Jesus and the Downturn
Posted by Chris Roberts on December 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pm.
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The NY Times has a piece examining Evangelical growth during times of economic distress. I really wish they had chosen some different church leaders to interview. Give it a read and see if some of the marketspeak doesn’t make you cringe. An example:

But why the evangelical churches seem to thrive especially in hard times is a Rorschach test of perspective.

For some evangelicals, the answer is obvious. ”We have the greatest product on earth,” said the Rev. Steve Tomlinson, senior pastor of the Shelter Rock Church.

Truth is, in hard times people’s distractions and illusions begin to fail. We are so good at ignoring what lies in front of us. But when hard times hit it becomes harder to ignore truth and people begin to realize the only thing they can turn to is what they should have turned to all along. I pray, though, that churches would be bold enough and faithful enough to offer the full gospel and not watered down marketspeak. Jesus is not a product to give a try for 60 days. He is Creator and Lord who demands faithfulness.



Posted in: Religious Life, Society.
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  • http://whilewesojourn.blogspot.com John

    What do you expect from the NY times? I read them each morning–their webpage is not nearly as vulgar as Fox News. But on matters of faith they are generally off. Very far off.

  • http://www.seektheholy.com/ Chris Roberts

    Agreed, though as you say they are not as bad as some. I used to read CNN all the time and finally ditched them due to an overload of useless, sensational news pieces. Tried BBC for a while but, surprisingly, it wasn’t all that much better than CNN. NY Times tends to do best at presenting good news, but their opinion pieces tend to be far off.