Let us give thanks, Black Friday has nothing to do with religion
谢天谢地， 黑色星期五与宗教毫不相关
Retailers hijack all Christian festivals. At least this shopping bonanza unashamedly worships consumerism
零售商操控了所有基督教的节日。至少此次购物狂潮无愧坦然地崇拜消费主义。
保罗·韩德利 《卫报》 2014年11月28号 星期五
Translated by Julie Zhang
Nope. I’ve just looked through my Book of CommonPrayer, and there is no special liturgy for today. Not even in Common Worship,the modern collection of official Church of England services which, despite itsname, aims to cater for all tastes and occasions.
没有，今天是没有特殊礼拜仪式的，我刚翻阅了我的《公祷书》，就连《公共崇拜》中也没有相关记录。《公共崇拜》是英国圣公会官方礼拜仪式的现代版收藏集，虽然名为《公共崇拜》，但是其目的是为了迎合人们的各种偏好和适应不同的场合。
Black Friday, thatexcitable new entry into an already crowded month, is almost unique in havingno relationship with a religious festival. No, Thanksgiving is not a religiousfestival, nor is it ours: it might be wrong to be complacent, but itsover-indulgent bonhomie is one of the few US traditions that has failed to takeroot in UK soil.
黑色星期五是一个振奋人心的词条，它已成功入驻本已忙碌不堪的十一月。在与宗教节日无关这一点上，黑色星期五几乎可以说是独一无二的。不，感恩节并不是宗教节日，它也不是我们英国本土的节日。我们或许不该洋洋自得，但是感恩节赋予的过分友善之意使得它成为少数几个没能在英国扎根的美国传统节日之一。
Until now, this is how itall works. A medieval church, maybe an abbey, holds a service once a year tomark the Feast of the Holy Sandal (say). Pilgrims arrive in the town, and needfeeding and watering. Local merchants sniff the money and start producingspecial sandals. Soon, there are little leather sandals on a rope to hang roundyour neck. The abbot will bless them for you, for a small consideration in thecollection plate.
到目前为止，事情的运作过程是这样的：举例来说，一个中世纪的教堂，它也许是一个修道院，每年举行一次礼拜仪式来庆祝神圣凉鞋盛宴（Feast of the Holy Sandal）。朝圣者来到镇上，他们需要食物和水。当地的商人嗅到了商机并开始生产特殊的凉鞋。很快，你的脖子上就会挂起用绳子串起来的小皮凉鞋。修道院院长为你的凉鞋祈福，同时也希望得到点儿捐赠。[1]
Next, the merchants figurethat the product doesn’t have to besandal-related, really. A sandal-shaped loaf does well, a sandal-branded scripflies of the shelf, and Sandal Day is up and running. Next, any old tat can bepalmed off on the pilgrims, who are primed by now to come to town expecting to shop,or the medieval equivalent (stall?).
后来，商人们发现他们的商品不一定局限于凉鞋本身。他们开始生产凉鞋形状的面包，印有凉鞋标志的小钱包，这些商品都很畅销，就这样，凉鞋日就逐渐兴盛起来。接着，商家用欺骗的手段将破旧物品卖给准备到镇上的商店去购物的朝圣者。在中世纪的时候，那些商店或许被称为货摊。
Finally, a few centurieslater, the reason behind Sandal Day is largely forgotten. The priest’s descendant (not the abbot’s, since the Reformation) is still there,working through the Holy Sandal liturgy, but the congregation is small. And notonly small but poor: the Sandal Day pilgrims, whose donations funded thegrandiose church that now needs expensive repairs, have departed. The shoppingmalls, on the other hand, are heaving, as the pilgrims’descendants seek ever morecomplicated machines for pouring hot water on coffee grounds.
最终，几个世纪之后，人们几乎已经忘记了当初为什么要庆祝凉鞋日。牧师的后代（宗教改革运动后，修道院院长这一称呼不复存在）仍然坚持完成神圣凉鞋的礼拜仪式，但是教众的规模却变小了。不仅人少，而且贫穷。在过去，朝圣者的捐款让庄严宏伟的教堂得以维持下来。而现在，教堂整修需要昂贵的费用，而那些朝圣者们已经离开。但购物中心则人头攒动，因为朝圣者的后代为了享用一杯热咖啡而在这里搜寻越来越精密复杂的咖啡机。
Now, though, we have anupstart day with no history and no message beyond “buy lots of things because they’re cheap”. At least Blue Cross Day, short-livedbecause the bargains stopped being bargains, sounded vaguely religious. BlackFriday sounds more like something devised by the opposition. The church calledthe darkest day in its calendar Good Friday. The name is not the work of anupbeat early church marketing outfit –“it’s a tough sell, team: the saviour of theworld subjected to an agonising death. Any ideas?”–but, instead, a profound theological point about the joyful consequenceof the crucifixion. Not that any service I’ve ever been to on Good Friday has been anything but gloomy.
现在，尽管黑色星期五很流行，但这一天除了可以让人们“买很多东西，因为他们便宜”之外，毫无历史和意义可言。虽然由于廉价货不再廉价，蓝色十字架日（BlueCross Day）只存在过很短的一段时间，但至少它听起来还有点宗教的意味。黑色星期五这个名字听起来则更像是邪恶的反对者想出来的。教堂把一年中最黑暗的一天称为“至善星期五”，即耶稣受难日。这个名字并不是早期教堂乐观的营销团队的作品——“各位，这是一个艰巨的销售任务：我们的救世主遭受极刑而死，各位能想出什么卖点吗？”——事实上，它代表了一个深刻的神学观点，那就是耶稣受难，却造福了人类。这并不是说我在耶稣受难日所参加过的礼拜仪式都是愉悦的。
We have just been throughthe worst example of religious hijacking. The evening before All Hallows’Day, when the church remembers those who have died in the faith, hascompletely swamped the day itself, again with the help of the Americans. A fewof the faithful still attend All Saints’Day services (the newname), but their offspring are most likely still in bed, smudges of blackeyeliner and fake blood on their pillows.
我们刚刚经历了一个最糟糕的，被利用了的宗教节日。万圣节(All Hallows’Day)前夜是教堂用来纪念那些因其信仰而死去的殉道者的。但是，又一次，在美国人的“帮助”下，万圣节前夜取代了万圣节。一些虔诚的人仍然会参加万圣节（All Saints’Day，万圣节的新名字）的礼拜仪式，但是他们的孩子很有可能还在睡梦中，枕头上都是黑色眼线笔和假血的污迹。
By and large, the churchmight well be relieved to have nothing to do with yet another spending spree.It has, after all, been singularly useless at exploiting the merchandisingpossibilities of its various festivals. For one thing, it would prefer theshops to be shut on all its big days: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, er, Sunday.For another, it has this quaint idea that a big religious feast requires aperiod of preparation that doesn’t take place in a supermarket.Hence the 40 days of austerity in Lent before Easter, and the season of Advent,which starts on Sunday. When the feast finally arrives, the idea goes, it comesat a time of heightened expectation, not as some sort of jaded afterthought.
总的来说，黑色星期五，这一购物狂潮与宗教无关，这让基督徒感到宽慰。毕竟，一直以来，教堂在利用其众多节日来获取商业利益方面表现的一无是处。一方面，基督徒希望在一些重要的节日如圣诞节、复活节、圣灵降临节、星期天，商店都能关门。另一方面，他们又有一种离奇古怪的想法，那就是举行盛大的宗教节日庆典，需要一段时间来准备，而这些准备活动都不能在超市里进行。正因为这样的想法，才有了复活节前为期40天的大斋期，以及开始于周日的降临节。基督徒认为，前期长时间的准备并不会让大家在迎来节日后感到厌倦和疲惫，因为那些盛大的节日的到来正是大家翘首以盼的。
Despite all this, I sense aweary sadness in the church about Black Friday. Nothing wrong with providingpeople with a bargain, but the idea of manufacturing out of nothing a sense ofurgency and competition does nobody any favours, not even those with thebeefiest shoulders or the fastest web connection –and, by the time you readthis, a new fridge.
尽管如此，我仍然能感觉到基督徒对人们热衷于黑色星期五感到失落。让人们能够买到便宜货，这并没有错，但是凭空制造出一种紧迫感和竞争感不会给任何人带来好处，即使是那些健硕强壮的人抑或是享有最快网速的人。而当你读到这篇文章的时候，你也许已经买了一个新的冰箱。
Concern for the Earth andits creatures lies at the heart of all these old religious ceremonies, and tosee commercialism drop one notch lower can please no one who has any degree oflove for the planet and its people, especially in an organisation that offersits best merchandise –a baby in a manger, a man on a cross –for free.
关心地球和地球上所有的生物是这些古老的宗教仪式的核心所在。任何人，只要对这个星球和人类有一点点关爱，都不会乐于看到重商主义进一步堕落，更不要说像基督教这样一个组织，它免费提供其最好的“商品”，即降生在马槽里的婴儿，同时也是十字架上的受难者。
*这个节日本身并不存在，作者在此杜撰这一节日是为了举例。
