Outer Rim Territories

Church marketing

I've been reading a book for my Theological Ethics class entitled "Losing Our Virtue." David Wells' approach to understanding our postmodern culture in light of the church is unique and thought-provoking. Rather than begin with Biblical doctrine, he gives over 180 pages of contemporary critique of culture from the perspective of psychology, technology, consumerism, politics, and notions of guilt, and shame. Only then does he address our cultural ideas with the Biblical norm. Its a laborious way to approach the topic but bears his intended fruit in the end. One of the fruitful sections is his critique of Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral. While you are missing the bulk of the groundwork, his response is well-said and worth citing here. I'll be posting more quotes over the next couple of days as I write the response paper.

...Does the Church have the courage to become relevant by becoming biblical? Is it willing to break with the cultural habits of the time and propose something quite absurd, like recovering both the word and the meaning of sin? Is it sagacious enough to be able to show how the postmodern world is trapped within itself? There is plenty of evidence that this kind of courage is now missing from large sectors of the Church... ...The wisdom common to many of our marketers is that, if it wants to attract customers, the Church should stick to a positive and uplifting message. It should avoid speaking of negative matters like sin. Not only so, but what has distinguished the Church in its appearance and functions should now be abandoned. In order to be attractive to people today, church buildings should not look different from corporate headquarters, malls, or country clubs. Crosses and robes should go; dress should be casual; hymns should be contemporary and empty of the theological substance by which previous generations lived, because this is incomprehensible today; pews should be replaced by cinema-grade seats, organs by synthesizers and drums, solemnity by levity, reflection by humor, and sermons by light dialogues or catchy readings. The theory is that people will buy Christianity if they don't have to deal with what the Church has traditionally been. The best construction that can be put on this is that these marketdriven churches have become like hermit crabs, which walk around concealed within a shell. Hidden beneath the outer shell - the corporate style that disguises the churchly business that is supposed to be going on, the mall-like atmosphere in which faith is bought and sold like any other commodity, the relaxed, country club atmosphere - is the little animal who supposedly is really evangelical. As it moves from rock pool to rock pool, all we can see are the little legs - the most minimal doctrinal substance - that protrude from under the shell. Is this substance enough to sustain people amidst life's fierce trials? Is it enough to preserve biblical identity in these churches in the decades ahead? I think not. This marketing approach to church life raises questions of a most profound kind that seem not to have occurred to any of the movement's apostles, who remain blissfully ignorant of the havoc now germinating in the churches. Can churches really hide their identity without losing their religious character? Can the Church view people as consumers without inevitably forgetting that they are sinners? Can the Church promote the Gospel as a product and not forget that those who buy it must repent? Can the Church market itself and not forget that it does not belong to itself but to Christ? Can the' Church pursue success in the marketplace and not lose its biblical faithfulness?... ...This transformation of Christian faith is enormously appealing to modern people who are typically preoccupied with their own inward worlds and want "fixes." What is uppermost on their minds is not the moral fabric of life but how to cope with their wayward personalities, self-doubt, the stages of life, marital stress, as well as calamities like job losses and the soaring cost of college tuition. These are the things that are intensely real to them and that drain their psychological energy. However, while these are not inconsequential matters, they are not the burning moral issues with which the Bible is concerned. What is central to the Bible is the true and the right, sin and grace, God's wrath and Christ's death; what is central to so many people today is simply what offers internal relief. Biblical truth, even in the Church, is in a different universe of meaning from that into which modernity has led us and where we now so often comfortably reside.