Selling God A Lucrative Business
Joel Osteen is pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest evangelical church in America with 30,000 weekly attendants. With a TV ministry, it’s watched in at least 100 countries.
Asked if it’s part message and part marketing, Osteen says: “To me, we’re marketing hope.”
And hope sells. Last year, Lakewood brought in $55 million.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/28/eveningnews/main704903.shtml

Mixing Religious Teachings
Forty-five percent of Americans say the most important part of religion is following the teachings and traditions of their faith as closely as they can. But 38 percent say the search for spirituality – no matter where that takes them – is more important than sticking to those traditions.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/29/opinion/polls/main705181.shtml

Mix-And-Match Religion
Armstrong says this trend is no surprise in a global society.
“That doesn’t mean that they’re abandoning their own religion, but they are quite naturally and spontaneously without any great fanfare turning to the other faiths for wisdom,” she said.
“Western liberal society has placed a lot of emphasis on the individual,” Moise Waltner of the Interfaith Center of New York said.
He believes too many American’s treat faith like cafeteria food. He says mixing religion is no religion at all.
“It’s the role of the believer to conform their will to what the tradition is, not the other way around,” Waltner said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/29/eveningnews/main705276.shtml

Each of these pieces gives a little slice of American society’s perspective on religion. We’re turning into Athens of St. Paul’s day. Soon there will be an idol to the unknown God sitting prominently among the monuments of our nation’s capital.

One of the history’s greatest Christian persecutions came during the reign of Marcus Aurelius over the issue of Christians’ refusal to be as open-minded about other religions as was norm of the Roman Empire during that time. (See http://www.roman-empire.net/religion/religion.html) A possible trend happening in America today.

>it seems to ignore the call for Christians to set themselves apart from pagan society as the “salt and the light.”

I never discussed or meant to discuss this aspect of Christian practice.

BTW- do you really believe Christians in America are persecuted by “messages in cartoons?”

“I never discussed or meant to discuss this aspect of Christian practice.”

I don’t see how you can discuss Christians and culture without referring to this aspect of the Christian message. Surely that has to be the foundation of a Christian worldview?

“BTW- do you really believe Christians in America are persecuted by ‘messages in cartoons?’”

No, I never said Christians are persecuted by such messages. But many modern cartoons are actually aimed at adults and have adult messages. As such, they’ve become another weapon of cultural warfare for the left.

Whether it’s cartoons or other elements of pagan society, Christians only have three options: withdraw (non-engagement), participate through consumption without criticizing (non-engagement), or to be “in but not of” (engagement).

The conservative Christian subculture that you criticize somewhat seems to be the only one taking the third option of engagement. Considering the pervasiveness of the information age that you so rightly point out, might their methods be the only viable response to such an onslaught?

I think you’re right to say that we as humans are not interested just in raw information or science because we are more than just an “organic computer”
I would also like to go to a church B type

my little sister asks mw always for advices starting like this: “As a Christian what should I do in …. ( this context ) ” and most of the time I just try to put the decision back into her hands without really giving her an advice.
I think that as a church we take the easy way out… tell them what to do instead of helping every member develop his/her own sense of discernment.
It is much easier for a church to create a list of DOs and DON’Ts than to help everyone grow in Christ.
the authority issue is very important, and we might have our differences there, but I think we can agree that Christ’s church needs to be the “city on the hill” , a light in this world.
God bless us all!
Happy 4th of July everyone

Unfortunately for those like me, we mistakenly decided to do what the pastor told us to do and that was to search the Scriptures for ourselves. And after doing so we asked the most heretical of questions, “Why?” Our pastors forgot to tell us that if we had questions about their interpretation of Scripture we were suppose to have found the verse that said their opinion was Truth, and so not to question their interpretations.

So now I’m curious as to why “Why?” is so dangerous, and so I read opinions from different sources. Well now I’m information overloaded, and if I want to stay in good graces with my church friends and pastor I have to keep my questions to myself. I feel like a hard drive that has run out of storage space and no way to dump information. I admit not everything I’ve read is true, but much is compelling evidence that I’m not qualified to discern.

I now know why some of the scholars and professors of theology from my daughter’s school gave up going to church. The churches I’ve been around would be more likely to lovingly address the sinner’s concerns and lovingly guide them to God’s word then they would be willing to talk to an intellectual about their issues.

Some may tell me that I’d be better off in an Emergent Church. I’ve been there. The Emergent Church is quite tailored for two groups, the mature Christian and the agnostic. The Emergent Church gives some guidelines that are true, but allows a diverse group of individuals to express their own truth. In an Emergent Church anything “might” be true for each individual as God leads them on their spiritual journey. Meaning condemnation has been shown the door, and holding condemnation’s hand was doctrine, creed, and dogma.

The problem I see with this is that a congregation is like a child. Children need, and want loving, consistent, boundaries. They generally do very poorly with no structure. There is a very good way of working with children (length dictates that I don’t post it here), which I believe would be a good model for working with congregations.