The Trouble with Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises

by Mark Sayers

Overview

What if you're living in the wrong reality?

Doesn't everyone want the good life these days? Our shopping mall world offers us a never-ending array of pleasures to explore. Consumerism promises us a vision of heaven on earth-a reality that's hyper-real. We've all experienced hyperreality: a candy so 'grape-ey' it doesn't taste like grapes any more; a model's photo so manipulated that it doesn't even look like her; a theme park version of life that tells us we can have something better than the real thing. But what if this reality is not all that it's cracked up to be? Admit it, we've been ripped off by our culture and its version of reality that leaves us lonely, bored, and trapped. But what's the alternative?

In The Trouble With Paris, pastor Mark Sayers shows us how the lifestyles of most young adults (19-35) actually work against a life of meaning and happiness to sabotage their faith. Sayers shows how a fresh understanding of God's intention for our world is the true path to happiness, fulfillment, and meaning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781418574604
Publisher:	Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
Publication date:	12/19/2023
Sold by:	OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	226
File size:	1 MB

Read an Excerpt

The Trouble with Paris

Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises

---

By Mark Sayers

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2008 Mark Sayers
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4185-7460-4

---

CHAPTER 1

Why Your Faith Does Not Work

She looked like a girl who had it all. She was strikingly beautiful, confident, and hip. Half the guys in the room were looking at her, and all the girls in the room wanted to be her. She had ticked all the boxes: she was deeply involved in her church, had a high-paying job, traveled all over the world, and had a social life most of us would be jealous of, with a bevy of male suitors. Yet for her this meant nothing.

She looked me square in the eye with pain in her face and told me, "I was promised an awesome life!" I was immediately thrown. This girl had everything that society tells us will make us happy. Yet as I listened to the reality of her life, I realized that nothing could be further from the truth. Behind the glamorous exterior was a person who was struggling, who was unsure of who she was, who struggled with depression and with the dissatisfaction of constantly feeling as if she needed more. Her life was in limbo, and she was constantly waiting for this awesome life to turn up, yet it never came. She had finally come to the realization that she was miserable, and she felt very, very ripped off.

This is a story that can be heard among those who have left the Christian faith because it didn't deliver them the perfect life they believed they were promised. It can also be heard in the dissatisfaction and frustrations of those who still have faith. And finally, it can be heard in those who never had faith yet invested all of their hope in the fact that one day the perfect future will arrive. If we are to live lives of meaning, satisfaction, and happiness, it is essential that we understand what effects our culture has on our quality of life and quality of faith. Let's begin with faith.

SOMETHING IS EATING YOUR FAITH

Throughout the developed Western world, a corrosive epidemic is eating away at the faith lives of Christians. It assails us in our darkest moments; it comes to us at three o'clock in the morning when we can't sleep. It confronts us at every corner, three to ten thousand times a day. It whispers to our hearts that we've got it wrong, that our faith should not be in Jesus Christ of Nazareth but in something else. In this context your faith is getting torn apart and most likely will not survive. Contrary to popular belief, you and your friends probably won't lose your faith because of sex, drugs, or doubt but for a much more insidious reason. Sure, you can fight it; you can think, It won't be me. But how do you fight an enemy you can't name, an opponent you can't see?

The thing that will eat away at your faith, make it impotent, and finally kill it off cannot easily be named. It is a framework, a formation system, an entire worldview. It tells us how to live and how to act. It speaks to our sense of identity. It shapes our personality. It tells us what to love, what to commit to, and what to have hope in. It is a virus that eats our faith from the inside out. This virus is the allure of the hyperreal world.

If you want to blame someone or something for your life not ending up as wonderfully as you were led to believe it would, a good place to start is the cultural phenomenon called hyperreality. The combination of a hyperconsumer culture, mass media, and rampant individualism has created a world of hyperreality. What is hyperreality? It's a term I learned from a French guy named Jean Baudrillard. He was a twentieth-century philosopher who took a trip across America, visiting places like Las Vegas and Disneyland. He said that our culture had become hyperreal, meaning that we could now have things that were even better than the real thing. The media-drenched world in which we live has overextended our expectations of life.

Following are some examples of hyperreality:

* A fairly pretty girl works as a model to support her studies. She does a photo shoot for a fashion magazine. The photographer skillfully uses wardrobe, lighting, and makeup during the shoot. After the shoot, computers are used to take away the model's imperfections and to improve her overall look. The magazine hits the newsstands, and through the magic of technology, a fairly pretty girl has been turned into a stunningly beautiful cover model. Thousands of women buy the magazine and wonder why they cannot be as beautiful and glamorous as the model on the cover, not realizing that if they walked past the actual model in the street, they would not even notice her.

* A man drives to work every day past a billboard advertising vacations on an idyllic Pacific island. As he works in his stressful office job, he fantasizes about relaxing on the white beaches under the palm trees of the beautiful Pacific paradise he sees on the billboard. The man purchases a two-week vacation on the island. Upon arrival, the man discovers that for most of the year it rains. He tries swimming only to find that the coral cuts up his feet and that he has to be careful not to contract malaria from the mosquitoes on the island. The man spends most of his vacation watching satellite TV in his resort room.

* A group of friends share a house. Each week they watch a situation comedy about a group of friends who share a house as well. As they watch, each person wonders to why they cannot be as close and as happy as the characters in the sitcom. In real life, the cast of actors cannot stand each other.

Hyperreality means that often we cannot tell the difference between what advertising tells us about products, places, and people and what they are like in the real world. In the rush to sell us things, corporations have sacrificed reality; truth telling is gone. Sociologist Krishan Kumar explains:

Our world has become so saturated with images and symbols that a new "electronic reality" has been created, whose effect is to obliterate any sense of an objective reality lying behind the images and symbols. In this "simulated" world, images become objects, rather than reflecting them; reality becomes hyper-reality. In hyper-reality it is no longer possible to distinguish the imaginary from the real ... the true from the false.

An ad by the New York tourism board is not going to tell us about the street crime, high prices, pollution, and poverty we would find in the city. Rather, they are going to show us the New York we know from countless movies and TV shows such as Seinfeld, Sex and the City, and Friends. And if they are smart, they will use the Frank Sinatra song, "New York, New York" to top it all off. After seeing an advertisement for New York and experiencing New York, we would be left scratching our heads and asking, "Which is the real New York—the metropolis we know from our years of watching popular culture or the actual city situated on the East Coast?" We would have confused the symbol (the popular culture's imagined New York) with the real city. Of course, the popular Hollywood version of New York would be the more attractive one. This is hyperreality. It gives us a world of symbols that are detached from the reality of what they are supposed to be symbolizing, and they appear more attractive than the original objects they are representing.

CHAPTER 2

Welcome to Hyperreality

HYPERREALITY AND THE DEATH OF REALITY

I am standing in a supermarket aisle, looking at the gossip magazines that are strategically placed at the point of purchase. One magazine has an image on its cover of two famous A-list Hollywood actors who have been in a much-publicized relationship. The shot is blurry and obviously has been captured by the paparazzi. The image shows the couple running to a waiting car with their hands up, hiding their faces from the glare of the camera. The magazine's headline sensationally declares that the image is evidence the relationship is on the rocks and divorce is inevitable. However, on the cover of the gossip magazine's main competitor is the same paparazzi shot of the famous lovers, except that this time the headline informs me that the couple have never been happier and are planning for a baby. Which magazine do I believe? Is either even close to the truth of what is happening in the love life of the famous couple?

I turn on the news and see that a car bomb has exploded in the Middle East. The left-wing cable news network reports the bombing as a blow to the U.S. government's foreign policy. I turn to another cable network—this one with a right-wing bias—and the station is reporting on the same terrorist attack, using the same images, but the anchor is speaking of the bombing as a justification of the government's foreign policy. Who do I believe? Reality has become very blurred. The messages we receive through the media throughout our daily lives are not "value free"; they are filled with ideologies and spin.

The sheer volume of competing messages threatens to overwhelm us. The age of technological boom in which we live offers us almost constant exposure to the media; it is almost impossible to escape. At my local mall, I cannot use the restroom without being exposed to pop culture. Pop songs are piped into the stalls, advertisements are placed above the urinal, and the hand dryer plays video ads as I dry my hands. This constant exposure to media has deeply changed how we view reality. In the face of so much exposure to media's version of life, we must ask whether we are more influenced by the model of reality we find in our everyday lives or by the model we are shown by media. The world we see in the media will always seem attractive and alluring, because almost all of the media to which we are exposed is produced with the agenda of getting us to buy something, be it a product, experience, opinion, or service.

BETTER LIVING THROUGH HYPERREALITY

It is in the interest of those who saturate our world with media to paint an image of a world that is infinitely more appealing than the reality of our lives. But the catch is that the more we are exposed to the hyperreal messages of media, the more dissatisfied we become with our own lives. The hyperreal world shows us people whose lives are like ours but better—the woman who uses the same shampoo as we do but is more attractive; the family who has the same amount of kids as we have but looks happier and more satisfied; the guy who uses the same deodorant as we do but manages to pick up girls who look like supermodels. How can our everyday realities compete with the promises of the hyperreal world? How can my life of getting up, going to work, shopping at the supermarket, and cleaning my toilet compete with the sexy, slick version of life that is presented to me by hyperreality?

The clear message behind hyperreality is that if we are to have lives of worth, happiness, and well-being, we need to move our lives into the hyperreal world. We need to imitate the lives we see in movies, in advertising, in lifestyle magazines, in music videos, and on television—then we will be happy.

The problem is that the lifestyles we see on TV are not real; they are simulations, illusions. Therefore, as theologian Vincent Miller observes, "Along with sporting events, rock concerts, shopping malls, and magazines, television provides images of the good life that bring virtual vicarious fulfillment. In the face of a spectacular world with which our everyday lives could never compete, we are reduced to passive spectators, consumers of illusions." Instead of our lives being filled with the excitement and energy we observe in the hyperreal world, we actually find ourselves becoming consumers of someone else's life. We sit zombielike, watching images of what life "should be like" as we read catalogs, watch the lives of celebrities on television, and lust after the latest consumer item we are told we "must" own. We end up trading our reality for a simulation of reality in which happiness and fulfillment are always just out of reach. We become detached from our actual lives, reaching always for simulations, mirages of real life that can never be reached. We become slaves to the romance of "I will be happy when ..."

THE ROMANCE OF "I WILL BE HAPPY WHEN ..."

It is a perfect spring evening. I am sitting in a trendy restaurant in an even trendier plaza. Outside, the downtown skyline sparkles; inside, the young, hip, beautiful, and fashionable sparkle as well. The interior decorations complement the stylish French house music that is being played, which complements the stylish modern cuisine. But as I look around, all is not well in paradise. I am alerted to this fact by the couple on my left, who are not impressed with our fabulous dining experience. "How amazing would it be to be in New York right now?" is quickly followed by "We should have gone to that stunning little Tibetan restaurant." All across the restaurant, furtive glances are being exchanged as couples on dates are looking for someone better, girls are looking at what other girls are wearing, boys are looking at what other boys are wearing, and whole tables are looking to see if other tables are having more fun than they are. It all makes for a pretty paranoid room; the one thing that's sure is that no one really seems to be enjoying the view. Happiness is always what someone else is doing; it is always somewhere else. This is a culture that has embraced the romance of "I will be happy when ..."

My friend Martin was for many years a relationship counselor. He told me that often when a couple begins experiencing difficulties in their relationship, they plan to go on a vacation or move to a new house. They begin to apply layers of romantic idealism about this new place to which they will move, never realizing that the problems they are dealing with are inside them. This is true not just of couples but of all consumers in the hyperreality culture. Thus, in the hyperreality world, happiness is always just around the corner, yet always out of reach.

This sense of incompleteness powers the global economy. Happiness is always postponed; fulfillment and meaning can never be found. In many ways, it is like trying to reach the horizon; you can always see it and you can walk toward it, but it stays away at the same distance. Hyperreality is an "I will be happy when ..." existence. The space following the "when" will be different for everyone and will constantly change. But the principle of postponing happiness is the same for everyone who operates in the hyperreal world. So no matter how affluent or comfortable our lives become, we will always be looking over our shoulder at something better. In many ways this "I will be happy when ..." culture becomes the ultimate "addiction" culture as people enter the addictive downward spiral, always needing a bigger hit to satisfy their growing cravings and becoming less free in the process.

Hyperreality helps us understand why so many of us struggle to reconcile the lives we lead with the lives we expect to lead. Understanding hyperreality also sheds light on the reason so many of us struggle to make our faith relevant to our daily lives. If we are to move forward, we must examine the role that consumerism plays in creating our hyperreal condition. For it is our culture of hyperconsumerism that creates so much of the dissatisfaction we feel about our actual lives.

CHAPTER 3

The Whole of Life As Shopping: Hyperconsumerism

I am watching a hip-hop video. In the video a world-famous rapper is lyrically taunting his rivals. The camera focuses in on his diamond-studded "bling" necklace. He is pictured surrounded by several tricked-out sports cars. On his feet are special-edition personalized sneakers. The retro football jersey he is wearing can only be bought in one specialized store and is hunted down by "cool hunters" who spend months searching for rare sportswear in secondhand stores. As he is rapping, he holds up a latest model cell phone, and unbeknownst to the rapper's fans, the cell phone's appearance in the video is no accident but the result of a carefully executed underground campaign by a top New York public relations firm. Surrounding the hip-hop star are several models who, although diverse in their ethnicity, are united in their highly sexualized dance moves and lack of clothing.

The message is clear: the fact that the rapper can afford all of these products is evidence that he is at the top of his game as a successful businessman. Even the girls function as consumer items. The message is that he is so rich he can afford multiple attractive sex partners. The music video (which is really just a three-minute advertisement) ends, and we cross back to the set of the cable music video show, owned by a giant global corporation. The VJ who is hosting the show is wearing clothes that are made by a subsidiary of the same global corporation.

The VJ then welcomes to the show a popular Hollywood starlet to talk about her new blockbuster film (which is produced by the same corporation that owns the music video channel). In the movie, the starlet drives around in a cute little convertible that is placed in the film by a motor company that is also owned by the same global corporation. After the brief interview, the starlet is allowed to pick her favorite music video. She chooses one by a young punk band that just happens to be on a label owned by the giant global corporation that pays the starlet's wages. The video features the punk band singing about their teenage sense of rage and alienation. It does not have the flamboyant luxury items of the hip-hop video; however, the lead singer's shoes and the drummer's cap reveal that a skateboarding shoe company sponsors the band. This company just so happens to be owned by a larger worldwide sportswear company of which a major shareholder is our friendly giant global corporation, which owns everything we have just spoken about. Welcome to the world of hyperconsumerism—a world where the whole of life has become a shopping experience.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from The Trouble with Paris by Mark Sayers. Copyright © 2008 Mark Sayers. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments, vii,
Part 1 Hyperreality,
1. Why Your Faith Does Not Work, 3,
2. Welcome to Hyperreality, 9,
3. The Whole of Life As Shopping: Hyperconsumerism, 15,
4. Hyperconsumerism As Religion, 29,
5. It's All About You!, 41,
Part 2 Reality,
6. How Hyperreality Makes Us Unhappy, 55,
7. The Rub Between Real Life and Hyperreality, 73,
8. How Hyperreality Ruins Faith, 91,
9. Hyperreal Christianity, 105,
Part 3 God's Reality,
10. Good-bye to the Plastic Jesus of Hyperreality, 117,
11. A Fight for the Future, 135,
12. God's Reality Now, 153,
13. Six Keys to Living Well Within God's Reality, 179,
Notes, 211,