The Gospel of Wealth

Read this in the NYT today (hat tip Danny, thanks).  Fascinating article that reasonated with me.  It touches on questions that I’ve been asking about St. Andrew’s: what we’re doing, why we’re doing it.  In fact, the launch of City Church was partially driven my my revulsion of the mega-church mentality with its attendant mega-budget, mega-buildings and the escapist mentality they promote amongst Christians (we really need Christian gymnasiums, food courts, sports leagues?  Please).  I had wanted to post this link to my Facebook account rather than enter it as a separate blog posting however, the NYT wanted me to grant access to the following in order for me to promote their material on my page (apparently the link was not adequate):

“Access my basic information, send me emails, post to my Facebook wall, access posts in my news feed, access my data at anytime, access my friends lists, access my profile information, access my contact information.”

Truly.

Sorry, NYT, just a bit ridiculous.  And, hopefully, to my Facebook friends’ appreciation, I did my bit to protect their privacy.  But, the article is good.  So, here’s snip and I’ll link to the rest:

Maybe the first decade of the 21st century will come to be known as the great age of headroom. During those years, new houses had great rooms with 20-foot ceilings and entire new art forms had to be invented to fill the acres of empty overhead wall space . . . People bought bulbous vehicles like Hummers and Suburbans. The rule was, The Smaller the Woman, the Bigger the Car — so you would see a 90-pound lady in tennis whites driving a 4-ton truck with enough headroom to allow her to drive with her doubles partner perched atop her shoulders . . . But that economy went poof, and social norms have since changed. The oversized now looks slightly ridiculous. Values have changed as well . . . Americans have built themselves multimillion-dollar worship palaces, he argues. These have become like corporations, competing for market share by offering social centers, child-care programs, first-class entertainment and comfortable, consumer Christianity . . . Jesus, Platt notes, made it hard on his followers. He created a minichurch, not a mega one. Today, however, building budgets dwarf charitable budgets, and Jesus is portrayed as a genial suburban dude. “When we gather in our church building to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshipping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead, we may be worshipping ourselves.”

Read the rest.