Thursday, November 3, 2016

Mega

In Kansas City we saw a couple of mega churches.
My first reaction is that the mega church seems like a marketing scheme - go bigger, get more for your money, if all these other people believe, then you should too! Two salvations for the price of one! Americans drive big cars, drink big sodas, wear big belt buckles. Why wouldn't they want to pray to a super-sized Jesus?

But then when you think of it, mega churches are not just an American thing. And they aren't new either. What about the great cathedrals of Europe? The mosques in Egypt and those ones in Uzbekistan my husband wants me to visit? I haven;t been there, but I know there are huge, elaborate temples in India and China. And the mega Jesus statue is in Rio de Janeiro, not on the Rio Grande.
The mega church isn't really so American or so modern after all.

But will these evangelical temples will stand for centuries? Will their drywall crumble and their roofs get mossy? Or are they built to last? It will depend on whether super-sized Jesus will continue to draw bigger crowds than a high school football game. Or if not, whether the church becomes more of a museum than anything. Will people want to preserve the mega church? Only the great Big Guy upstairs knows for sure.

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