It’s that time of year again. I go public with my forecast for the major league baseball season. If you’re a betting person, my suggestion would be that you take my predictions and bet heavily on someone else (if you’d done that last season you’d have made a fortune). Here’s how I see it:
National League
East: Philadelphia Phillies
Central: St. Louis Cardinals
West: Colorado Rockies
Wild card: Atlanta Braves
NL champion: St. Louis Cardinals
MVP: Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies)
Cy Young: Roy Halladay (Phillies)
Rookie of the Year: Jason Heyward (Braves)
American League:
East: New York Yankees
Central: Minnesota Twins
West: Los Angeles Angels
Wild card: Tampa Bay Rays
AL champion: New York Yankees
MVP: Mark Teixeira (Yankees)
Cy Young: C.C. Sabathia (Yankees)
Rookie of the Year: No clue
World Series: Cardinals over Yankees in 7
There are times when I wonder whether American evangelicalism, or at least some segments of it, has completely taken leave of its senses. For some, so crushing is the need to grow, so desperate the desire to get bodies in the door, so thorough the identification of church growth with evangelism, that literally any means to get people in the building becomes acceptable. Exhibit A: Bay Area Fellowship Church in Corpus Christi, Texas, where Pastor Bil Cornelius has dreamed up an “Ultimate Giveaway” gimmick that will flood his megachurch with slavering materialists this Easter. According to the Christian Post:
Easter at a megachurch in Corpus Christi, Texas, will look like the popular TV game show “The Price Is Right.”
Sixteen cars, 15 flat-screen televisions, furniture sets and other prizes are lined up at Bay Area Fellowship Church and ready to be claimed by anyone who attends the church’s Easter services on Sunday.
Though the church of some 7,000 weekly attendees has regularly flexed its creative muscles to draw the unchurched, the upcoming “Ultimate Giveaway” is like no other outreach it has ever attempted.
Pastor Bil Cornelius, who made the game show analogy, admits it’s a bit “outrageous.”
But he sees it as “an opportunity to share Christ with people who may never go to a church for any reason,” he told The Christian Post.
So to draw them in, he’s going to give them a reason: score big in the ecclesiastical lottery. Oh, yes, they’ll also be exposed to Bay Area’s flashy rock-show worship and Bil Cornelius’ no doubt irresistable personality, but what makes him think that people who “never go to a church for any reason” will be any more open to the message just because they have a chance to take home some filthy lucre?
Of course, this is all in the service of a painfully obvious metaphor:
The “ultimate” giveaway, however, will be the free gift of heaven and Christ.
“We hope to show people that while it is exciting to receive free stuff here on Earth, the greatest free gift of all time is something we haven’t yet seen, but can enjoy for all eternity,” said Cornelius, who started the church 12 years ago with five people.
So he’s turning his church into a weekend freak show so that he can make a point that I can make with Hershey’s kisses in a children’s sermon. I guess I just don’t think big enough.
But as is always the case with this kind of circus act, there’s the ultimate justification:
Cornelius acknowledges that the Easter giveaway has drawn some “pretty strong” criticism from other believers, some of whom accuse the pastor of turning Jesus into a product.
But the Texas megachurch pastor responded to the critics, saying: “[I]f just one of their children were lost and found Christ through this program (that they may not approve of), I bet they’d be glad we did it.”
Nope. I’m not biting at that particular piece of demonic fruit. Acting unethically in the service of the gospel is acting unethically, period. The end doesn’t justify the means when God’s involved any more than any other time. And I won’t even go into the rank Pelagianism that lies behind this kind of nonsense. (I don’t know for a fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Bil Cornelius can’t even spell “Pelagianism,” much less have any idea what it is.)
Bay Area Fellowship and its pastor have sold their collective soul to the god of church growth. I hope they’re happy.
UPDATE: Apparently there’s been a lot of criticism of this (gee, I wonder why). Bil Cornelius responds at the Bil Cornelius Ministries web site:
It’s understandable to be upset when someone knocks the church you attend. Just remember, they are not knocking you, they are knocking me, and I’m okay with it. Most of the people who are criticizing our Easter plans are not the kind of people we are trying to reach, so no worries. Although it certainly is not my desire to anger people, as long as the unchurched are being reached in a God-honoring way, then just pray for God’s best and stay above the fray (the negativity). I’m so proud of our people for being so generous, in giving all the prizes and bikes that will be given away this Easter! Free gifts draw people to malls and stores, so why not God’s House? In fact, the Ultimate Free Gift is what Easter is all about! [Emphasis added.]
That’s the problem, Bil. Giving away cars and TVs to get people in the auditorium honors not God, but American materialism. At the same time that Christ calls on His disciples to lay down their lives and carry the cross and put aside everything that stands in the way of following Him, you’re loading people down with more stuff, and getting them in the door by appealing to their inner Gecko. That is the exact opposite of what Easter is about.
Then cast your sins from yourself upon Christ, believe with a festive spirit that your sins are his wounds and sufferings, that he carries them and makes satisfaction for them, as Is 53,6 says: “Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all;” and St. Peter in his first Epistle 2, 24: “Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree” of the cross; and St. Paul in 2 Cor 5,21: “Him who knew no sin was made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” Upon these and like passages you must rely with all your weight, and so much the more the harder your conscience martyrs you. For if you do not take this course, but miss the opportunity of stilling your heart, then you will never secure peace, and must yet finally despair in doubt. For if we deal with our sins in our conscience and let them continue within us and be cherished in our hearts, they become much too strong for us to manage and they will live forever. But when we see that they are laid on Christ and he has triumphed over them by his resurrection and we fearlessly believe it, then they are dead and have become as nothing. For upon Christ they cannot rest, there they are swallowed up by his resurrection, and you see now no wound, no pain, in him, that is, no sign of sin. Thus St. Paul speaks in Rom 4, 25, that he was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification; that is, in his sufferings he made known our sins and also crucified them; but by his resurrection he makes us righteous and free from all sin, even if we believe the same differently.
–Martin Luther, “A Good Friday Sermon on How to Contemplate Christ’s Holy Sufferings”
Cardinals defend pope on church sex abuse scandal
Sub-head: Pujols, LaRussa call on Benedict to “hit a home run” against Vatican critics
–Associated Press
Planned Parenthood announced today that, because it receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds, it is no longer going to discriminate on the basis of religious belief. It will, accordingly, be hiring as many traditional Roman Catholics as possible, so as to achieve balance between adherents of the pro-abortion and pro-life positions.
Noting that Americans United for Separation of Church and State has called upon organizations that receive federal funding to cease engaging in discrimination, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said it was only fair.
“Look, for a long time we’ve discriminated on the basis of religion around here. I don’t know that we’ve ever had any pro-life Christians of any denomination on our national staff, or in any of our offices around the country for that matter. I think it’s time we got with the program and gave pro-life Christians, and Catholics particularly, the fair shake they deserve.”
Ms. Richards continued, “We’re also thinking about asking Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver to join our Board of Directors. He’s just the kind of man we need in leadership if we’re going to be able to be the model of diversity for all federally-funded institutions that I believe we’re called to be.”
