Shopping for God

Shopping For God looks like an interesting read. Check out this piece from the Wall Street Journal. There’s an interesting paragraph from the article:

“In a highly competitive market, suppliers have to stay on their toes. . . . Coke sells more going up against Pepsi. McDonald’s needs Burger King. When markets are supplying interchangeable products, selling can become frantic. Brand war! The complacent get killed.” The “complacent” are the mainline churches, according to Mr. Twitchell; they have basically dropped out of the competition. The evangelical churches, by contrast, are competing wildly and thriving even if, like Coke and Pepsi, they are are offering similar “products.”

Wow…so, the decline in mainline attendance is attributed to competition. Since mainline churches aren’t competitive, they drop off the map and ultimately go away. Maybe Kevin Smith wasn’t too far off in the “re-branding” of Jesus to Buddy Christ he suggested in Dogma. (Be warned, Dogma is not for the faint of faith…It’s, well, fairly over the top…but, it’s, um, it’s a movie).