Malls for Christ
I’ve made mention of the strange and scary marriage of business parks and the new Christian churches affiliated with them. Mega-churches are moving into position to take over services once provided by the American government for the betterment of the people. When our government conveniently loses funding for education and social programs, what direction can a fledgling theocracy take but by allowing the churches to take up the slack. Forget the old ways of contemplation, of concern for others, and deciphering what the prophets and Jesus were saying with their words and actions. Wearing Christ is as fashionable as wearing Abercrombie and Fitch and is just as vapid.
In sprawling, decentralized exurbs like Surprise, where housing developments rarely include porches, parks, stoops or any of the other features that have historically brought neighbors together, megachurches provide a locus for community. In many places, they operate almost like surrogate governments, offering residents day care, athletic facilities, counseling, even schools. Taking the comparison one step further, there’s even a tax, albeit a voluntary one: members are encouraged to tithe, or donate 10 percent of their income to the church.
To me, going to shurch is an opportunity to tune myself. It is an opportunity to break my bits down and fortify them. It is meditation in the act of contemplation. Many modern day Christians have lost focus on this and request the instant gratification that bombards our lives from our schools, our grocery stores, our workplaces, and now from the traditionally patient and pensive churches. They need the excitement of flashing television commercials. They crave MTV-like representations of Christianity (read: simple and one-dimensional). They desire not Jesus, but a place so impersonal and irreligious that it approaches the ridiculous or, perhaps, the vaccuous.
When the church was under construction, people would occasionally ask McFarland if it was going to have stained glass or a steeple. ‘’No!’’ he’d answer. ‘’We want the church to look like a mall. We want you to come in here and say, ‘Dude, where’s the cinema?’ ‘’
It is plain to see that in the desire to bring people back to Christianity and to revive its puritanical forms that it must evolve and mutate into a greater beast, even so great that the life of the beast trumps the life of Jesus and His legacy. The devolution of Jesus’ words and works into sound-byte sized commercials and inane mantras signifies not the explosion of mega-churches but the loss of the ultimate message that Jesus left behind with his words of peace and his actions of compassion and justice.
The spiritual sell is also a soft one. There are no crosses, no images of Jesus or any other form of religious iconography. Bibles are optional (all biblical quotations are flashed on huge video screens above the stage). Almost half of each service is given over to live Christian rock with simple, repetitive lyrics in which Jesus is treated like a high-school crush: ‘’Jesus, you are my best friend, and you will always be. Nothing will ever change that.’’ Committing your life to Christ is as easy as checking a box on the communication cards that can be found on the back of every chair.
Our democracy cum theocracy can only smile with glee as people move from the Jesus that represented man against empire to the Jesus of full malls and empty souls.
The only traditional thing they’ve maintained is small-mindedness & homophobia. But hey, if they didn’t preach against the Queers, between the exercise classes (“Firm Believers”- i shit you not) & the Krispy Cremes, you’d never even know it was church!
I find it ironic that the early days of Christianity barred any religious symbols, iconography, etc… And this plan is actually more inline with those practices.
Victor Gruen invented the modern shopping mall. He did so because so many communities were lacking main streets. His idea was to provide a place for communities to flourish in the comfort of the indoors. That’s pretty wholesome if you ask me.
That is rather ironic, isn’t it? Jesus never said to worship him in any way. He was just critical of the proclamation of God at that particular time. My objection to the mall churches is that it removes all manner of religious guise in the notion of having fun, when, lying and skulking beneath, are actions of nefarious intent. They tend to be so open and playful but their message is of exclusion and derision. It’s just a cess pool of terrible certificate-by-mail evanglelists with hair pieces and aspirations for stardom.