WARNING: Rob’s got his napalm out again. Reading this post may cause you to send hate-mail. Please read with care.
The US Postmaster recently admitted that the single largest customer of the US Mail is, not you and me dear tax-paying citizen, but the bulk-mail industry. If not for the incessant stream of marketing mailers, catalogs, coupons, offers to sell your house, replace your windows, whiten your teeth, and now that the season is upon us, heaven help us, pleas for money and/or votes to send the next bunch of criminals to state and federal legislatures, the US Post would be kaput.
It’s because of bulk mail that I finally started recycling. From the mailbox directly to the blue bin. Very handy. Very wasteful.
But that’s not why you called.
Around here—maybe this is true where you live as well—churches also engage in bulk mail “outreach.” A typical trip to the mailbox generally yields one or two pieces of the genre. They are usually postcards with pictures of placid, thoughtful people holding hands, sunsets, a couple sharing coffee, or having a pleasant chat.
The last bunch of mail included one of these. It’s from a local, non-denominational church [some day I’ll write a virulent screed on why I believe there’s no such thing as “non-denominational”] inviting the recipient to:
Find your way back to God through programs and services offered by the newly expanded NAME OF CHURCH HERE located right here in YOUR TOWN. From celebrations every Sunday, to programs and groups filled with people just like you, you can embark on your spiritual journey the right way—yours.
This struck me as an excellent example of what I find so distasteful about what passes for modern, American-style, consumer-oriented religion. Now I am not bashing “programs and services” which have their place in ministering Christian love to church members and the community at large, but much of this is aimed squarely at a new breed of Christian, which I call the religious consumer. Substitute a few words in that mailer and you have a sales pitch for a fitness center or a retirement community! The me-centeredness of it is alarming and dangerous.
To begin with, one of the basic tenants of Christianity is that we can’t find our way to God. He comes looking for us. God is always the initiator in the relationship. Calling, cajoling, pleading, wooing us, pouring grace upon grace. “Finding your way back,” is a phrase that somehow smacks of arrogance. I used to say it, but I think it’s off the mark.
In this new milieu, Christianity is reduced to a series of seminars with catchy titles accompanied by workbooks, study group questions, and power-points designed to help ME become a better ME. Worship becomes a stage show, where attending “church” is more about entertainment than bowing before one’s Creator in humble thanksgiving. Sacraments (capital “S”) are frequently discarded as remnants of man’s tradition, rather than streams of life-conferring grace instituted by God for our nurture and well-being. Whatever sacraments (lower-case “s”) do remain, become no more than symbols, or opportunities for reflection completely devoid of their spiritual power. Two millennia of apostolic teaching, handed down from Christ himself are thrown aside for the often theologically unsound revelations of a single charismatic pastor/preacher.
By now you’ve stopped reading or are planning to, but don’t misunderstand: I am not saying that people who attend these types of churches are not Christians. There are Christians and pagans in EVERY church and EVERY church is full to the gunwales with sinners, cuz that’s what we all are. But I should also tell you that I know whereof I speak. I have been there and done that. I have the t-shirt.
Do you know what I learned?
If we devolve man’s relationship to his Creator, the eternal King and Saviour, to a self-help system, we cheat God and ourselves. Our faith will be as shallow and long-lasting as a cell-phone contract, our testimony bland and vapid, leaving unbelievers to look at us skeptically, wondering why they should bother. If my decision to attend church depends on whether there’s a coffee bar, comfy seats and my pastor’s book sales are in the millions, then something is radically wrong. If church is simply another consumer decision that I am free to take or leave when it doesn’t suit any longer, and by extension, my relationship to Christ is something I treat like a diet or fitness regime, all designed to make me feel better, then I have no relationship at all.
Let me repeat: I know. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it.
I have a friend who’s fond of saying, “It’s not about you.” Well, it is and it isn’t. You must first make a choice to accept God’s advances, and then continue to make that choice for the rest of your life. Then it is up to Christ to sanctify and redeem you. He does this through the Church (capital “C”) which is made up of all of us who rely on the mercy of the Lord,
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Phil 1:6 NIV
God have mercy on us if our religion is only salve to make us feel good about ourselves and not a means to holiness.
Nothing to ad to that but a prayer of thanksgiving.
Well said, Rob! As one who is Pastoring one of those Non-Denominational (ahem), churches, we often deal with the ‘consumer’ mentality…and your post is making me aware of how we feed into it as well.
I DO think that becoming a follower of Christ actually DOES lead to the ‘best life possible’, but this is a complex issue. Jesus did say in John 10:10 that He had come to give His followers “Life, to the full”. However, turning that around and making HIM serve ME is wildly out of phase with what He’s talking about…and we Americans tend to do that!