Surely our faith goes deeper than church merch and social media campaigns. This begs an important question. Can we really get people to buy into what was freely given? The notion that we may have turned the cross of Christ into another product, the house of God into another business and the people of God into another corporation is a haunting thought. Marketable Christianity is an unfortunate reality that demands the evaluation of our dependence upon the gospel and some tough questions.
Dependence on the Gospel
In the land of the American Dream, the concept of reckless abandon for the cause of Christ seems foreign and we tend to gradually, but persistently, adapt the radical message of the gospel with the cultural climate in which we live. In this way, we think ourselves clever by marketing the message of Christ to a greater audience. However, the danger of making the message marketable is that you also eventually make it meaningless. When we commercialize Christianity it’s just another “expensive ad for something cheap” (quoted phrase from Expectations by Caedmon’s Call).
The reality of the gospel is true, powerful, cutting, and transforming whether it’s presented in American megachurches or the caves of China. As evangelicals spend billions on bigger buildings, technological advances, and entertainment-driven programs, our brothers and sisters around the world must wonder if the Christ they know and the one we market are the same. We desperately need to consider the logical gospel ends to our methodological means. If we truly want to see the genuine conversion of a generation who will relentlessly follow Christ no matter what, then how might we think through the design of our marketed version of Christianity?
Tough Questions
To varying degrees, we are all blinded to our level of cultural compromise. There are tough questions to be asked and answered and we would do well to give them much thought. If the message of Christ were truly marketable, then why did thirty coins bury Him and His betrayer?
Questions for pondering:
- Could the money we spend on buildings and programs be better allocated for local and global gospel causes?
- Have we thought and prayed through the long-term effects of the way we do church?
- Is Christ seen as the central purpose or is He overshadowed by our clever “programming”?
- Does both our method and message point people toward the scandal of the cross?
If we adjust the message of Christ, trade authenticity for relevance, and emphasize numbers at the expense of faithfulness, then what might the long-term results be? Is it possible that we create a shallow experience-based faith that will crumble when the false expectations of “Christ” and “Church” that have been presented aren’t met? Of course, there is room for innovation, imagination, and creativity. But the cost of marketing overshadowing the cross is losing the pearl of great price for a cheap church coffee tumbler.