Thought Quotient

Two decades after baby boomers invented the suburban megachurch, which removed crosses or stained-glass images of Jesus in favor of neutral environments, their children are now wearing “Jesus Is My Homeboy” T-shirts. — John Leland - New York Times News Service

I just got through reading this article about the ‘generational shift’ from megachurches to alternative churches. Here’s a link to the original story — Young people turn against their parents’ ‘church lite’ — view megachurches as slick and impersonal.

Here are my highlights from the article:

“The deity-free ‘church lite’ of the megachurches, that’s the last thing these people want,” he said. “They want to talk about God. It’s hard-core, not in a fire and brimstone way, but it has to be raw, real.”

The article also brings up the question ‘Are these ‘world like ways’ in themselves sinful?’

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, reminds us that :

Christian tracts handed out in the 19th century were one of the first mass media.

In the 1930s, the evangelist Charles Fuller used the new medium of radio to broadcast his sermons.

Four decades later, the Jesus movement of the 1970s adopted the vibe of the 1960s counterculture.

“They identify with being an underground movement, which is what Christianity was in the beginning,” Lucas said of his congregation. “Living out a life with Christ at the center draws a lot of flak. Not a lot of people will celebrate that.”

Read the article. Let us know what you think.

Tags: Theology

This entry was posted by shannon on Sunday, June 6th, 2004 at 1:03 pm and is filed under General, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.