The Making of Meaning is a Serious Business

Is Religious fundamentalism a Product of the Market Place? “The making of meaning is a serious business” (Marsha G. Witten) In times of great population shifts, occupational and geographical mobility and rapid cultural changes; religion reinvents itself in response to its social circumstances. Since the 1960’s in particular, the images and symbols of religion have undergone a transformation. Popular discourses about Religion and Spirituality, about the Self and Experience, about Faith and God; all indicate …

…increasing active role that society has chosen to take in shaping our fundamental faith, has been deducted in an increase in response to the widening range of suppliers all contending with one another in creating a religious symbolic economy. Religion and spirituality has inevitably become intertwined with marketing, electronic media, mass hysteria and consumption in a market economy. As consumers we are dependent on the vast array of producers to supply us with our meanings.