The Consumption of the Covenant Idea of the Church

Part Two, New Article at Theopolis, Click the link to read

Last time we saw consumerism shapes what the consumer sees when he or she steps into a church. Here, we’ll see how it has devoured the covenant and familial ideas necessary to understand the church, which is necessary to understand the role of men in ministry, which is necessary to the role of women in ministry.

Click: Consumerism, Oikos, and the Role of Women in the Church, Part 2

The consumer steps into the church looking for a spiritual product. Many churches’ respond by playing along. Selling the church is not new. Traditional churches draw-in consumers with a gospel sing, a revival, or a “home-coming.” Gimmicks to get customers in the door are commonplace, and some are now so long-established that they are considered sacred traditions. Click on the link above (in green) to see how your view of the church may have been deformed by consumerism.

When the consumer opens the door to the church, he or she sees a customer-service provider, in the mold of other prevalent sources of consumption, like the restaurant and the theater, or, at best, the hospital.

The covenanted church is the antithesis of the consumer church. In covenanted church membership, Christians sacrifice their freedom as consumers to dispose of their relationship with the church on a whim, to consume another one somewhere else, like you might be drawn away from your favorite restaurant to the new one.

The assumption – rarely confronted – is that the church is a customer-centered institution and the pastor is its functionary, like a chef to a restaurant or a doctor to a hospital, a cog in a machine that can be replaced.

Is a pastor just a functionary, like a chef at your favorite restaurant is just a functionary and you don’t care whether he or she is male or female, as long as he or she cooks a good meal? Click on the link, read the article to find out.

John B. Carpenter, Ph.D., is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA. and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022).