Evangelical Churches

Evangelical Churches

Christianity
– Religion or business?
Assignment 1 – Essay

In the days of yore, religion was a method for a person to find comfort in believing that they were all made and taken care of by a higher power, and when they died, they would be welcomed through the pearly gates and continue their existence forever in total harmony and happiness. Today it’s nothing but razzle and dazzle meant to humor bored people.  
The evangelical churches in particular, have started to use alternative methods in order to attract potential church-goers (and by goers I do mean contributors). In order to increase their popularity they have made extreme increases in commercialization and modernization.
For instance, let’s take Pastor Joel Osteen. Some might call him a shallow sell-out, but when all comes to show, he is a brilliant revolutionary man. Brilliant as in clever; I’m just stating facts, not praising the guy. He has actually managed to transform a simple quiet faith into a multimillion corporation.
In order for him to ever even have had the slightest bit of chance in achieving such popularity, he needed a foundation of loyal people to start with. As taboo as this may sound; the death of his father was in some way a “blessing in disguise”. He was now, at the point of his succession, already extremely popular because of sympathy votes. However, what he did afterwards characterizes modern pastors and ministers in this day and age. He started to advertise. With the use of media, many people like him have managed to make their church much more popular. Of course, the media only attracts newcomers. In order to keep them; they have to make the religion more interesting. It is common knowledge that Americans are impressed by comfy seats, big flashy colors and 200” plasma-TVs, so this sort of religious revolution couldn’t have started in a more suitable place.
Of course, some actually practical “upgrades” have also been made. Joel Osteen of the Lakewood...