The business of the church.
Robert Capon on the foibles mega-church and the market-driven body of Christ.
I really enjoyed this description of the modern mega-church as put forth by the late Robert Capon in his 1996 work, The Astonished Heart. He writes:
The Mega-Church Model . . . sells what the market demands: religion, not Gospel; goods and services, not confrontation; life enhancement, not redeeming death. Besides, it’s far too close to being the entertainment industry at prayer. It provides prime-time nursery care (complete with big-screen TV messages to summon the parents of intractable children), gymnasiums for ‘Christian aerobics,’ mini-dramas and sitcoms during services, in-house bookstores and T-shirt marts (‘the church-front store’), feel-good songs with sticky lyrics and marshmallow melodies — and, above all, the consolations of soda-pop theology. In short, it’s Wal-Mart from start to finish: it stocks only what sells and doesn’t give shelf-room to what doesn’t. (94)
If you know anything about Capon, then you’re likely already attuned to his particular milieu. For the unfamiliar, Capon’s stubborn almost brash insistence on the gratis grace of God can ruffle even the most dormant of Pharisaical feathers of any churchgoer. And though I don’t always agree with his assertions, it is precisely his stubbornness that is so appealing. Case in point, The Astonished Heart takes as its theme the long and winding and oft-controversial history of the church catholic. His project? To examine the varied ecclesiastical paradigms that have defined the church throughout the centuries, noting the pros and cons of each.
What’s significant in this endeavor is to note that wherever the gospel is lost, the essence of what it means to be church is lost in short order. Perhaps there’s variance within certain denominations concerning what it means to be a “New Testament church,” but the interdenominational through-line of the church, regardless of the age, is the steady and stubborn proclamation of Jesus’s death and resurrection. As Capon is fond of saying, that’s the key to whole shebang. Without it, what do you have? Only goods and services from an elitist country club to pander.
The point is, having and being a part of a big church isn’t a bad thing. There’s nothing inherently virtuous to joining or serving a small church. But the issue at the heart of the “mega-church model,” as described, is the implicit notion that the church is in the business of selling its religion to attracted customers. That, to be sure, is not the business of the church. “How sad,” Capon writes in his The Parables of Grace, “when the church acts as if it is in the religion business rather than in the Gospel-proclaiming business” (29).
The church is not an emporium where religion is peddled as the coup de grâce for life’s burdens. Rather, the church’s business lies in the dogged extension of grace and forgiveness for sinners precisely because the church’s Lord endured the brunt of sin’s death blow “in his body on the tree.” This he did in order that those within the church might “die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Pet. 2:24).
The true nub of the church’s message is nothing more or less than Jesus’s passion and resurrection. And this is always given gratis, without charge, to one and all. Every church sign, then, ought to read, “Fire sale on forgiveness! ‘Come, buy . . . without money and without price.’” After all, that’s all it has to offer.
Grace and peace.
Works cited:
Robert Capon, The Astonished Heart: Reclaiming the Good News from the Lost-and-Found of Church History (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996).
Robert Capon, The Parables of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996).