I suspect some of the push to reintroduce religion in the west is to try and rebuild community that was lost through this atomisation process.
The power of burger mindset is too strong, we’ve created the prosperity gospel to atomize and commercialize religion. There’s merch stores in every church where you can buy custom branded thermoses, plate carriers, and american flag quilts!
anecdote: the church i went to as a minor billed itself as progressive, because the dress was casual and it courted younger people. i stopped attending by 20, as the community felt cliquish. they had a small bookstore inside the building open on sundays, and there were murmurs even then about how that didn’t seem right.
it kept getting bigger and bigger though. the church itself became a complex of buildings, each more elaborate. the bookstore started carrying merch, music from the “worship” team which itself grew more theatrical and elaborate, putting on shows.
i haven’t been there myself in 20+ years, but i know someone who did some non-profit work that attended some meetings there and their stories were nuts. the “bookstore” is now a huge retail space with its own starbucks. they have their own broadcast programming and are networked into other churches around the region. they employ hundreds of people, selected for dubious-political reasons in these do nothing jobs they call a ministry for funneling tax free tithes. people dress in the finest clothes and accoutrements while hemming and hawing over giving out $100 to some destitute mother with children, forcing her to attend services.
i couldn’t even watch The Righteous Gemstones because the context was too on the nose, though the show was pretty funny.
and, like i knew people from when i was in high school who stuck with the church when i left, burrowing further in to become insiders with paid leadership roles there.
within the last 5 years, two of the guys i knew from high school, both married fathers, went missing only to be later found dead by suicide about a year apart. the instition and media are very hush, hush about it and its hard to even find info that it happened outside of public records.
and those are just the ones i heard about because we went to the same high school at the same time and word got around.
I’m willing to bet there’s people in India taking notes from the prosperity gospel to buttress the hindutva movement, it’s all gotta boil down to being poor is divine choice and being rich is divine right. Any faith can be corrupted, I think.
The power of burger mindset is too strong, we’ve created the prosperity gospel to atomize and commercialize religion. There’s merch stores in every church where you can buy custom branded thermoses, plate carriers, and american flag quilts!
i have not actually been inside a burger church before despite visiting burger country, is it really that bad?
The prosperity gospel type definitely are. They’ve got merch shops and some even have coffee shops inside. Think of pastors who drive Bentleys and own private helicopters. One incident that illustrates the type is when Joel Osteen kept the doors closed to people who had been flooded out of their homes until the public backlash got too big. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/29/547035773/after-pressure-mounts-joel-osteen-says-his-houston-megachurch-is-open-to-evacuee
Most churches are normal. The megachurches are 100% that bad.
it is not good.
anecdote: the church i went to as a minor billed itself as progressive, because the dress was casual and it courted younger people. i stopped attending by 20, as the community felt cliquish. they had a small bookstore inside the building open on sundays, and there were murmurs even then about how that didn’t seem right.
it kept getting bigger and bigger though. the church itself became a complex of buildings, each more elaborate. the bookstore started carrying merch, music from the “worship” team which itself grew more theatrical and elaborate, putting on shows.
i haven’t been there myself in 20+ years, but i know someone who did some non-profit work that attended some meetings there and their stories were nuts. the “bookstore” is now a huge retail space with its own starbucks. they have their own broadcast programming and are networked into other churches around the region. they employ hundreds of people, selected for dubious-political reasons in these do nothing jobs they call a ministry for funneling tax free tithes. people dress in the finest clothes and accoutrements while hemming and hawing over giving out $100 to some destitute mother with children, forcing her to attend services.
i couldn’t even watch The Righteous Gemstones because the context was too on the nose, though the show was pretty funny.
and, like i knew people from when i was in high school who stuck with the church when i left, burrowing further in to become insiders with paid leadership roles there.
within the last 5 years, two of the guys i knew from high school, both married fathers, went missing only to be later found dead by suicide about a year apart. the instition and media are very hush, hush about it and its hard to even find info that it happened outside of public records.
and those are just the ones i heard about because we went to the same high school at the same time and word got around.
Here’s a little video clip of the Lakewood “Church” in Houston - note that it’s a former sports arena converted to worship services.
Really makes a mockery of christ.
What’s funny is I can see this happening to any religion too. Imagine a muslim or hindu or something branch that goes into this insane shit.
My money would be on UAE or Saudi Arabia as the birthplace of prosperity jihad, maybe Turkiye
I’m willing to bet there’s people in India taking notes from the prosperity gospel to buttress the hindutva movement, it’s all gotta boil down to being poor is divine choice and being rich is divine right. Any faith can be corrupted, I think.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: