Curtis A. Bronzan

Alongside Jesus’ critique of the first century Temple, our contention is that the Western church has, to use David Fitch’s terminology, “given away” what it means to be church. Fitch boldly states,

it is our own modernism that has allowed us to individualize, commodify, and package Christianity so much that the evangelical church is often barely distinguishable from other goods and service providers, self-help groups, and social organizations that make up the landscape of modern American life. (The Great Giveaway, 13-14)

One glaring element of this complicity is the contemporary church’s over-reliance upon a capitalist framework, in many ways similar to the “buying and selling” encountered by Jesus in the first century Temple. (see, for instance, Mark 11.15) We ought to be careful, however, not to imply that all such buying and selling was in error, even in light of Jesus’ overturning of the tables, as the first century Temple was much more than a place of worship, but also market place. Jesus’ frustration with those buying and selling was instead due to the ways in which it had overtaken the Temple system, thus distracting others from the centripetal gathering for the worship of the God of Israel in response to their interaction with God’s chosen people.

Capitalism, however – and the consumerism it can engender – has become an integral element of Western culture, especially on this side of the Atlantic, causing a commotion that continues to distract those who would seek to gather in worship. In his recent work ChurchMorph: How Megatrends Are Reshapring Christian Communities, Eddie Gibbs reveals how this has been true since the start of the colonies. He states that

[t]he entrepreneurship of capitalism found its most dynamic expression in North America. This dynamism was not confined to the business and industrial worlds. It also created a “can-do” climate in the church that witnessed the birth of scores of denominations and hundreds of independent religious movements. These continue to proliferate even today. Thus Protestantism in general and evangelicalism in particular were shaped and stimulated by the spirit of competitive capitalism. They were the religious equivalent of “big business” operating with the same hierarchical structures and controlling leadership style. (ChurchMorph, 22. Interestingly, later in his study Gibbs devotes an entire chapter to examining the current role of megachurches, including significant time discussing the self-survey done by Willow Creek Community Church, Reveal: Where Are You?, see 87)

Of course, what Gibbs refers to as a “‘can-do’ climate” has led not only to births of denominations and independent religious movements, but countless work in and for the Kingdom of God, which should not be so easily dismissed. What is of concern to our study, however, is not capitalism per se, but rather how the hierarchical structures and controlling leadership styles so prevalent in a capitalist culture have and continue to negatively influence the Body of Christ.

The height of such a business-oriented approach is most noticeable in America’s megachurch movement, which informs its attractional model of ministry. Gibbs rightly notes,

the megachurch movement is largely a Boomer-generated phenomenon… [though] younger generations are looking for a different kind of church that is less program-oriented and event-focused, and more relational, empowering, incarnational, and community engaged. They challenge the attractional model of ministry as being the last hurrah of modernity, a throwback to the Christendom mentality.” (Churchmorph, 91)

In The Great Giveaway, David Fitch asserts that the megachurch concentration upon numbers and institution size is “rooted in two of America’s sacred cows: the autonomy of the individual and the necessity to organize for economic efficiency.” (Fitch, 33) He elsewhere asserts,

Numbers miss measuring how well as church is functioning as the body of Christ. Numbers often miss measuring the progress of discipleship in a church. Numbers do not reveal how a church group is functioning internally, whether people are building up each other, ministering to each other, and ministering in the outside community as the body of Christ. In short, numbers, on their own, say nothing qualitative about what is going on in the church when viewed as the body of Christ. (Fitch, 29)

By engaging with Alasdair MacIntyre, Fitch reveals how the project of modernity has influenced these aspirations in the church;

Choosing to manage for efficiency is a choice with moral implications. It presents values and purposes all on its own that may conflict with what it is we are trying to organize for. Such organizational efficiency relies on its own social scientific narratives for its legitimacy, and can in fact be used to masquerade as social control. (Ibid, 38-39.)

As is perceived in the above quote, inherent to this critique is the understanding that the church exists not only to gather for Sunday services but rather to facilitate a community wherein the Body of Christ may be continually built up.

Instead of being viewed as a gathering of people wherein the many members build up one another through the use of their spiritual gifts, contemporary church life has become an institution whereby passive participants consume spiritual goods and services. In his book The Ministry of the Missional Church, Craig Van Gelder insightfully addresses this development by discussing the role of the Established and Corporate Churches. The “established church,” he argues, is one where the church’s “self-understanding is that it serves as the primary location of God’s presence and activity in the world.” (72) This, it could be argued, was the primary means by which the first-century temple system viewed itself and may in fact continue to influence the self-understanding of many mainline American churches. Others, however, function as “corporate churches”:

At the core of their identity, what might be labeled as part of their genetic code, is an organizational self-understanding related to purposive intent. This tends to lead to a functional or instrumental view of the church where a congregation’s primary identity is related to it being responsible to accomplish something. (Ibid, 72)

What concerns us at this juncture, however, is not whether contemporary ecclesiologies seem primarily established or corporate, but rather the way each have been adapted into a capitalist, consumer-driven culture, led by highly hierarchical, controlling structure. Greene and Robinson state,

The goal of all this activity is movement – not for its own sake but for the sake of the world. Movements require flat structures and are genuinely lay in their driving force. They tend to emphasize relationships, especially among leaders, and, rather like a virus, a successful movement will mutuate many times to meet the local conditions that it finds. (Metavista, 193)