If there are such things as Mega-Mosques . . .
If some Buddhist temples are seeker-sensitive . . .
If other faiths have marketing seminars . . .
If Muslim kids have programs and make things out of popsicle sticks . . .
If Confucians are more "blessed" when their sopranos hit the obgligatory end-of-song high note. . .
If the Koran has been paraphrased more than three times . . .
If you can buy action figures in an Islamic or Hebrew bookstore . . .
If there is such a thing as a Taoist rock festival . . .
If Druids ever argued about music preferences . . .
If other faiths use cartoon vegetables to tell their most sacred stories . . .
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8 comments:
Hey, what do you expect - Christianity is at the forefront of religiousity anyway...
On another note, the spiritual climates of the 1st century pluralistic society was pretty much like our days now. They even have religious tolerance and political correctness...
Thanks for the post Peter... and it's nice to have you back, hope your time away was refreshing. We ahve a number from our church that go to Harvey Cedars every year.
I have been struck recently by the thought that modern evangelical culture, both in and outside the walls of the church, is a culture of retreat.
Although I would certainly say there are numerous areas in which believers should not and do not need to engage the culture around us, there are so many more in which we do, but retreat from them in order to simply provide a Christian alternative. And the sad thing is, in my opinion, what is done is we "Christianize" books, music, movies and such so that we can have (and this is really scary) entertainment options.
The retreat of the evangelical church into its own culture - instead of the church engaging culture, and taking ground from the enemy - is, again in my opinion, a sad state of affairs.
Wow, this became a rant when I was only looking to comment :)
Blessings.
Peter,
Wonderful post. I'm sending the link to many, many of my Internet Christian friends.
Great Stuff! HAd to link to it here.
Other religious have intense internal struggles. Just look at the constant infightings between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. I have heard it is about whether some prophet centuries ago was divine or not? Judaism is split into Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Hasidic, etc. But I have never had a Muslim or Jew try to prosyletize me. Many of the tidbits you point out are what you are used to experiencing in churches. Plenty goes on, though, that none of us ever hear about, preachers we have never heard of who seem to have a lot of influence, etc. It is the same in other religions. Can you name even one Hindu guru? Some of them have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of disciples.
Michael - No doubt they do, but these primarily American marketing "techniques" just seemed a bit on the tackier side of things.
Interesting and astute observations. Thanks. I will link to this post.
Peter, great post. I linked to it over at my site
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