Secondhand Sacred: Christian Material Culture and Reseller Ethics
摘要
There is a thriving secondhand market in the United States for Christian material culture. Items are sourced from shuttered churches, estate sales, auctions, flea markets, thrift stores, antique malls, and garage sales, and resold in brick-and-mortar shops and online venues. The ethnographic focus in this chapter is on resellers who scavenge secondhand venues in search of donated, discarded, and passed over Christian material culture items. Resellers confront ethical questions throughout their workflow, from where and what to source to creating listings to engaging with potential buyers. Given the decentralized nature of reseller networks, there is no authorized ethical standard that people turn to or interact with. Rather, reseller ethics present as a centrifugal splintering of individualistic stances, informed by moral identities and personal histories. This chapter will present a diverse set of reseller stories, from an evangelical pastor who refuses to sell “occult” materials to an atheist who rejects the idea that any particular class of materials should be classified as “too sacred” or “too dangerous.” Ultimately, I argue that the ethics of the secondhand sacred is informed by an enchantment of materiality that accumulates because of, not in spite of, the ongoing circulation through capitalist exchange.