Marketing Religion

I'm not reall keen on this topic, but it's been bothering me lately.

I visited a church where a friend of my wife's is going to have a baby shower in the next month or so. The church (which will remain nameless) was absolutely huge, consisting of at least three "main" parts, and a radius that you can only get around if you have a vehicle.

Inside, the church had a gym (with about 8 different basketball goals), aerobics centers, 3 raquet ball courts, a music hall, prayer rooms, a snack area, a bookstore, and on and on and on. You name it, I'm sure you could find it somewhere in that building. I spent a little while just walking around; observing.

After a while, I returned to the group and was informed that we were going to be eating dinner at the church. This seemed a little strange, mind you, because I wasn't used to a church having a lunch room.

After getting into "the mess hall" (as I kept calling it in my head), I found that I had to pay to eat, which was a little surprising because all the other options at the church were free. I didn't see a problem with it, however, because I realize money is still an issue in some places (staff salary and whatnot).

As I was eating, I noticed all the different projection instruments hanging from the ceiling displaying class and study times for discussing (or just listening to a minister) different topics of religious revelance. It kind of set me off a bit.

I don't know what it was, exactly, but I began feeling a little distanced from this place. I started realizing some pretty dishonorable things. At first, I thought all these snack centers and bookstores and lunch halls were an effort to raise money (which they probably are, to some extent) for church purposes. But the church purposes that I have come to value didn't seem to match this church's. Whereas I would think this money they raise would go towards charity and community, I saw highly expensive projection equipment haning around a lunch room trying to promote "end times" classes. I saw expensive music equipment. I saw clean up crews. I saw neatly trimmed grass and bushes outside. I saw glamour, and I saw no charity.

I'm sure I've over looked some of the positive things this church has done for community. But in this case, I believe the negative has outweighed the positive. I've always looked at church as a place to worship, celebrate the Divine relationship with mankind, and think about the spirit. This place, however, seemed like a shallow marketplace.

I think my mistrust comes from a feeling of corruption. When I see a gigantic place like this, and start figuring all the costs that accumulate through expanding into these different areas, I think of all the money that it has to generate. My immediate question is: what if they can't get the money?

I have a hard time thinking that this question doesn't cross someone's mind in the institution, as well. And this opens up the institution to corruption. How can we keep them coming back? They rely on the money to stay "in business," and when this happens, the message (the entire reason for coming) gets lost in a sea of forgetfullness.


And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
And Jesus said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Matthew 21:12-13
KJV