Christian Lemmings

The December 8, 2003, edition of U.S. News & World Report contains an article called, The New Evangelicals in which the modern megachurch is portrayed as little more than a large building in which people congregate to have their ears tickled by a slick and well-paid preacher/entertainer. 

I am always skeptical when the secular media starts analyzing Christianity or the church, but the message of this article is, unfortunately, impossible to deny.  Today, Americans want a low-maintenance no-demand Christianity that pushes absolution without the need for confession and revival without the need for repentance.  They don’t want to hear about sin or repentance or the need to live by some moral code handed down thousands of years ago; they want to be dazzled.  Most of all, they want a church that makes them feel good about the lifestyle they are involved in regardless of what that lifestyle might be.

That is the market these megachurch preachers have tapped into.  It’s called the “Seeker Movement” and it is designed to appeal to aging baby-boomers who are looking for a philosophy that is more John Lennon than John the Baptist. 

In the USNWR article, megachurch preacher Lon Solomon claimed that churches like his are “offering people a different and better way to live than secular America offers.”  However, their touchy-feely-I’m-okay-you’re-okay theology and entertainment-based delivery system demonstrates that there is actually little if any difference between the two.  In fact, his own words prove that modern secular society now has far more influence on the church than the church has on society.

Among the many problems with this Seeker Movement theology is that it will never pull America out of its current moral tailspin.  For example, in this article Solomon referred to issues like abortion as just “minor concerns” to this wave of New Evangelicals.  It was clear that people like Solomon see no contradiction in getting all jacked-up about someone being born again, while being functionally indifferent to those who don’t get to be born even once. 

The result is, with the church’s averted gaze and silent approval, today more people will be killed in the womb than on every battlefield in the world.  Of course, that’s just a minor concern for those who are already born.