DISQUS

the Jesus Manifesto: Restraining the Gospel?

  • pat k · 4 years ago
    A multi-faceted gospel?! What the...?!
  • Van S · 4 years ago
    :o
  • Anonymous · 4 years ago
    theologica.blogspot.com began a discussion titled "Should all Churches be Multiracial?" based off a recent article by Christianity Today. Divergent responses follow.
  • bryan · 4 years ago
    interesting food for thought. I have a story about this that I'll post later. For now, it's off to bed.
  • david · 4 years ago
    i typically just stalk blogs and make no comments, but i really appreciate this. the question then is, "now what?" how do we fix this problem without simply creating "new niche" churches?
  • Aaron · 4 years ago
    Radical Reformission. You might like the book, it's very interesting. I'd recommend it.

    In ninety nations, people spend less each year than we in the United States spend on our garbage bags.

    Each year more Americans declare bankruptcy than graduate from college

    We have twice as many malls as high schools.

    We spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches than on higher education

    Our supermarkets have 250 percent more items than they did twenty years ago.

    Parents spend six hours shopping each week, and fourty minutes playing with their children.

    Only one-fourth of shoppers have a particular purchase in mind when they go to the mall

    Seventy percent of Americans visit a mall each week; that's more than visit houses of worship


    The assumption that everyone is a customer to be marketed is a great pitfall for those who proclaim the gospel, because we tend to cast God as a product, and as mainstream a product as possible. After all, scriptural teaching about the curse, death as the wages of sin, the flooding of the earth, the killing of Egyptian babies, the slaughter of erverts in Sodom and Gomorrah, and the fiery torments of hell is a tough sell even for the best of marketing firms.

    Yet today everything from sex to Jesus is pimped, since some preachers have traded in prophecy for pandering. Meanwhile, people have become so seasoned from the years of direct mail, online pop-up ads, commercials, and the endless parade of advertising on everything from billboards to ball caps that they tend to view the church as just another business and the preacher as yet another huckster.
    The Radical Reformission, Mark Driscoll. (p.170-171)