The Retailing of Religion
After reading Barbara Bradley’s “Marketing That New-Time Religion” (Dec. 10), I really felt sorry for the members of these “mall churches.” They’ve been duped. The blatant marketing techniques, such as targeting a typical “Saddleback Sam,” are insulting. To be thought of as a demographic entity instead of as a thinking, feeling person is dehumanizing. Under the guise of providing religious fulfillment, these churches are revealed by Bradley to be nothing but hype, smoke and mirrors.
The bottom line, of course, is money. Why else would so much emphasis be placed on recruiting, presentation and total involvement--financial planning workshops, 12-step programs, divorce recovery, etc.? The larger the flock, the more money in the collection plate. These slick megachurch pastors are laughing all the way to the bank.
Deirdre Gibson Seaman
Tustin
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Usually I expect to find cynicism and a negative bias in a secular articles relating to Christianity or religion in general, and I am rarely disappointed. What also bothers me most is that the writers of such articles appear to be grossly either uninformed or misinformed and perhaps unwilling to delve into the subject deeply enough to get a clear picture of the issues they are writing about.
However, as I read Bradley’s article, which I had expected to give me the outside world’s take on the church-growth movement, I found myself forgetting that I was reading a secular publication. She was informative, objective and, most of all, well-informed. The article seemed well-researched, was alive with good examples and was reinforced by a lack of bias and cynicism.
As a pastor, I felt that The Times and the magazine were actually treating me as a customer, a member of a legitimate segment of their market, rather than as part of what is often painted as a corrupt institution. This article will be filed and shared as an excellent treatment of the church-growth issue.
Jerry Schrick, senior pastor
Calvary Baptist Church
Beaumont
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So-called “seeker-sensitive” churches miss the point. God has always been seeker-sensitive, and the church service doesn’t have to be changed to make that more so. Jesus came “to seek and to save” the lost, and that hasn’t changed in two millennia.
The real issue is not whether God or his church are sufficiently sensitive to the “unchurched” but whether the unchurched are going to be sensitive to God.
Paul Hughes
Orange
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Mainstream churches are said to be losing members because they are not entertaining enough--just what a seventh grader might say when forced to study history and algebra instead of playing basketball and soccer all day.
Also, it’s worth noting that, contrary to what the Rev. Glenn Lucas says, Jesus was utterly unconcerned with attracting large numbers of people to his sermons. In fact, it could be argued that he went to the opposite extreme, speaking in parables to make the true searcher think through what the sermon meant and pointedly discouraging those who were healed from telling other people about it.
Richard C. Mallyon
Lancaster
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“Marketing That New-Time Religion” should have been titled “Marketing That New-Type Christianity,” since no other religions were mentioned. Among Southern California’s population are many Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and members of other sects. Using the word religion generically to mean Christianity reflects the same type of presumptuousness that specifies race only if the subject is nonwhite and indicating gender only if the subject is female. Unspecified equals me, right?
Susan T. Wolfson
Los Angeles