Sales Resistance and Hope in the City of God

Giving Tuesday came and went. As did Cyber Monday and Black Friday. And EDI intentionally abstained from them all. The wonderfully titled preface (“The Joy of Sales Resistance”) to Wendell Berry’s book Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community explains our abstinence best:

We live in a time when technologies and ideas (often the same thing) are adopted in response not to need but to advertising, salesmanship, and fashion. Salesmen and saleswomen now hover about us as persistently as angels, intent on “doing us good” according to instructions set forth by persons educated at great public expense in the arts of greed and prevarication. These salespeople are now with most of us, apparently, even in our dreams.

The first duty of writers who wish to be of any use even to themselves is to resist the language, the ideas, and the categories of this ubiquitous sales talk, no matter from whose mouth it issues. But, then, this is also the first duty of everybody else.

According to Berry, then, we all have a duty to experience the joy of sales resistance. I exercised that duty by abstaining from the commercial chaos of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and even Giving Tuesday. While Giving Tuesday may be a good idea, my experience of it with EDI over the last several years has not been sane, consisting of frenetic fundraising all day long amidst a sea of other non-profits.

But I must confess that the act of abstaining from Giving Tuesday frightened me. COVID-19 has created so much uncertainty. Giving is down across the entire philanthropic world. And EDI is no exception. Our income is down over 30 percent from last year. It’s really difficult to raise funds right now (or even to ask). But if we are to continue promoting the renewal of culture through our various endeavors, asking is absolutely necessary. We need donations now more than ever.

So in lieu of a frenetic national day of giving, I want to issue a challenge for the remaining days of December: 100 new members. If you value the work of Eighth Day Institute, will you please consider helping us out?

If you are already an Eighth Day Member, thank you so much for your financial support. Will you share our president’s appeal letter with 2-3 of your friends and ask them to join our community of members? You can send them to our membership page or send them to our membership flyer. And please do consider offering an extra Christmas donation here.

If you are not yet a member, please read our president’s end-of-year appeal letter here and then join our community of members here.

I realize this is a lofty goal. But it is less than 4% of our email subscribers. And it’s a necessary one for our survival.

Thank you for your support! And enjoy Microsynaxis below.

In Christ,

Erin “John” Doom

P.S. Our 12th annual Feast of the Nativity for Eighth Day Members is scheduled for Dec 30. We’ll record the reflections and the member meeting for those unable to join us in person. More details forthcoming for those interested in attending.

1. Bible & Fathers: “God Had Not Left Us in Ignorance” by St John of Damascus

On this feast day of St John of Damascus, my personal patron saint and the patron saint of Eighth Day Institute, I offer you the opening chapters of his famous book An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Here are the opening lines:

“No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (Jn. 1:18). The God-head, then, is ineffable and incomprehensible. For “no one knoweth the Father, but the Son: neither doth any one know the Son, but the Father” (Mt. 11:27). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit knows the things of God, just as the spirit of man knows what is in man (cf. 1 Cor. 2:11). After the first blessed state of nature, no one has ever known God unless God Himself revealed it to him—not only no man, but not even any of the supramundane powers: the very Cherubim and Seraphim, I mean.

Nevertheless, God has not gone so far as to leave us in complete ignorance, for through nature the knowledge of the existence of God has been revealed by Him to all men.

Read the rest here.

2. Books & Culture: “The Joy of Sales Resistance” by Wendell Berry

You can read here the whole piece on sales resistance that was excerpted above. And be sure to visit Eighth Day Books to get a copy of the excellent book in which this preface is found: Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community.

3. Essay: “The Factory System and Christianity” by Eric Gill

Sales resistance reminded me of this short essay by Eric Gill. Here is the opening paragraph:

Ultimately any political question is a religious question. A nation which is permeated with evil ideas will inevitably tend to put those ideas into practice and will eventually succeed unless its evil ideas are countered by others. So also a nation which is permeated with good ideas will put those ideas into practice. It is also true that the existence of evil conditions in a country is evidence of the existence of evil ideas in a people; and in a country when bad conditions are prevalent obviously evil ideas must be prevalent. It is therefore necessary, seeing that evil ideas underlie evil conditions, that evil ideas be supplanted by good ideas, for if we spend our energies combating evil conditions without combating the evil ideas underlying them, we can achieve at best palliatives, and do nothing for the salvation of souls, the real object of political activity.

And here’s a bit more before he turns to the factory system:

If we say that the object of man’s existence is man’s salvation and that the object of Christianity is to promote man’s salvation and that the Church exists to promote Christianity we may go on to say that the only question of any importance in any sphere of activity is whether or no this or that thing is or is not consistent with Christianity.

If for instance I am asked whether or no I believe in machinery I may reply that the question is properly not whether or no I believe in machinery but whether machinery is consistent with Christianity—and obviously machinery as such is consistent with Christianity, though many machines may be used for objects which are inconsistent with Christianity. Christianity is the test.

You can read the entire essay here.