Shopping, Worship Get Equal Share Of Time

Americans are as likely to be found in church as at the mall during the holiday season next month.

In a new poll sponsored by the Lutheran Brotherhood, people report spending an average of 16 hours shopping and 16 hours worshiping during the Christmas season.

For those who bemoan the secularization of Christmas, the poll results raise the question of whether giving equal time to shopping and praying is a good or bad thing.

Does it represent inroads being made by the church in a culture that markets Christmas as a commercial holiday, or does it show the miracle of the incarnation is placed side-by-side with holiday sales?

For the most part, religious observers put a positive spin on the poll.

“Despite a barrage of consumer-oriented messages to spend, taking time to worship is still important for people,” says Leslie Nestingen, spokesman for the Minneapolis-based Lutheran financial services organization. “It seems that many people haven’t allowed commercialism to overshadow the spiritual basis of the holidays.”

For the survey, Yankelovich Partners conducted telephone interviews Oct. 1 and 2 with a random national sample of 1,027 adults. The margin of error for the total sample is approximately plus or minus 3 percent.

Eighty-nine percent of the respondents said the December holidays are too commercial. And 71 percent said they would prefer a handmade gift, compared to only 12 percent who said they preferred a store-bought gift.

But there was almost no difference in the amount of time people reported worshipping and shopping during the holiday season, with respondents saying they spent around 16 hours in each activity.

The Rev. William Willimon, dean of the chapel at Duke University, said the poll seems to support a trend that many people want to “break free” of the commercial pressures of the season.

He notes that more churches are offering alternatives to the mall, such as Christmas gift-making projects or additional worship services. At one Episcopal church, a daily early evening service is offered during Advent in part to catch people on their way to or from the mall or to keep them from the shopping center altogether.

Sylvia Ronsvalle, director of empty tomb inc., a Champaign, Ill.-based research organization on religious giving, said she is surprised people reported spending only 16 hours shopping.

And 16 hours for the average American “seems like a large amount of time worshiping, so it’s encouraging to me.”

Ronsvalle also says shopping at Christmas isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“A lot of the gift giving that goes on, one hopes, is an affirmation of love that is difficult to express at other times of the year,” he says.

The survey indicated that people with less money to spend spent more time worshiping than shopping. Conversely, those with higher incomes spent more time shopping.

Respondents earning less than $20,000 a year spent the greatest amount of time worshiping - 22 hours - and the least amount of time shopping - only a reported 13 hours during the December holidays.

Meanwhile, those earning more than $50,000 a year reported spending only 12 hours worshiping, while spending 17 hours shopping.

Ronsvalle says the survey resonates with biblical warnings to choose between God and devotion to money.

“Having been poor,” she says, “I know that shopping becomes irrelevant, actually painful, which speaks directly to people having more time for the real reason for the season.”