i have always been a little weirded-out by smerconish's fascination with joel osteen.first, its just plain odd i could twitter a confession to my pastor in 140 words or less.
second, i stumbled upon a concert venue page to find osteen appearing between metallica and the "so you think you can dance" tour.
third, that smile. you might think its a perfectly nice smile, but i think behind that smile is a man who could easily eat my face off. i think that poor woman is his next victim.
i tell you this, first save your soul from that man, but primarily in response to the topic of the "super-church". sharing the gospel of jesus christ suddenly requires a wireless head-set, musical guest appearances by the christian singer de jour, and a gift shop conveniently stocked with every book written by the super-churches' super-pastor.
oh, and some jesusy knick-knacky things.
with mosques popping up throughout the united states, i imagine denominational christians are feeling somewhat, left behind. islam, the second largest religion is quickly catching up with the 1st place christians by leaps and bounds as it is now the worlds fastest growing religion.
not to be outdone by a bunch of muslims, super-christians everywhere are flying off the pews of their teeny, tiny churches into the lushly padded arena chairs of a stadium-sized McChurch. this up-sizing of christianity is nothing new.
non-denominational churches have been around since english episcopal independents broke free from the church of england back in 1600 something. it is only the intention adopted by the new and super-improved non-denoms that's suddenly different.
the mcchurch often works around a yearly budget of around $50,000,000. yeah, thats right, 50 million beautifully tax exempt bucks. i can remember my church raised money by guilt tripping us into trick-or-treating for unicef, forcing potential treat-givers into choosing whether to nickle and dime some hungry kid in africa or give the cute witch some candy. i eventually had to resort to lying about a sick brother who was unable to trick-or-treat for unicef and since i was unable to carry TWO unicef boxes and my treat bag, i volunteered to give up my treat bag and carry one for him instead.
super-mega-McChurches are all about two things:
1. dollars
2. numbers
the McChurch is big business.
furthermore, under the guise of 'unification', christians are given permission to forgo all those pesky rules denominations are so keen on enforcing in the name of god, but, (and this is the important part) non-denominational, united christians will draw strength (and converts) and give those darn muslims a run for their burkahs reclaiming christainity as the worlds fastest and most superest religion of all!
this is fascinating.
go read it.
and peace be with you.
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