Made Me Think

Here's an article today that made me think:
Religion to What End?
by Candice Watters
Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven Life is making headlines overseas. The German website Spiegel Online has a story not about his influence for the kingdom, but about his vast influence here on earth. In "Karaoke for the Lord: The Recipe for Success at American Megachurches," Susanne Weingarten reports on Warren's Saddleback congregation with a view from the pew.
"Megachurches use innovative packaging to sell religion," she writes. "It's user-friendly, practical, authentic, and modern. The Christian is the customer. They have learned a thing or two from shopping malls and big business. They woo their target group with a heavy dose of entertainment, sophisticated technology, wall-to-wall ideas for success at home and at work, and a spring-in-your-stride message that everything's good."
Then again, maybe religion isn't what people want after all. "I love Saddleback because it's not so religious," says Lisa Volder, a member for three years. Weingarten writes,
When Lisa waxes lyrical about Saddleback's understated approach to religion, she most likely means its lack of time-honored rituals: Saddleback has no liturgy, no prayer books, no sonorous minister fiddling around at the altar. Saddleback doesn't have an altar, or a pulpit; just Rick Warren's sermon, interspersed with high-decibel (set at 98-108dbs) blasts of schmaltzy Christian rock. The songs' lyrics are shown on a ticker along the base of the video screens; sentiments like "I can't get enough of your love pouring down my soul." Karaoke for the Lord.
"Megachurches sell the Christian faith as the (only) path to a better, happier life," the article says. I thought the whole point was showing people the only path to the Father. "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'" (John 14:6).
What about the path Jesus describes in Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
American suburbia is lapping up this new brand of spiritual comfort food. "The megachurches are very good at meeting human beings where they are, with their questions, needs, and hurts," says David Gushee, a professor for moral philosophy at the Baptist Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.
By all means, meet people where they are. Where else could you meet them? But for heaven's sake, don't leave them there!
The bulk of the article is dedicated to a discussion of the political leanings of evangelicals in America, and their influence on elections. Weingarten concludes the article with this observation, "The purpose-driven man from Orange County is probably the biggest mouthpiece that U.S. churches have ever produced." If that's true, I hope he'll also be the truest.


Still thinking that one over.