Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Doing Church
In his commentary McAmerica Uber Alles, the illustrious Billmon of the noted blog Whiskey Bar caught James H. Kuntsler--author of The Long Emergency--on Salon the other day saying the following:
One thing that I'm predicting is that there will be a vigorous and futile defense of suburbia and all its entitlements, no matter what reality is telling us to do. And this will translate into a lot of political mischief. You can quote me: Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar.
In a complementary article Jesus Christ's Superflock, James B. Twitchell--writing for the March/April issue of Mother Jones--tells us about the amazing phenomenon of suburbia's McChurches.
"The secret to attracting the unchurched," says Twitchell, "is the good old-fashioned yearning for communal experience." Megachurches--as these mall-like religious enterprises are commonly known (some seat ten thousand)-- come "complete with videos, pop music, and other modern dramatic [multi-media] flourishes."
"Out in the suburbs," writes Twitchell, "Christianity is experiencing the same consumer shifts that occur when Sam's Club or Costco comes to town... Detractors call them McChurches or Wal-Mart churches."
The significance of these sprawling Christian suburban campuses, as Twitchell notes, is that these are the churches that held get-out-the-vote rallies and stressed the importance of politics in the service of religion. In a society where the average family moves every five years, where people have long commutes from exurb to office park and spend precious little time with family, much less neighbors, megachurches solve the problem of dehydrated community.
"In a sense," observes Twitchell, "they operate much like medieval city-states, and it is telling that a megachurch in Longmont, Colorado, plans to develop 313 surrounding acres into residences, a community college, and a senior center... What it really represents is the franchising of a formatted service, the Home Depot of epiphany."
Complete with food courts, bookstores, executive offices, and industrial kiddie-care, these enterprises, as Twitchell remarks, are not just competing with other denominations, but with all other forms of entertainment, especially television. By intensely focusing on the needs of its congregation, by using sophisticated electronic showmanship, [these] consumer-driven enterprises ...can make the process of "doing church" incredibly compelling.
"Old-line faithful and secular urbanites" he says, " may scoff at these one-stop- shopping malls of community and faith, but the needs that megachurches try to address are real. Modern society has created this market, and any religious institution or political movement that wishes to compete for this audience had better understand it."
