Outchurched

From Megachurches Closed on Christmas:

This Christmas, no prayers will be said in several megachurches around the country. Even though the holiday falls this year on a Sunday, when churches normally host thousands for worship, pastors are canceling services, anticipating low attendance on what they call a family day.

Critics within the evangelical community, more accustomed to doing battle with department stores and public schools over keeping religion in Christmas, are stunned by the shutdown.

It is almost unheard of for a Christian church to cancel services on a Sunday, and opponents of the closures are accusing these congregations of bowing to secular culture.

“This is a consumer mentality at work: `Let’s not impose the church on people. Let’s not make church in any way inconvenient,’” said David Wells, professor of history and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical school in Hamilton, Mass. “I think what this does is feed into the individualism that is found throughout American culture, where everyone does their own thing.”

Wired Jesus has a post about this, and I had a flashback of a Superbowl Sunday at a church friend’s house… everyone was gathered around the altar to worship… and what a beautiful widescreen altar it was. Too bad I’ve never bought into the sports religion. Oh well. Maybe McKormick will invite me over when he gets one.

“I think what this does is feed into the individualism that is found throughout American culture, where everyone does their own thing.”

That’s the part that gets me. It’s the “oh wow… people are not acting like God’s Holy Flock of Cattle” mentality… the disdain of the Head Sheep… the bleating on the hill. Amazing.

I’m sorry for the delay in posting the latest Outchurched Episodes. They’ll be up soon.

This entry was posted by Rev. Dan on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 6:31 am and is filed under General, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.