An excellent comment from Samuel John Klein.

Quoting a few anonymouses back:

Forget all the messages on tithing and faith harvest.
Forget all the outward signs of the deep issues at hand.
What’s wrong is the idea that it’s all about the church, it’s all about the pastors.
Seldom does Jesus actually pop up anywhere.
The audacity of the leadership in their arrogance to say that you need a “spiritual covering” apart from the Holy Spirit is simply rediculous.

This has it dead on.

Occasionally I tune into TBN just to see what’s going on there. I don’t buy a thing they’re selling (don’t even get me started about the love gifts) because it’s all cheap trash really. Marketing, marketing, marketing. It’s the embodiment of what Bonhoeffer described as “cheap grace”.

And the pastors say it’s about the message but, let’s be honest, it really isn’t. It’s about Rod Parsley, Paul and Jan Crouch, it’s about Joel Osteen (who just gives me the willies for some reason I can’t put my finger on).

I don’t think this ‘blog can hold CBC and suchlike accountable in the fullest sense of the word, but it can in a certain sense of the word. One thing I do not accept is that Catalyst et. al. are insincere Christians with an axe to grind. It’s easy to do this, for people who don’t fit in or are left dry by what nourishes and is popular with everyone else.

It also misses the point and exacerbates with injury, by ignoring the harm and painting the victim as the villain. I don’t think Catalyst’s complaints are merely the moanings of a troublemaker, because I sense this daily, in the dealings of people I know who are born-again’s who get ‘done to’ in the name of thier pastor and thier church. If circumstances were any different, then maybe. But I get a whiff of decadence as I pass any ‘mega’ church or slick spiritual marketing or see another televangelist.

There are genuine concerns here which, if they aren’t addressed, will eventually be disfiguring to every church, by instilling a public sense of cynicism for the practice of faith. It could possibly be fatal to churches. And they won’t go away if we mock those who raise conscientious, sincere, and loving objections.

I am, though Catholic, aware of the doctrines of “sola fides” and “sola scriptura”. Seems, in the case of CBC and its type, it’s mutated into “sola pastora (sic)”