"Spiritual Bulemia"

In our last post, we began to explore the implications of the rampant consumerism so present in today’s church. To the extent that the American church has sought to cater to the needs and desires of today’s religious consumer, “church shopping” for the finest product has been the inevitable result. As Bob Hyatt says, “When we allowed American Church to become primarily attractional in nature, it also became competitive in nature. We send out mailers: ‘Come to our church! We have great worship!’ ‘Come to our church! We have Starbucks Coffee and Krispy Kreme Donuts!’ And big churches get bigger as small ones die because the big ones offer more and people flock there until the church down the road offers them something even better. It’s Wal Mart versus smaller stores but with special music and kids programs instead of bigger selections and low, low prices.” As many have noted, if we apply the shopping mall to the church, this sadly will be the end result.

But as Neil Cole says, when people are viewed as consumers, they will most certainly respond as consumers. When attenders are catered to as consumers of religious goods and services, the end result will always be a passive congregation. It’s no wonder that according to a recent survey by the Barna group, only 1 of 4 churched believers go to church expecting God to be the primary beneficiary of their Sunday worship. Rather, more than 50% of those polled believe that they are the primary recipients of a Sunday morning worship service. It’s a known fact that even in the most motivated congregation, only 10% – 20% of attenders are active in ministry. In today’s church, the vast majority come to church “to get fed.” I believe that the emphasis on the attractional quality of the Sunday morning service is largely responsible for this phenomenon, as in the words of Bob Hyatt, it creates “consumers of church primarily and community only incidentally.”

Now make no mistake: it is of vital importance today that the church seeks to make its programs as accessible as possible to unbelievers. For too long, the gospel remained the property of ivory tower theologians and choir robe wearing ministers before the “seeker sensitive” revolution of the late 20th century. At the same time, however, it’s important that we recognize that what we draw people to our churches with is what we draw them to, and that the medium with which we reach the lost does become our message as well. When the focus of our churches becomes lights, cameras, and skill in performance, it is a consumer mentality that is unintentionally communicated to the audience.

When this consumer mentality reaches its zenith in a church, the church is filled on any given Sunday with a crowd eager to be fed or, worse yet, to be entertained. When this becomes the case, the church needs to keep feeding and entertaining them if they want them to come back. This creates a vicious circle, where next week’s service must be better than last week’s service, and where church programs constantly need to be upgraded to keep the masses satisfied and happy. If the quality drops, even for a few weeks, attenders will begin to leave. Staff improvements and building campaigns are the order of the day to “feed the monster of consumerism.” And as Neil Cole, notes, “the monster is always hungry.” What’s left in the wake of the consumer monster is burned out pastors, stale worship, and a selfish audience continuing to thirst for more. Because of the effects of consumerism, our churches today are filled with what Shane Claiborne calls “spiritual bulimics,” believers who gorge ourselves on the Christian industrial complex but spiritually starving to death.

The effects of consumerism in the church, however, are even far reaching than those discussed above. In our next post, we will continue to explore its effects in the context of the middle class suburban culture that so many of us call home.