Didn’t even know what movie you were talking about until reading the comments…thought you were talking about Passion of the Christ…another movie…that has suckered alot of christians to feel that unless they see it they really are not faithful and ‘passionate’ for the Lord.

All of this….imo….is b/c of a lack of knowledge of the Word..a lack of understanding holiness and obedience of which the Torah is our guide.
Torah is not about salvation…but about how to walk in obedience to show our love to Messiah Yeshua.

There is a growing movement of believers that are returning to the ancient paths of old…learning to walk as Yeshua walked…and are finding true freedom in being Yahweh’s called out people.
Don’t want to look like the world, don’t want to sound like the world, or act like the world.
I love that I am called out…a peculiar people…that I follow Yahweh’s commands…that I celebrate Sabbath, keep kosher, do mikvah’s , pray with my head covered….all of these and many more- distinguish that I belong to Yahweh…I am His child…and I am not of this world.
The church doesn’t look any different from the world … or acts any different.
Shalom

That said, I agree with you that the use of churches as marketing tools is disgusting.

The other comment that bothers me a bit is the one regarding “free trade coffee” being an attempt to be cool and cater to the world. That may be true for some people…but I know some dear brothers and sisters in Christ who are genuinely convicted regarding their role in the world who see things like that as important. Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, some of these moves are motivated out of genuine concern and conviction rather than simply a desire to be cool. What about “love hopes all things” Dan? It seems that you attribute only the most negative of motivations to these things. When you stand in judgment of people’s motivations you put yourself in a dangerous place that not even the Apostle Paul would place himself (1 Cor. 4:3-5). The Lord alone is Judge of men’s motives.

Dan, I appreciate so much of what you have to say but I have never responded to a post. However, I could not keep from responding to this post because of these things. I still agree with the basic premise; it just seems that you overstated some of your specific examples in a way that saddened me.

I am sickened by the prostitution I experience in “Christian” environments- expecially Sunday mornings. If I am suffered to watch yet another film clip, music video or see yet another “Lion” poster/insert/bulletpoint on the announcements at the “information” table I will seriously hurl spew at my pastor. It disgusts me that there were pastor “conferences” marketing this crap from Disney— giving out free stuff to our pastors who lap it up like starved 4 year olds presented with a HUGE, FREE, Box of Candy. Where is the discernment from our leadership? I understand a certain level of excitement, but a steady diet of soda and chips will not a healthy person make! Janet

I’m similarly amazed that the churches in your part of the country are immune to all this. I see it everywhere I go.

I walked into a Family Christian Stores outlet yesterday and could only take about fifteen minutes of cultural accomodation before I had to leave. (VeggieTales nativity set with a carrot for the baby Jesus? Are you joking me?) The hipness and cultural awareness factor in that store was overwhelming. All of it screamed, Look how cool Christianity can be. The world has nothing on us!

Walden Media—not a Christian organization the last time I checked—is distributing curriculum to churches for use in both adult and child Christian education concerning the themes in the upcoming Narnia film. I have no axe to grind against the movie, but the implications of an arm of Disney getting their marketing materials into our pulpits are staggering to me.

Have you seen none of this where you are? No churches basing a preaching series around “Desperate Housewives” or other TV shows? There are certainly a lot doing just that. And as for the examples I used in this post, I know of a couple churches that made a big deal about switching their cup of joe from Starbucks (or something similar) to genuine free trade, “no rainforests harmed in the making of this coffee” coffee.

If you aren’t seeing this now, wait a few years. It’s filtering in from the coasts like you would not believe.

Honestly, Dan, it’s getting to the point where I don’t know what you’re talking about anymore. Are things this bad in Ohio? Maybe you should pack up and move here to Land-In-Between. By the way, winter here has started out with a bang, and the temperatures have been gelid this week; so I guess it makes us pretty cool.