S3 Church: Shallow, Superficial Spirituality
I’m sorry, God, but I cannot stand the over-spiritualisation of everyday events. The simplistic view of spirituality is embarrassing to witness. The modern church is a shallow institution that can only possibly breed shallow personnel.
Facebook and Twitter have provided some exceptionally tacky fodder as an example of modern Christianity in an apparent bid to spread the “good news”. Let me explain the concept by way of example and let me share some Facebook/Twitter posts from a church pastor:
Just returned from Christmas shopping at the mall with [daughter’s name]. It reminds me of the gifts Jesus gives to his children.
Proud of [insert spouse name]. He’s gifted, anointed and so much more AND he’s mine!
Surgery that I was having Wed night is postponed for a fortnight! All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Rom 8:28. It’s all good.
I certainly need a bolt of lightning from heaven to come down and explain to me how retail expenditure correlates to any gift from a Messiah. In fact, I’m pretty confident the Bible tells a story of Jesus tearing up a temple in anger due to the church resembling a marketplace. I can’t imagine that the God of the Bible would be content at being compared spiritually to a Western commercial Christmas spending spree, especially by a person claiming to be a teacher in the ways of religion. Do the people without the disposable income to purchase gifts at the mall never fully understand Jesus’ spiritual gifts, then? It might be an explanation as to why I personally hate shopping, though.
C3 Church Global published a resource document entitled Managing Your Digital Life and it provides tips for growth and sermon preparation. It states that “The WWW is a gift from God to the Church.” Mmm, that’s strange because I thought the Department of Defence initially created the technology and I could almost guarantee their motivations were far removed from spiritual things. Surely, nobody could spiritualise an inanimate phenomena such as technology. Sigh…modern Christians can spiritualise anything and claim it’s rational. “God’s gift”, in this case, really has a ferocious backlash for those who fall victims to things like child pornography and cyber bullying. I hope God puts far more fore-thought into his gifts in the future.
Bizarrely, the above C3 publication does not suggest that pastors should scour the Bible for answers; rather it encourages the pastor to commence with the information highway. Here are the document’s simple instructions for sermon preparation, “Put verse/s into google and search. Spend an hour reading the results and you have all the back ground you need to start forming your own message on a bible story.” Really, is it that simple? These are the recommended efforts for today’s spiritual leaders? I can confidently state that neither Jesus Christ nor Mohamed nor Mother Theresa based their sermons on unreliable and ambiguous opinions located via an online search engine. When Christianity believes the Bible to be the living word of God, but pastors are so heavily utilising popular online opinion, where does modern Christianity end up? I’ll tell you where: tweeting and posting on social media that Paster Such-and-Such is a true inspiration and a man/woman of God, that’s where. It doesn’t have to be true. It doesn’t even have to be thoughtful. It certainly isn’t Biblical. This is an example of modern religion at its most cheap and superficial.
How shallow has Western Christianity really become? Attitudes towards church growth and conversion are almost exact replicas of commercial organisations. Have capitalism and religion become so intertwined? C3 Church Global published a manual that looks at promoting church culture which you can read here if you’d like. I certainly don’t have a problem with leaders establishing a culture in an organisation. Curiously, though, I cannot distinguish the fundamental leadership difference between this religious mindset and the mindset of the listed corporation for which I previously worked. I have also read a statement on children ministries from a church that aimed at converting children to their religion to ensure a grass roots approach to church growth. This Assemblies of God page is completely repulsive to me as it targets the conversion to religion of a young and malleable mind, even providing long-term statistics on conversion. There are analogies relating to construction for investing in children’s ministries. I am sickened by the corporate approach to spiritual conversion and church sustainability. It could easily be interchangeable for a corporate statement on market share and customer retention. When I read it I was astounded at how eerily similar it was to the marketing ploys of corporate kiddie magnets like fast food chains and merchandised toys.
The modern church appears to simply be an over-spiritualised organisation as a whole. Those quick little posts on God that are meant to be life-changing but have left the mind moments later; it’s just spirituality on the run. There is minimal substance in the sermons if the underlying culture advocates only an hour online for preparation. Superficial sermons can only support superficial Christians. Does modern Christianity provide anything other than shallow feel-good emotions where everyone’s happy because they think all things work together for good for those that…blah, blah, blah. I hear that verse so often; it frustrates me to no end how it differentiates between the God-followers and the rest of us. I challenge Christians to gain an understanding of an individual approach to life which doesn’t systematically provide a god-controlled silver lining. Apply honesty in difficult situations and explore the deep and complex emotions that arise. Fully explore your spirituality instead of throwing some Romans verse around repeatedly in a false bid to make you feel like your life is far more blessed than that of the atheist sitting beside you.
When everything in a person’s life is automatically attributed to the conduct of an unseen spiritual deity, from where does that person build their self-esteem? Seemingly, all aspects of a Christian’s life are given over to God and responsibility awarded to the cosmos. Over-spiritualising everyday events restricts an individual from being responsible for their own decisions and restricts a sense of self accomplishment. I don’t know how empowerment is established in an individual if they are repeatedly devoid of a sense of responsibility and believe that one spiritual being sorts it all out.
These are certainly far too complex queries for the modern church. Although, given that the www is a gift from God, I expect God’s got himself an email account somewhere specifically designed to accept online queries. It’s been over 2,000 years since Jesus hung out with the humans, so I’m sure he’s also now discovered all his old friends and joined up with everyone on social media. I can confidently guarantee he’s not going to be clicking Like on all those superficial and self-indulgent religious posts and tweets though.