The Rev. Laura Mariko Cheifetz joined The Fund for Theological Education in March 2010 as the director of the Leading Generations Initiative. She also works with The Fund's Transition into Ministry program, which nurtures new pastors.
A 2001 FTE ministry fellow, Laura previously served as director of the Common Ground Project at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. She also served as director of AADVENT: Asian American Discipleship for Vocational Empowerment, Nurture, and Transformation.
An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she holds a master of divinity degree from McCormick Theological Seminary, a bachelor of arts in sociology from Western Washington University, and is enrolled in MBA studies at North Park University.
Who are we without our stuff? For those of us who are U.S. residents, we are citizens of consumption, mavens of materiality. We are American consumers more often than we are American voters. Americans are brand-identified. Our patterns of consumption define us, and project who we are. Some of us like to project success, and others of us like to project social responsibility with what we have purchased. We are PCs or Macs; Blackberries, Palms or iPhones; Nike or New Balance; fair trade or free trade. We are Toyota, Volkswagen or Ford car owners; we are supporting breast cancer research as we buy pink or AIDS research as we buy red. We know how cool we are based on whether we choose Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Explorer to surf the web. We stick to one preferred airline, with Southwest customers proud to feel the "luv" or fly JetBlue with its DirectTV at every seat and fancy T5 at JFK.
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