In ‘Church Search: Why American churchgoers like to shop around’ (Slate, 2009 February 27), Andrew Santella researches the Obama family’s church search. Maybe the family won’t decide until 2012 or (God forbid) 2016. Maybe the DC area doesn’t have (though I doubt this) a pastor with sufficiently incidiary opinions to match Obama’s former pastor and so make feel at home a First Lady who only began to feel proud of the nation when her husband ran for its presidency, and a husband whose name proclaims Islamic blessings.
Still, we must understand that once their family makes this decision, changing it would add unwanted furor on what they probably view as a side issue to their main focus of socializing liberty.
The Obama daughters while they do their homework on Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation desk can sing with Toni Tennille ‘My Momma told me you’d better shop around’ as they wonder where they’ll attend church next, and with relief because about a seventh of American adults change churches each year, while another sixth rotate their attendance (says marketing research firm Barna Group). They also change denominations–a Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life survey said in 2008 that 44% of American adults have changed religious affiliations, and summarized, ‘Constant movement characterizes the American religious marketplace’ (since most religious gatherings have music, could we call this ‘move to the music’?).
The way churches market sometimes unnerves people. This starts with marques in front of the building (Santella’s example: ‘Prevent truth decay: Brush up on your Bible’) and extends to video and audio web streaming (which allows people to stay home on the Lazyboy, snacks and drinks in hand, and raise a glass to the parts of the service they like best). Consultants use focus groups, surveys, product giveaways (Santella’s example: ‘free church-branded Frisbees, anyone?’) and, in pretence to be seekers, secret visits to churches to evaluate them. So they practice deceit in the seat.
Does that cause ‘P.U.’ in the pew, ‘potentially spiritually corrupting…ecclesiological chaos’ (as Anthony Sacramone said in First Things)? Or is that just the voice of old, established churches afraid of losing members to people doing something to gain them? For instance, Pope Benedict XVI said of the ‘new explosion of religion’: ‘if it’s pushed too far, religion becomes almsot a consumer product. People choose what they like and some are even able to make a profit from it’. We must be indulgent with his sentences on profiteering (’pay for masses for the dead, anyone?’)–I wonder if he said this from St Peter’s Cathedral? No wonder about 10% of American adults are ex-Catholics.
Since America has no state religion (Massachusetts hung onto an official church until 1833, then swung to the other extreme and elected Ted Kennedy as senator), ministers also have freedom to evangelize and establish people in their churches. This combines with Americans’ fierce individualism and capitalist marketplace to produce a competitive religious marketplace with decreasing brand loyalty. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark are partially wrong to argue in Churching of America 1776-1990 that the pastors are the sales force; in larger churches, it’s the ministerial staff. And when this doesn’t work, it’s called a staff infection.
Of course, being paid on commission encourages salesmanship that tells people what they want to hear (’the dress suits you beautifully!) to tickle itching ears. Tithe could do the same, but the total picture is this: church competition has increased people’s interest in churches–Stark and Fink say that in 1776 fewer than 1/5 of Americans belonged to a local church, but now, it’s 2/3 (that’s about the same % that approve of legalized abortion, so get with it on your church search, Obamas!).
Barna Group says believers look first for doctrine and belief, second for aesthetics like music, parking and seating. Therefore, maybe ministers will concentrate on being well-informed in God’s Word, and on expressing that Faith well.
On aesthetics, choice helps. Pope Benedict XVI, being of the old school, is trying to bring back Catholic Classic by allowing Latin Mass. Obama’s United Church of Christ has a wide variety of churches. I’ve long felt that even an apostolic local church could have four services on the weekend (Saturday night youth service with really current music and style, message on planning, future; Sunday morning very formal, begowned, high church style, meaty message on Christian teaching; Sunday afternoon yuppie service with mellow worship choruses, dressy casual, message about Christian life today; Sunday night standard box suit, Southern/country gospel music, sermon on Second Coming) and then the church staff could pass out on Monday. Midweek services could be house churches to give the personal touch people need, mutual prayer, mutual confession, mutual love–and perhaps get us back to our roots of simply following Jesus Christ.