http://www.outofur.com/archives/2012/02/the_evangelical_1.html
That title totally reads like G. I. Joe: Rise of Cobra doesn't it? The celebrity pastor as Cobra Commander is kinda funny to think about for a moment ... . Destro must be around somewhere ... .
Oh, okay, back on topic.
Are the publishers evil for focusing on sales potential more than quality? Of course not. They’re businesses that have to sustain themselves. They are simply reacting to the realities of the market. But sometimes they fail to see how they also shape the market by their decisions. And am I saying all megachurch pastors’ books are subpar? Not at all. Some of them are my friends and I’ve deeply appreciated their writings (Dave Gibbons and Tim Keller immediately come to mind.) But we mustn’t be naive--the system is rigged to favor a writer/speaker’s market platform rather than his/her content, maturity, or message.
Yes there are exceptions, but they generally prove the rule. And we've all been to ministry conferences where we've scratched our heads wondering why that yahoo is on the platform...oh yeah, he's got a big church and a book to sell, just like the guy before him, and the one before him. It's a system that rewards sizzle whether or not there's any steak.
Given the dynamic duo of sex/marriage books that came out at the start of 2012 the metaphor of sizzle without steak could be construed as a curiously apt one, though maybe there's steak in both books and it is, to go by some observations other Christians have made, that such steak as there is to be found is a little undercooked in some places but I'm not going to get into that right now.
... We live in a new age where consumerism and mega-congregations have resulted in a self-perpetuating evangelical industrial complex that not only creates, but also depends upon a growing number of celebrity pastors. Should we be concerned? Yes, but at least they’re not building nukes.
And what are we to do about it? Avoid conferences or popular books? No, not necessarily. But we do need to be discerning and recognize that popularity does not equal maturity, and a wide audience does not equal wisdom. Don't let the publishers or conference organizers determine what's right for you and your community. Seek God's wisdom about what voices and ideas to allow into your life and church. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you and not just the marketing departments of the industrial complex. ...
The evangelical industrial complex isn't building nukes but given even a small dose of culture war/cultural engagement they're trying to mold and shape the young minds who will eventually either build the nukes or authorize the use of nukes (at least in the United States). I'm no more of a pacifist than Eisenhower was but the warning about the long-term implications of an evangelical industrial complex could still be taken as seriously. After all, when a megachurch pastor talks about how he wants to get the young men because if you get them you get "everything"; when a pastor talks about how he wants to get the people who are going "upstream" who "influence culture" that pastor is talking in culture war terms that secular liberals instantly grasp while the pastor pretends he's not advocating for a more guerrilla form of culture war.
The consumerism that can be at the heart of such an enterprise is also not hugely difficult for secularists to observe. If this seems peculiar to a Christian reader let me reframe this--we are used to framing consumerism as a purely individualistic rather than a cultural or institutional activity in Christian teaching and polemic. We're more likely to talk about some individual church member being consumeristic (i.e. doesn't give enough to the church or volunteer enough in ministry or participate in a community group or whatever the marks of social and economic integration into a church may be).
I don't think the consumerism of some individual, least of all in a megachurch, is really as big an issue as consumerism in the leadership classes in megachurches. A megachurch pastor who talks about how people shouldn't be mere consumers yet who can talk about having three Tivos and two home theaters has a credibility issue. Who needs two home theaters? One I can actually understand but two home theaters? Is that so that you can cram a legion of kiddies into one room to watch the kid movie while you watch something like Braveheart for the 1500th time? Anyway I digress.
Jethnai doesn't end on these words but they're useful words to end this post on:
Seek God's wisdom about what voices and ideas to allow into your life and church. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you and not just the marketing departments of the industrial complex
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