Standing Against The “Christian-Industrial Complex”
Warren Cole Smith is not ready to jettison the evangelical church, but he does have a “lover’s quarrel” with it
Charlotte, N.C.–Warren Cole Smith did not start out to change the vocabulary of the modern evangelical church, but he might end up doing just that. Consider these chapter titles from his new book, A Lover’s Quarrel With The Evangelical Church:
- Body-Count Evangelism: The unfortunate tendency of large evangelistic ministries to count a filled-out “decision card” as a true conversion.
- The Christian-Industrial Complex: The Christian music and retail industry, which has grown to more than a $4-billion industry.
- The Triumph Of Sentimentality: A “feel-good gospel” that gives us what we want, and not what we need.
According to Smith, “The modern evangelical movement has all but ceased being an organic body – the Body of Christ. Instead, it has become an industry, an industry of megachurches and parachurches.”
What I’m trying to do in A Lover’s Quarrel is recall the church to what it once knew, but has forgotten: that the church is the Body of Christ. It is a living community, not a money-making machine. The mission of the church is disciple-making, not profit-making.
Smith said that megachurches and parachurches often start out with the best of intentions, but at some point they reach a “tipping point” and their own survival becomes the key mission. “The hard reality is that we have literally 100 times more megachurches – churches with 2000 or more people – than we did in 1970,” he said. “And we now have more than 1-million religious non-profits in America. Yet the number of people who attend church on Sunday has actually been flat or in decline over that same period of time. And we have fewer churches in America today than we did in 1950, when the population of America was about half what it is today. The argument that ‘seeker’ or ‘mega-churches’ attract the unchurched simply disintegrates in the face of hard data.”
So what’s the solution to this problem? Smith said there is no one easy fix. “Part of the problem is that we have become addicted to the quick-fix,” he said. “But disciple-making and community-building is hard work. It involves pouring our lives into others over a long period of time.”
Smith does see hopeful signs.
“Church planting movements are springing up both here in the United States and overseas,” Smith said. “I feature the Believer’s Church of India in a Lover’s Quarrel. The Believer’s Church is a church-planting movement that in just 30 years has planted tens of thousands of churches in India and throughout Asia. Here in the United States, I would mention the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), which in just the past decade or so has planted nearly 100 churches here in the United States. The AMiA also reflects a growing trend among evangelicals for more historical and liturgical worship, and less emphasis on worship-as-entertainment. I see this, too, as a positive trend.”
Smith’s book, “A Lover’s Quarrel With The Evangelical Church,” will be released by Authentic Books on May 11.