am not only involved but am a volunteer student leader. This makes me a very deep insider, privileged to observe the in-group activities on many different levels of the organization. I performed three fieldnotes and two interviews to obtain the data for this ethnography. Some advantages of being in-group were pre-established trust with the interviews, access to deep insider situations (such as the leaders’ meetings), and an understanding of the dynamic of the group. Two big drawbacks of being in-group are that it is sometimes difficult to make meta-observations on a group that is so familiar and sometimes because I was in-group, there were different barriers in the interview (such as a hesitancy to talk about certain topics because I was in rather than outside of the organization). In both the approach and retroactive processing of my fieldwork, I referenced theorists and ethnographers such as Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, D. Soyini Madison, Katherine Dunham, Faye V. Harrison, Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, Linda L. Shaw, Arlene Davila, and others in the field. 

While the opening of this paper referenced one theme that arose in this investigation, it is important to track the progression of the themes and the significance of this study. Initially, this ethnography sought to discover the power dynamics and inner workings of IV, with a particular focus on outreach. With each field site visit and interview, though, I realized that I already had a solid understanding of both of those issues and they were not interesting to me or as powerful of a study as what I ended up doing. Were I to revise my research question, I would change it to something along the lines of “How do members of InterVarsity Christian fellowship relate to the interstices of commodification of community?” rather than focusing on structure. That being said, major themes that arose include authenticity, ethnic identity in relation to Christianity, social justice in relation to Christianity, transition into/out of community, and obviously commodification of community. This ethnography is significant because it reveals both positive and negative impacts of commodification within a community that I am part of. In creating actionable next steps in the conclusion section, this project will prove its practical worth in that sense. In addition to that, this paper seeks to add the analysis of this specific college student Christian group to the greater body of knowledge on both Christian organizations and commodification in general. All in all, this ethnography seeks to reveal the commodification of community as demonstrated by themes such as culture, authenticity, and community manifested in both fieldnotes and interviews. 

Commodification of Community

One of the central tenets of the IV chapter at UCLA is diversity and they have tried, in word, to keep a commitment to diversity. In my second observation with fieldnotes, this quality was apparent with the La Fe run large group meeting [La Fe is the Hispanic small group of the fellowship]. Yet, even in an attempt at diversity, there were inklings of the commodification which will become more apparent in later excerpts. For now, though, take the example of the refreshments offered after the large group service:

After the song was over, the pastor called us to all hold hands and close in prayer. This took a little while as there were many people and not everyone was sitting together. After the prayer, she went down and the MCs came back up. They announced more upcoming events. After that, the released us to leave. People stayed and socialized. There was also some kind of Mexican sweet bread outside. Even in my quick exit, there were people grabbing the refreshments. I grabbed some sweet bread, but could not stay to socialize as I had a meeting after the service. (Fieldnotes 2)

While this is not necessarily commodification by the pastor and Hispanic church in providing these refreshments after the service, I think if looking at the larger context of it, there is still room to interpret this event as an instance of commodification. It was mentioned earlier in the field notes that the last time something like this happened, where La Fe hosted the large group meeting, was 7 years ago. The group has not only been active but has been vibrant for times in that time period. It is odd, to say the least, that they have not been more involved in the general activities of IV at large (considering IV’s commitment to diversity). While there is the idea of sharing one's culture (which I feel the Hispanic church and its members were doing), there is also the tension of commodifying culture and metaphorically packaging it for consumption. Due to other occurrences, this problematic possibility is one to be taken seriously. For instance, there are what they call “Black Church Mondays,” where they do a similar setup, but instead, let an African-American church group take over the service. While I believe this to be good exposure to different ways of worshiping and relating to God, the way that they advertise the event can be somewhat problematic, portraying it as a very “other”-like cultural experience to be had. Other occurrences include worship songs in many different languages (Tagalog, Zulu, Chinese, Spanish, just to name a few). While this is sometimes founded in the racial identity of the worship leader or the members of the community, there are times when no one speaks the language being sung. Taking the fact that all three of these occurrences are aimed at mostly non-native members of that particular culture, there seems to be some level of commodification of ethnic identity as a means of promoting these large group gatherings.  Though the topic of ethnicity is not directly related to community, its centrality in people’s identity and worldview still has import to the discussion of commodification at large. This commodification also points to the possibility of commodification in other aspects as well. Though this commodification may be prevalent, it is not usually referred to in such terms. The way that I believe IV has come to understand (particularly the negative) effects of commodification is through authenticity/inauthenticity. 

One of the effects of commodification is the feeling that the object or person being commodified is impersonal or generic. In streamlining and packaging the thing, the individual and human aspects of whatever is being commodified are gone. Depending on what is commodified, this can be one of the harshest impacts of commodification on both consumers. Because of this, the producer (or more accurately, the commodifier) can sometimes attempt to reserve the impacts of this through marketing and other claims. Take, for example, the increase in organic and locally farmed foods. This seems to be an impulse by the general consumer to be closer to the production process, as capitalist mechanisms hide the means of production from the consumer, making people feel cut off from what they buy. This changing of labels seems to be an attempt by seller to placate this impulse but placate in name only. Having understood this example, turn to IV’s new vision statement:

As the worship team was preparing themselves,  I noticed a few things that I didn’t notice before this assignment. First, I noticed that there was a banner with UCLA InterVarsity’s vision statement on it. The banner reads as follows: “INTERVARSITY BRUIN CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IS BECOMING AN AUTHENTIC COMMUNITY OF WITNESSES LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT TO BRING GOD'S LOVE TO EVERY CORNER OF UCLA.” (Fieldnotes 1)

The vision statement was something that has been changed in the past year. Previously, the vision statement was something of a commitment to diversity and being willing to explore new horizons.  Additionally, this quarter, the group went through an “Unmasked” series, which is supposed to take a look at God and Christian issues more “authentically.” This can be seen in the following:

She began her talk by explaining the series that the club is going through which is called “Unmasked.” Essentially, each week for five weeks, InterVarsity invites guest speakers to talk on different aspects of approaching God with authenticity (being “unmasked”). She explained that the aspect that she’d be talking about that night was related to sex and relationships.

Both of these have striking parallels to the farming example posited earlier. Both of these are changes in marketing, and sometimes even changes in the content that is provided (for instance the organic/local food is physically different food and the “Unmasked” series covers different material), the fundamental problems in both still remain. In the case of the food, consumers still simply go to the grocery store and buy the food. They are no closer to the process of production than they were before, but now they feel better about themselves. Similarly, both the vision statement and the “Unmasked” series sought to eliminate the feeling that the fellowship was hollow and impersonal by addressing (in word) authenticity and “raw” topics, but often in reality only changed the facade. Especially in large group settings, the content was for the most part the same and largely superficial. This discrepancy in striving for authenticity as resistance to commodification becomes even more complicated once community is included as an idea.  

One of the most striking portions of my fieldwork was during an interview when my interlocutor (here called Denise) struck the central point of commodification when talking about a community she was trying to build. Previously in the conversation, we had been talking about IV’s recruitment and leadership style. The conversation happened as follows:

J: As opposed to like tailoring it to or like making it really broad [...]?

D: [...] Yeah I did an unofficial social justice small group with like some other leaders and some non-leaders who were not freshman.[...] For me that was a very good space to pursue God and to figure out where his heart is and where my heart should be and for me that was very spiritually fulfilling and I felt like leadership was the exact opposite, it was very much just like let’s get people to come out let's invite them to this, let's invite them to that let's go door knocking again, and not to say that it was all bad because I definitely did have some very good encounters with people where I was able to have conversations like I wanted to, but I felt like a majority or the first few weeks of leadership were just trying to get people to come out

J: And this social justice group was unofficial?

D: It was unofficial. Meljon wanted to make it like a thing, like an InterVarsity small group thing, but I didn’t want it to be

J: Why didn't you want it to be ... institutionalized? Why didn't you want it to be a ""thing”? 

D: Because I felt like this is something we had started, I mean it was already pretty decently publicized but I felt like I didn’t want that space to turn into something like IV claimed I guess. I just wanted to maintain something that was, like, ours as a community. I don't know, but, yeah … (Interview 1)

 In her attempt to form a community, Denise was threatened by the ideas of censorship and bureaucratic control. This speaks to the elimination of deviation in a streamlined or commodified product. It is interesting, here, that one of the leaders of IV attempted to bring this deviant group back into the fold. This mirrors the capitalist machine’s tendency to bring counter-hegemonic forces into the hegemonic mainstream through commodification. The scenario here played out with the Social Justice small group dying out and some of the ideas explored in the small group taken into the large group setting and shared. 

While these are negative effects, Denise did also cite a positive impact of possible commodification: 

J: In a more general sense, like, do you see any, I guess, maybe not positive, but non-negative impacts of institutionalization, like ...

D: Definitely, institutionalization can offer a lot of things. It can offer funding, it can offer publicity, you can have more people coming to your small group. It does have positives to it, however in the long run there's certain obligations that is tied to each of these things. (Interview 1).

On a practical level, because this is an organization that people are part of, and in this case, is a good message that people are trying to share, commodification and becoming part of a bureaucratic structure has benefits. It seems that, with this comment, Denise may be advocating for a more neutral approach to this streamlining process. Rather than denying commodification at all, having a balanced approach to something that is commodified.

Similarly, in another interview, this time with one of the current interns in the organization (Jaya for privacy purposes), she proposes a similar approach when dealing with commodification in community. Previously in the conversation, we had been discussing how, when creating a South Asian small group, there was no data on how to most effectively start it. At this point we were talking directly about commodification of community:

Me : OK, understand. That makes sense. I have a question, though, how do you relate this kind of data to institutionalization? How does adding data to this community and spirituality impact your experience of it? 

…

J: I think if left unchecked it's easy to make anything into the “best” or small group with the most people or being the most “successful,” but [pause]. But we don’t look at which small groups have the most numbers to prove IV to be the biggest. It is just in order to see what they actually want to talk about and discuss. 

Here, Jaya presents a practical way in which the commodification of community can be balanced. By using the benefits of commodification as a tool for genuine needs, Jaya asserts that this kind of interaction with the capitalist machine is healthy. To an extent, this seems like it may be the best one can do at times in a capitalist society. Her approach, and Denise’s, to some degree, is to take what you need from the commodification, be mindful of its consequences, and come with good intentions. While this does not solve some of the fundamental problems that were raised earlier, this response feels appropriate and practical. 

Next Steps

While these observations are powerful and interesting, they are close to useless without action. The next steps in this project would be a combination of Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s “Sharing” and “Creating” from Decolonizing Methodologies (Smith 159, 162). The Sharing aspect would be with not only the people around me but with more people like my second interviewee who are in leadership. Awareness is a necessary condition for self-reflexivity. In order to, not necessarily do away with, but at the very least address commodification, one must be aware of it. While it does seem that there is an increasing implicit understanding of this (as evident from the new vision statement and the “Unmasked” series which focused on authenticity), the explicit framing of the phenomenon as commodification may be useful to staff members and leaders attempting to combat the negative impacts of commodification. What this would look like practically, would to talk first with the staff members about the issue, explaining the theoretical framework to them. After that, I would request to have control over part of one of the leaders’ meetings to discuss the issue, weighing its advantages and disadvantages. I would also point to some ways of countering the particularly transactional or capitalist feeling of being in a commodified space. For this, I would propose first the solution or middle ground advocated by my interviewees. Following that, though, delve into Christian existentialism (particularly Kierkegaardian philosophy), which advocates the primacy of human relationships and genuine love. Additionally, I would include relevant Scripture around this topic, which I would have to look into. I would want these Scriptural passages to be more practical, as the theoretical framework would already be set through the philosophical conversation. 

The final activity that I would do as it relates to “Sharing,” would be to hold an open dialogue with the general public and the non-leaders of IV (but also open to the outside). I would give a talk with examples and references to this ethnography. After my presentation and specific examples of this (which I believe would very directly address some of the unspoken concerns floating around the fellowship that I have sense or heard indirectly), I would open up the space for anonymous questions to be posted on the screen. There are multiple apps and websites that allow people to go online and post questions anonymously. I would answer as many questions as came. Ideally, this would be advertised in IV, but also in other on-campus Christian fellowships. It would be interesting, also, to include people from other fellowships talking on the same issue, but this would be slightly harder to execute. If it were possible, though this is something I would really like as it would give another perspective on the issue (from the angle of a different fellowship). Depending on the response to that event, there could be other talks like this given on campus.

I believe that these activities would effectively spread information regarding the issue and would lead to some change (particularly in the leadership). I include the “Creating” portion of Smith’s advice, though, because it has an ability to address emotional responses that are not necessarily covered in a lecture-like setting as proposed in the “Sharing” section of this response. The “Creating” section would an art installation around the topic. This installation could be set up in the Broad with the connections that some of the IV members have to the building, but also at Upside Down Cafe. This cafe is a space for a lot of Christian artwork to be displayed. They display mostly paintings and I did mention the coffee shop in fieldnotes three. The displays would take common images of community (such as a small group time, prayer, the Bible, retreats, singing worship songs, etc.) and they would be either literally packaged (in a box) with only a small opening for viewing or something like saran wrap. I would also play with censorship, repetition, obscurity, and the contrast of saturated colors in the photos used in the spiritual/community activities with muted paints for background or painted onto the photograph. I would also explain the reasoning behind the piece as being a product of this research project and an attempt to capture the feeling of commodification in Christian spaces. I would advertise this in my small group and during the announcement time of my large group meetings. Hopefully, something like this would help alleviate, or at least express, some of the emotional burdens that comes with commodification of community. 

Conclusion

In studying the InterVarsity branch at UCLA through interviews and field notes/observations, several themes arose that contributed to the large theme of commodification of community. While there are serious negative impacts of commodification (especially on something so personal as community), the responses of both of my interviewees pointed towards a balanced approach to the matter. It seems impossible to fully escape the grasp of capitalistic society, but what they proposed poses a practical option for daily operation in this system. Moreover, the practical steps that I would take to raise awareness about this issue would be “Sharing” through a more theoretical public speaking forum and “Creating” through a more emotional, art-based medium. Though neither of these would solve the problem, the hope would be for these to be moving my fellowship in the right direction. At the end of the day, as it has been echoed throughout this ethnography, sometimes all that you can do in a capitalist society is carry on mindfully and with the best intentions at heart.