The eCrozier

If you haven’t read David Brooks’ column in Tuesday’s New York Times, then I hope you will. You can read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/opinion/07brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Brooks comments on the Reverend David Platt’s new book: Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream. Brooks writes: Platt’s first target is the megachurch itself. Americans have built themselves multimillion-dollar worship palaces, he argues. These have become like corporations, competing for market share by offering social centers, child-care programs, first-class entertainment and comfortable, consumer Christianity. Jesus, Platt notes, made it hard on his followers. He created a minichurch, not a mega one. Today, however, building budgets dwarf charitable budgets, and Jesus is portrayed as a genial suburban dude. “When we gather in our church building to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshipping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead, we may be worshipping ourselves.”

See a brief Youtube featuring Platt here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZfC7vAbte4

Amen. But let’s not be too quick to point our finger at the megachurch or its members. My daddy always used to say: “when you point your finger at others remember you got three pointing back at yourself.” We may not have aircraft hanger-like sanctuaries or lattes offered at coffee hour, but we in our own way stand just as convicted at times of turning Jesus into a “genial suburban dude,” or at least creating him in our own image. One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons shows an Episcopal Priest at the breakfast table with his wife and he is saying to her: “Darling, last night I had the most wonderful dream. I dreamt that God agreed with me on everything!”

Brooks quotes Platt (a megachurch pastor himself from Birmingham and a UGA grad) elsewhere: The material world is too soul-destroying. The American dream radically differs from the call of Jesus and the essence of the Gospel. The American dream emphasizes self-development and personal growth. Our own abilities are our greatest assets. But the Gospel rejects the focus on self: God actually delights in exalting our inability. The American dream emphasizes upward mobility, but success in the kingdom of God involves moving down, not up.

Amen, again! And this is in the New York Times of all places! Platt (and Brooks) reminds us that in some ways we have given into a delusion: that we can somehow pursue the fullness of the American Dream and, at the same time, live fully into our call to discipleship in Jesus. In our preaching and teaching, we should be sure to tell the truth. Being a disciple of Jesus isn’t about achieving success in our businesses or in our bank accounts. In fact, if we take Jesus’ call seriously, we may well be a failure in both.

+Scott