Recently the east German Methodist pastor Ulrich Meisel spoke out about social justice in Germany. There is very little difference, Meisel noted, between the situation he lived through in the DDR and the Federal Republic today – except that people have replaced Marx with a belief in the free market economy. The lessons of the Sermon on the Mount have been discarded, as people worship the accumulation of wealth:
„Wenn man Marx durchstreicht und durch Markt ersetzt, hat man eine ähnliche ideologische Überhöhung.“ Dies sei Götzendienst. Zugleich warnte Meisel vor einem gespaltenen Christenleben. In der Familie achte man auf Gottes Gebote, doch im Blick auf Wirtschaft und Finanzen verweise man darauf, daß dort nur deren eigene Gesetze gelten dürften. Christen seien durch die Bergpredigt aufgefordert, sich für die Geringen und Schwachen einzusetzen. Wenn sie das Evangelium nur weitersagten, verwirklichten sie den Missionsbefehl nur halb. Deshalb müßten sie auch gegen ungerechte Strukturen kämpfen.
Meisel would be astonished by developments in the United States, where Christianity has been fused with consumerism, and Jesus is worshiped as the Greatest Capitalist. Millions of Americans stream into gigantic mega-churches, where they learn that "it is a sin to be poor" and embracing Christ will bring one untold wealth. The mega-church ministers preach the Prosperity Gospel, where Christ is an investment strategy and a personal life coach whose power can be accessed by believers to improve their finances. Jesus may have driven the money-changers from the temple, but the mega-churches are fantastic cash machines – generating hundreds of millions of dollars.
One of the most successful mega-churches is Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas with more than 25,000 members. On its Web site, the church urges members to Discover the Champion in You – which, of course, will lead to prosperity:
WE BELIEVE…as children of God, we are overcomers and more than conquerors and God intends for each of us to experience the abundant life He has in store for us.
The New York Times reports today on how the mega-churches manage to attract teenagers by providing the most vulgar kind of entertainment:
At New Life, led by Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the youth group sessions feel like rock concerts: T-shirts are on sale outside and bands are onstage, grinding their way through screaming songs of praise for Christ while teenagers dance before them. Friends often lead other teenagers to new churches, sociologists and adolescents themselves said.
The focus is always on the self, on developing a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ". The relentless egoism leads to demonization of the other – the "other" being the non-Christian, specifically the Muslim. This is the connection between the mega-church movement and Christian Fascism, which celebrates pre-emptive war and torture.
I have written about the British historian of religion – Karen Armstrong – who has described herself as a "serial monotheist". At the core of each of the great religions, Armstrong writes, is compassion. The central message of the Bible and the Koran is the absolute necessity for men and women to relinquish “the needy, greedy, potentially violent self” and acquiring knowledge of the other. But acquiring knowledge of the other demands commitment and work – something that would not appeal to the masses in the mega-churches. It might also require that they actually read the Bible:
(Lukas 18: 18)Und es fragte ihn ein Oberer und sprach: Guter Meister, was muß ich tun, damit ich das ewige Leben ererbe? Jesus aber sprach zu ihm: Was nennst du mich gut? Niemand ist gut als Gott allein. Du kennst die Gebote: «Du sollst nicht ehebrechen; du sollst nicht töten; du sollst nicht stehlen; du sollst nicht falsch Zeugnis reden; du sollst deinen Vater und deine Mutter ehren!» Er aber sprach: Das habe ich alles gehalten von Jugend auf. Als Jesus das hörte, sprach er zu ihm: Es fehlt dir noch eines. Verkaufe alles, was du hast, und gib’s den Armen, so wirst du einen Schatz im Himmel haben, und komm und folge mir nach! Als er das aber hörte, wurde er traurig; denn er war sehr reich. Als aber Jesus sah, daß er traurig geworden war, sprach er: Wie schwer kommen die Reichen in das Reich Gottes!
(Luke 18)And a ruler asked him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 19: And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 20: You know the commandments: `Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’" 21: And he said, "All these I have observed from my youth." 22: And when Jesus heard it, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." 23: But when he heard this he became sad, for he was very rich. 24: Jesus looking at him said, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!
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Sueddeutsche: Die erste deutsche Mega-Church:
“Hey, der Herr ist hier, wir geben ihm mal einen richtigen Applaus”
http://sueddeutsche.de/deutschland/artikel/350/67283/
I would advise this to those who consider the social gospel to be the only acceptable gospel:
“Physician, heal thyself”.
For one thing that Europeans do not willingly talk about is the presence of these self-same Protestant free church movements in their own communities. It was both surprising to me – but as a Christian, a matter of great joy, to discover that France and Germany both have contemporary praise and worship music in their own vernacular. A web search of “Saint Brieuc ADD” brings up the local congregation of the Assembly of God, with MP3 downloads of francophone praise and worship bands whose music is quite good, in the French chanteuse style. German contemporary Christian music appears to be a leaner field, and the influence of bad folk music style and the dominance of English lyrics appears to impede its flourishing. Nonetheless, in Catholic communities, or perhaps the ecumenical Christian community in Germany more broadly, there does seem to be a stronger hard rock influence on contemporary Christian works than one finds in the US, Britain or France. The Franconian band “Spirit” is an example of this style:
http://www.spiritmusik.de
Admittedly, contemporary liturgy does not a megachurch make. One wonders about Europeans, who have so many old empty megachurches, we call them cathedrals, in their midst, who criticize the packed megachurches that have sprouted up in America. For the rise of these megachurches has been accompanied by the gradual decline of the traditional “mainline” Protestant denominations, whose theology and practice has increasingly deviated from the historical doctrines of Christianity, in both its Protestant and Catholic expressions. Megachurches are not merely an expression of social anxiety and alienation – they are a living criticism of the failure of mainline Christian churches, who have not lived out their calling.
And so, if we ask, “On what side would Dietrich Bonhoeffer stand, were he alive today ?” it is not at all obvious that he would be living out his radically existential Christian in the EKD. For it is liberal Christians whose betrayal of the gospel, of its demand for personal secrifice and commitment, its identification with the cross, its truest and most sublime hope of eternal life in God, who follow the false teachings of Harnack and Bultmann and Tillich.
So when I hear the crooning notes of “Spirit” singing “Im Aengsten die einen” – I do not think I am hearing the whining of the bourgeoisie. I am hearing the universal cry of humanity, calling for the redemption that can only be found in Jesus, Messia, Logos, Son of God.
Bill Riggs
Fredericksburg, VA