There\u2019s nothing like visiting another culture to get a new perspective on your own.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what Patty and I discovered a few years ago when we went to Japan. There we visited the Perfect Liberty Church, a Buddhist sect that was at the time the fastest growing church in the world.<\/p>\n
And no wonder. The church taught that peace and joy are found merely by exercising our individuality. It could be golf, sex, or bird-watching \u2014 anything was okay so long as you were expressing your inner self.<\/p>\n
As I read through the church\u2019s literature, I found myself nudging Patty and saying, \u201cWhat nonsense. Imagine: They\u2019re saying you can do whatever you want as long as it makes you happy. And they call that a church?\u201d<\/p>\n
Later, back in the States, Patty and I were surfing through the TV channels one night when a Christian program caught our eye. The set was gaudy, the furniture overstuffed, and the hosts were offering a saccharine vision of the abundant life.<\/p>\n
You can have perfect joy and prosperity, they crooned. God doesn\u2019t want anyone to suffer or be deprived. He just wants us to be happy.<\/p>\n
Suddenly it struck us: The message of this Christian TV program was no different from what we had witnessed in Japan. It was Christianized Buddhism.<\/p>\n
It seems that everywhere \u2014 from Tennessee to Tokyo \u2014 religion is being permeated by a consumerist mentality.<\/p>\n
A few years ago Newsweek magazine heralded the resurgence of religion among Baby Boomers. But it isn\u2019t anything like the old-time religion. The goal in this revival, Newsweek said, is not salvation but support; not holiness but self-help. People don\u2019t convert; they pick and choose \u2014 as if religion were just another commodity on the market. They flit from church to church in search of what makes them feel good.<\/p>\n
In this consumerist environment, pastors feel pressure to act like businessmen, out to attract more customers. In the process they often unconsciously repackage the church\u2019s message: A little rationalizing here, a little rounding off there \u2014 and soon the church is transformed from a worshiping community into a comforting haven from life\u2019s pressures. What J. I. Packer, the great theologian, calls \u201chot-tub religion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, the church has got to pull the plug on the hot tub. When Jesus talked about the Church, He wasn\u2019t talking about buildings or programs. He was talking about a new community \u2014 called out to give the world a foretaste of the coming Kingdom.<\/p>\n
The Church\u2019s task is not to make people happy but to make them holy. Its gift to the world is not therapy but truth.<\/p>\n
As I argue in my book The Body , Christians need to recover the biblical view of the church. If we don\u2019t recover the biblical view of the Church, we\u2019ll lose our distinctive calling to a feel-good consumerism. And we\u2019ll have nothing better to offer the world than a Christianized form of Buddhism.<\/p>\n
[Originally broadcast in 1995]<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Resources<\/p>\n
My Final Word: Holding Tight to the Issues that Matter Most
\nChuck Colson, Anne Morse | Zondervan | August 2015<\/p>\n
Being the Body
\nChuck Colson, Ellen Vaughn | Zondervan | July 2004<\/p>\n
Hot Tub Religion: Christian Living in a Materialistic World
\nJ. I. Packer | Tyndale House | October 1993<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s nothing like visiting another culture to get a new perspective on your own. That\u2019s what Patty and I discovered a few years ago when we went to Japan. There we visited the Perfect Liberty Church, a Buddhist sect that was at the time the fastest growing church in the world. And no wonder. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[392,1222,1112,3748,1175,1992],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}