As I thought about the blog post I wrote entitled ‘Bait And Switch’, Seeker-Sensitive Style , I thought about a side tactic used to get people to believe the things I exposed in that previous article.
It was while channel surfing early Sunday morning and watching one of these church services of a PoMo / Emergent / Seeker Sensitive church that I discovered something interesting. I discovered how these churches are able to pull off the Spiritual Bait and Switch very easy. It is not in their candles, dark tapestries, skateboard parks in the church parking lot, sanctuary looking like a SRO theater, etc. in and of themselves. It is in the ’stereotyped’ mentalities they preach concerning and equating to a church with solid doctrine, stained glass windows, big buildings with steeples, etc. to the corruption, politics, sexual immorality, etc. that took place
In their daddy’s church
There is a huge hatred and disdain within the PoMo / Emergent / Seeker Sensitive churches of traditional churches that your mom and dad attended and took the children to. Since the PoMo / Emergent / Seeker Sensitive church loves to use the hatred of daddy’s church and the politics and corruption with “daddy’s church” to their advantage, this is really what fuels the ‘difference’ in their music, architecture, the renaming of the church ministries, etc. By doing everything the diametric opposite of the way their daddy did church because of the politics, corruption, and moral turpitudes that took place within daddy’s church, it is implied through the use of dark lighting, renaming ministries, candles, dark tapestries, an artsy SRO environment, and short sermons that is different from daddy’s church that their church is pure, holy, incorrupt, and more anointed than daddy’s church ever was.
The now dissolved Oldsmobile car division of General Motors used to run these ads in the 1990’s that stated “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” implying that the Oldsmobiles of today were sleek and fresh and not the stale big bland cars their father drove. We see what happened. People did not buy their cars and the plug was pulled. The PoMo and Emergent churches are implying “This is not your father’s Church.” via their ‘different songs, architecture, interior decorating, and name changing of programs. And many people are buying this thinking they have ‘a new thing’ when like the father’s Oldsmobile, it’s modern technological refinements to the same old laws of physics and basic drivetrain / horsepower theory.
Where fundamentalists and pentecostals took the ‘be ye seperate from the world’ to the extreme and kept a close-knit community within other church people, the PoMo / Emergent / Seeker Sensitive church has literally rewritten the ‘be ye seperate from the world’ into ‘be ye seperate from other churches’ and keep a close knit community with the world to where the line is thin and blurred as to what is Godly and what is not Godly. The church that prides itself on breaking stereotypes and enacting diversity and tolerance has ’stereotyped’, ‘prejudiced’, and ‘intolerated’ those who disagree with them and those who attend “daddy’s church”.
