I just finished this book after having it recommended by Drew Moser. Pete Ward does a good job of interacting with philosophical, theological, sociological, and practical issues in relation to being "liquid church" (his term for thinking of church primarily in regard to relationships and connections, not congregation). But the thing that has me thinking the most is his take on how the gospel should interact with our current culture of consumerism. Ward writes--
People who are looking for God will connect to the network because it offers what they want. In this sense liquid church locates itself firmly in the consumer nature of society. It seeks to offer the reality and fullness of God in a form that people want. There is no sellout involved, no dumbing down of the message. In fact, liquid church will remain committed to an exacting orthodoxy and a committed theology...As solid church has tried to adapt to modernity, it has adopted ways of using contemporary media and communications to package faith and offer it in the marketplace. Liquid church takes some of these changes and pushes them further by taking account of a more fluid market.
Is Christianity reconcilable with consumerism?
1 comment:
A good question, to which I think the answer is "no," alas. So much of what I read about in Scripture is so antithetical to what our culture teaches us to seek: we want fast results, the Bible talks of "endurance;" we want comfort, the Bible says things like "Go" and "deny yourself;" we want to be surrounded by people like us, people we like, the Bible says "love your enemy, bless those who persecute you." While it is important to re-shape the church based on cultures (unlike missionary attempts of the last century that tried to re-create Western churches in non-western cultures!), I also think it important that we not redefine things like discipleship, self-sacrifice, endurance, love, body of Christ, to the point that they all lose the meaning found in the pages of the text. No, I don't think the Bible is very amenable to modern consumerism, but I also don't think it was amenable to the Greco-Roman culture either: it was "foolishness to the Greeks"! I definitely don't have the answers to how far we can bend to the culture before something important breaks, so I'll be looking here for all the answers... =]
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