Locker Room Talk

"What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops." Jesus, Luke 12:3

"The mouth speaks what the heart is full of" Jesus, Luke 6:45 

Are Megachurches Christian?

Journalist Will Braun took a random Sunday, and downloaded the sermons from the 10 biggest churches in the US, and the 10 biggest in Canada, to see if there were any common threads in the messages preached.

Here's a bit of his commentary:

...with sermon titles like “Thirty Days to a No-Regret Life” and “I Want More . . . Self-control” as well as emphases on overcoming difficulties and attaining goals, many of the preachers covered terrain similar to Oprah.

Of course the preachers add a Christian discipleship dimension, but it’s still a smiley, energetic approach to making your life better and more meaningful. Just look at the glowing face of Lakewood pastor Joel Olsteen (who wasn’t preaching on April 13) on the cover of his book, Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day.

The point here is not that self-improvement is inherently problematic but rather that it is, by definition, self-centred. It’s about you and your happiness and your success. Fifteen of the 20 sermons would fall in the category of “improving your life by the power of God,” without ever expanding beyond a sort of me-and-my-Jesus world view. Three made brief forays outside the gates of self-help land (mentioning creation care and sensitivity to the poor) and two placed church solidly in the context of a global community.

The issue is about what wasn’t said. What was not said in any but two of the sermons was anything like: The church is in a better position than anyone to stop the genocide in Darfur. When we participate in an economy dependent on exploitation, we erode our souls in the process. The indigenous people in the Arctic, whose way of life is melting away beneath them, are our neighbours.

For most of the preachers, the church is not cast as a collective force of compassion and change in a violent, warming world, but rather as a vehicle for individual betterment and eternal bliss, with care for the needy sometimes tacked on as a religious duty.

Emphasis mine. Braun concludes:

While these mega-churches are undoubtedly meeting certain needs, they are not, for the most part, geared toward the needs of the greater world. If you would have walked in the door of one of the 20 largest churches in Canada or the U.S. on April 13, 2008 you would have most likely walked into an other-worldly realm – something removed from the warming, starving, self-destructing world out there. And in that way it would have been kind of like walking into an amusement park

Our church has no pretensions to being a mega church. But the same infection lurks - the temptation to appeal to people's selfishness, to preach a gospel that 'meets my needs', to make church entertaining, fun, joyful, stimulating without crossing over the line into mere entertainment. Maybe this comes back to the problem with 'event' church over against 'community' church: if the life of the church is centred around a building and an event which you're trying to populate, then there's always a temptation to go for what will be popular rather than what will be authentic.

There's an even deeper question here: have preachers of self-improvement ceased to be Christian? We're so used to the old litmus tests - the bodily resurrection of Jesus, gay sex (?), who's allowed to pray at communion - that things like this seem to pass by without anyone noticing. But the fact is that a God who's prime purpose in sending Jesus was to aid human self-improvement is not God, it is an idol. A gospel of self-improvement, no matter how many times you quote John 10:10 , is a false gospel.

Ht Danielle Strickland via Sheepspeak.

Update: Tim Chesterton, from across the pond, has some more reflections on this.

Obama Inauguration Prayers

Who'd have thought that the US has formal separation of church and state? Can anyone imagine these in the UK?

Gene Robinson

'god of our many understandings'.... no mention of Jesus, the Father or the Holy Spirit, so I guess he was aiming to pray a prayer everyone could join in with. Well, not quite everyone.


Rick Warren

does the inclusivity thing by using the names of Jesus given by other faiths. Clever without bottling it.


Joseph Lowery's blessing



Amen.

73% of Americans Didn't Vote for Obama

80% of eligible adults registered to vote.
Of these, 64% voted
Of these, 52% voted for Barack Obama
Which means that 26.6% of US adults voted for him.

Lest us Britons be smug, at the last election
61.4% of electors voted
of whom 40.7% voted for Tony Blair
which means that 26% of UK electors voted for him.

and in 2007, exactly 0.0% of us voted for Gordon Brown.

All of which makes (incredible to say) Hazel Blears' comments about engagement in the political process very timely. Unfortunately, this bit is the only section of the talk that anyone is blogging about, wonder why....

This brings me to the role of political bloggers. Perhaps because of the nature of the technology, there is a tendency for political blogs to have a ‘Samizdat’ style. The most popular blogs are right-wing, ranging from the considered Tory views of Iain Dale, to the vicious nihilism of Guido Fawkes. Perhaps this is simply anti-establishment. Blogs have only existed under a Labour Government. Perhaps if there was a Tory Government, all the leading blogs would be left-of-centre?

There are some informative and entertaining political blogs, including those written by elected councillors. But mostly, political blogs are written by people with a disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy.

Unless and until political blogging ‘adds value’ to our political culture, by allowing new and disparate voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair.

Christian blogs take note. It is easier to attack than defend, and there are several popular Christian blogs which are more Rottweiler than sheepdog.

US Politics Explained

HT to Tom Harris for this Sarah Palin flow chart: doesn't matter what you think about US politics, this is funny. (Bishop Alan has the video version)
And HT Wardman Wire for alerting me to Tom Harris's blog in the latest Britblog roundup. It's supposed to be the no.1 left wing political blog, and I'd never even read it before. Like I said before, how many of us are just talking to ourselves?