Link: The “Evangelical-Industrial Complex”

I hesitate to post this article or touch off the discussion because I’m afraid people will instantly leap to any number of inaccurate assumptions about my motives.

For example, 90% of the folks who read this and live in SC will think “New Spring” at some point when reading the piece, either for good or ill. I’m not trying to go there.  In fact, I find NewSpring bashing a distasteful sport whose participants rarely offer useful critique but have a lot to say about their personal preferences for church and worship.  So I’m not posting this to say something about the big church down the road …. though she does raise questions that should be part of a larger discussion among the church (holistic) in SC.

I’m here simply to provoke thought…. to make us think more precisely about how we do church and why some traditions survive when others die.

The author of this piece, a woman, targets the marketing focus and authoritarianism that are becoming a more common thread in Evangelicalism these days.

I think we need to start asking more questions and demanding a better ecclesiology that works itself out in church practice — not in a club-brandishing way (my beef with the “regulative principle”) but because the Bride of Christ should offer a welcoming, authentic home for Christ-followers and Christ-seekers.

So: read.

The future of the church has arrived – Pastor, Inc. and the Evangelical Industrial Complex | A Womans Freedom in Christ.