Scot McKnight over at Jesus Creed is doing a chapter-by-chapter review of Paul Lois Metzger’s new book Consuming Jesus, which is being lumped with McLaren’s Everything Must Change as one of the current crop of must-read books. The basic premise seems to be that
“The evangelical church has a ‘disordered vision.’ That vision is consumerist…. The consumerist mindset entails giving consumers what they want, when they want it, and at the least cost to consumers themselves. It also creates in consumers the desire to want, and then to want more, even to want things they did not originally want — programming them to buy a given product in the free-market system…. It all appears to be benign; yet it is very divisive” (40).”
Divisive, because
“This consumerist mindset leads to a blindness to a “trade triangle”: consumerism, upward mobility, and homogeneity in the church.”
His solution is to consume Jesus instead of constantly consuming new buildings, ideas, music, etc. Few Christians would philosophically debate for anything but this in their churches; however, what we say and what we do often are misaligned.
I’d like to discuss the last item of that ‘trade triangle,’ though: homogeneity. I’ve been involved in a few different small groups over the years. Of the successful ones, one worked because we were all male and the same age and another because we were all twenty-somethings living in suburban Chicago. And the churches I’ve called home have been lead and attended by people who generally look, talk and act like me. Ditto goes for the university I attended. In the past eight years I’ve regularly attended four churches from four denominations, all of which in reality were all pretty much the same. I’ve lived a rather homogenous Christian life. I’ve always felt slightly guilty about that, but reading about Metzger’s book has me thinking.
He has this to say as well:
“We fail to grasp how evil and dehumanizing the consumer-market forces can be… the market mind-set means that the gospel signifies an exchange between God and us rooted in satisfying our untrained needs.”
Since as McKnight puts it, “race and income track one another,” this tendency towards a market mind-set leads to a both classism and racism. Scary stuff.
So my question for you: Is this desire for a comfortable homogeneity a function of our consumerist mentality within the church? Clearly no one would really argue that churches should be wholly consumerist, but would you agree with how destructive he thinks that mentality has become? Or better yet, how have you seen this type of consumerism—for good or ill—in your own churches?
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November 15, 2007 at 08:29
McKnight may agree with this, not sure… but I think it’s not so much a “marketing” or new “consumerist mentality” as it is simply a carry-over of the world in which we live, which chooses to associate with those whom they feel most comfortable/least threatened. In other words, it’s less something the church is “doing”, and more something it’s not doing and therefore bringing in from the world by default. That’s not just the “evangelical church”, that’s the human condition and always has been.
Breaking this means proactively living out the boundary-breaking Gospel – and teaching/exhorting one another to do likewise. This is as revolutionary today as 2000 years ago.
Eph 2:14 “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility”
November 15, 2007 at 15:10
I’m “consuming” McKnight’s book. Oh noes!
Sarcasm aside, does McKnight realize for a second that he perpetuates the culture he decries by feeding into it? Consumable Christianity has its flaws, but there are things out there that are well worth “consuming”: spiritual autobiographies like Orthodoxy and Blue Like Jazz, notes on Christian doctrine, the writings of people like Lewis and Tolkien, concordances, Bible studies—these are useful things, and guidance for Christians ought to be consumed, albeit with a grain of salt.
If McKnight wants to decry, say, Thomas Kinkade decorative plates, he gets my vote. But he cannot decry ministerial plans that are adapted to each church, in each environment, for the express purpose of individual churches. It’s intellectually dishonest, as he’s basically saying to everyone else “do it my way.”
November 19, 2007 at 01:22
Re: race and class tracking each other
Yes, they do, but churches also serve their COMMUNITIES – they are, or at least should be, adept at helping Christians who live in different cultural mileus understand Christ and walk with him on their own.
“Community” is such a big word in contemporary (especially youthful) Evangelical circles, but it always seemed to me to be misleading – and ethnic churches are communities as much as (but not necessarily moreso than) white, middle-class men’s Bible study / prayer circles / theology salons. The desire to be inclusive is a good impulse, but ignoring the fundamental realities behind how things are – that, in a sense, religious communities are separated and stratified because each church has to find it’s own way to come to grips with the culture around it – and feeling vaguely uncomfortable about being white and middle class is pointless, I think.
I’m with Michael on this one.
And while I do think that the “desire for a comfortable homogeneity a function of our consumerist mentality within the church” – but that’s not a church problem.
That’s a faith problem.
November 19, 2007 at 23:38
All kinds of things are going in churches so this is something we need to think about and do something.
November 20, 2007 at 04:59
Great stuff this and so very true.
We have issued a challenge to Christians we deal with:
For every book or magazine etc that you purchase, donate the equivalent amount to your local Bible Society.
The task of reaching all nations etc is far from accomplished whilst we spend milions on our own selfish needs & greeds! Not even 20% of the world language groups have a Bible in their own language!!!