October 28, 2003

Shopping for Faith – Church Growth and the American Marketplace for Spirituality


As we near the time of year for the anniversary of the Reformation, there was an intriguing program on NPR’s "Talk of the Nation" today about the future of churches, competition, differentiation and rather less divine marketplace pressure present in modern American religion. Of course, there's always been competition among various spiritual disciplines through the ages, but the phenomena going on in American faith represents a much more scientific approach to marketing, as best practices from business are cross-pollinated to religion.

The two authors interviewed (biobliography at the top of this post) pointed to the recent trend away from "fire and brimstone" preaching about sin and damnation - especially among Christian churches - and a renewed focus on inclusiveness and community. Tangentially, one part of the discussion focused on the manifestation of gay and lesbian clergy and other leadership in various denominations (as if they weren’t always there, of course), as well as the slick marketing being produced for the likes of the United Methodist Church. Frankly, the gay and lesbian clerical movement seems ready to render asunder the self-same Episcopalian church as congregants jockey for control of the faith tradition they claim to love.

In the end, Christian arguments about inclusiveness boil down to one thing: "Scriptural Inerrancy". If the Bible isn’t true in some matters, then how can we believe in 100 percent of it... right? Is it all just mass-hypnotism perpetrated on the faithful or is there some realistic evidence that people who go to church aren’t just wasting their Sunday mornings? Apparently, many at least would justify the investment of time and energy in the enterprise in purely pragmatic terms: as an entertainment outlet, to provide a sense of community, or at least teach children a sense of "moral pragmatism" (i.e., don't do bad stuff because it's self-destructive and/or counter-productive to one's own individuality or sense of self). Under such a set of eminently self-interested forces, who can argue that going to church is a bad thing, or even without many non-spiritual benefits.

My own feelings are that, forces as diverse as Darwinist Biology, Social Psychology and even Astronomy have been eroding the excuses educated persons have to claim a faith in a higher power; heck, it’s intellectual suicide to say you believe the Adam-and-Eve of Genesis… who but the truly faithful would be so bold as to decide the Bible is the flawless "Mind of God" made manifest on Earth?

The fundamental human factor we're all cursed with is an almost instinctive desire to be our own gods; that's the Christian notion of "Original Sin" at work... the Curse of Adam that follows all the Fallen. Indeed, the Serpent in the Garden asked whether "God really said" all that stuff about staying away from the Tree and the Apples, suggesting God was just jealous and wanted to keep us humans down...

We've always wanted dominion over the world and the classical definition of sin – that is, disobedience of "The Law" – is virtually meaningless to those living in an age when so many of those guidelines are considered strictly a matter of personal choice... some of it not even good advice anymore, let alone law. What did we expect religion to look like in a predominantly self-centered and decadent society?

So in churches today, especially within Judeo-Christian traditions, we see a wealth of competitive posturing and differentiation among and between denominations. The Latter Day Saints (aka, "Mormons") are arguably the fastest growing sect in the U.S. - using a hybrid and proven-effective referral-plus-door-to-door sales strategy - most often at the expense of some more slowly eroding denominations like the Episcopalians, Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans and, especially, the Presbyterians.

The question in my mind, as a person of faith myself is, whether the medium has become the message?

It would seem that, for the sake of growth and vitality in a spiritual body, we've turned our churches into so many shopping malls - places to congregate in search of entertainment, comfort, socio-political networking and, increasingly, consumerism... often with a very precise goal in mind (easing a guilty conscious, meeting nice people to socialize with, just getting good feelings from our illusions of piety or whatever less heavenly needs we seek met), rather than a collective of the faithful gathered humbly for worship of their higher power, acknowledging one's own finite or flawed humanity and the need for God's presence in our lives.

In most of Christian America today, we’ve more or less decided that the SIZE and the INCOME of a congregation is directly proportional to its entertainment value, marketability and, in terms of branding, its future prospects. So, in an effort to remove the bad vibes from the worship experience, the message has undoubtedly been diluted... perhaps, at the expense of the truth.

- Arik

Posted by Arik Johnson at October 28, 2003 02:45 PM | TrackBack