Here’s an article about different tricks which (mainly) Christian groups are playing in order to fool kids into embracing Jesus and a Christian lifestyle. It talks about different groups opening things like coffeehouses, and rec centers and like gospel rap, and piercing contests, and other stuff. Anyway, the most interesting part is this quote:

“It’s a creative effort to reach people, but at another level, it’s a pretty drastic accommodation,” says Christian Smith, a University of North Carolina professor who also is the director of the National Study of Youth and Religion, funded by the Lilly Endowment in Indianapolis.

“They mostly redefine religion in consumerist terms. ‘We want to sell you our product.’ It signals a shift from the authority of the religious tradition to the individual consumer as the authority. If you have to make the Bible look like Cosmopolitan magazine, it seems you’ve already lost.”

Bingo! That part I made bold says it all. That’s precisely the point. The Church used to be the only game in town, and when you have a spiritual monopoly, it’s real easy to get everyone to go along with what you’re doing. But God forbid that “individual consumers” become the ultimate authority on what they want and how they should get it. Essentially, I guess that really is the biggest threat to organized religion, when you leak out the secret that people are actually responsible for themselves, and have the “authority” to be the final word in their own personal development. I really love when people who don’t mean to slip up and say something really true and important without realizing.