Popping Our Bubble And Getting Under Our Skin
Yesterday, Mark Morford (a writer at SFGate.Com...which is a breeding ground for good, edgy writers found on the San Francisco Examiner's web page) wrote a scathing article about the nature of large churches. Granted, he's got some sort of axe to grind, but let me sample a few observations he made:
On Lakewood Church in Houston purchasing the old basketball arena there, they're going to "turn it into a massive pulsing swaying arm-raisin' eye-glazed weirdly repressed House o' Jesus."
Most megachurches, "operate much more like careening multitentacled corporations than humble homes of spiritual connection and love."
A random quote from the article: "I mention all this because megachurches are the latest phenomenon, the hottest trend in the Christian godfearin' biz, arena-scaled piety polished up and bloated out and aimed like a giant homophobic cannon straight at the gloomy face of a new and improved God, one who apparently truly loves the fact that these tacky sanitized enormo-domes are raking in an average of $5 million a year each, depending on size and girth and magnetism of their glossy preprogrammed pastors and depending on how many CDs and syrupy self-help books and movie production companies and proselytizing Web sites..."
Asking why megachurches are popular: "Or is it the Jesus-as-megastar thing, with the pastor as the ultimate cover band and his flock a teeming mass of fans who don't really understand the lyrics and get the message almost completely wrong and yet who are, you just know, good and honest people just trying to find their way in a lost and debauched and war-torn land? I saw AC/DC and Iron Maiden on a double bill in Spokane in 1983 and just about saw God. Is that the same thing? No?"
He also took a couple of other small digs, such as being thankful for never having been to "the all-paunchy-married-male revue of a Promise Keepers rally, or the bizarre pious cheerleading of a Harvest Crusade in L.A."
Okay, he's full-blown San Francisco liberal.
Okay, he's an outsider looking in at us with preconcieved notions.
Okay, he's writing an article designed to get your dander up.
Okay, he's not looking too deeply into our faith.
But let's just calm our emotions for a second...
What about his observations can we learn from? I think he has a few points we'd be wise to pay attention to...
Yesterday, Mark Morford (a writer at SFGate.Com...which is a breeding ground for good, edgy writers found on the San Francisco Examiner's web page) wrote a scathing article about the nature of large churches. Granted, he's got some sort of axe to grind, but let me sample a few observations he made:
On Lakewood Church in Houston purchasing the old basketball arena there, they're going to "turn it into a massive pulsing swaying arm-raisin' eye-glazed weirdly repressed House o' Jesus."
Most megachurches, "operate much more like careening multitentacled corporations than humble homes of spiritual connection and love."
A random quote from the article: "I mention all this because megachurches are the latest phenomenon, the hottest trend in the Christian godfearin' biz, arena-scaled piety polished up and bloated out and aimed like a giant homophobic cannon straight at the gloomy face of a new and improved God, one who apparently truly loves the fact that these tacky sanitized enormo-domes are raking in an average of $5 million a year each, depending on size and girth and magnetism of their glossy preprogrammed pastors and depending on how many CDs and syrupy self-help books and movie production companies and proselytizing Web sites..."
Asking why megachurches are popular: "Or is it the Jesus-as-megastar thing, with the pastor as the ultimate cover band and his flock a teeming mass of fans who don't really understand the lyrics and get the message almost completely wrong and yet who are, you just know, good and honest people just trying to find their way in a lost and debauched and war-torn land? I saw AC/DC and Iron Maiden on a double bill in Spokane in 1983 and just about saw God. Is that the same thing? No?"
He also took a couple of other small digs, such as being thankful for never having been to "the all-paunchy-married-male revue of a Promise Keepers rally, or the bizarre pious cheerleading of a Harvest Crusade in L.A."
Okay, he's full-blown San Francisco liberal.
Okay, he's an outsider looking in at us with preconcieved notions.
Okay, he's writing an article designed to get your dander up.
Okay, he's not looking too deeply into our faith.
But let's just calm our emotions for a second...
What about his observations can we learn from? I think he has a few points we'd be wise to pay attention to...
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