Is Manipulative Worship Okay?

What’s the churches intention? And, secondly, do they show their intention with backed actions?

Generally speaking, it’s the question of whether or not their staff is living a life above reproach… do they care for the poor so much so, that they’re centering the powerless, they’re uplifting the downtrodden, and they’re not solely focused on a conservative form of morality so much as they are an agenda of empowering the oppressed…

Manipulative Worship is the Product of Consumerism…

Manipulation is engrained within our churches programmatic structure…

I mean, it sounds intense but, it just is… and, this is coming from someone who’s truly not at all that high-horse “anti-capitalism” type of guy… [3]

But, if you think I’m wrong, I’ll take it you’re like most and just have been privileged enough to not have seen too far behind the Churches curtain (this post on Elevation Church literally documenting how they will manipulate baptisms)… 

It’s become a societal norm and an inherent part of succeeding within a consumeristic society…

Just consider, what happens to your brain when or if you ever were to stop believing in God?

You take a public figure generally liked by a large group of people, put auto-tune in the mix, slowly but steadily build the emotion, and then at the height of your crescendo, when the emotion has reached peak-level, you bring it back down… get a bit serious – the guy everyone trusts walks back on stage and gives a quick word – they’re vulnerable, open… more likely to listen, here.

And, then you slowly begin to re-crescendo in speech but mostly in emotion (cause, it doesn’t really matter what you’re saying here – I mean, you could literally be talking about your frustrations of not be able to fit your hand inside a Pringle can… they’ll buy it).

If it’s live, you make eye contact with as many people in the audience as you possibly can – you tell them that it’s not at all about you; you tell them that you’re humble; you dramatically pause… and then you say that you have the answer…

You tell them that the words you’re preaching are GOSPEL, as an instrumental plays behind you; you then say something vulnerable but also relatable. You speak, they listen, you continuing speaking, they begin nodding…

You put together all of these moving parts this is the product that you get…

Watch this first…

And, then, come back and watch this second…

Last but not least, here’s where Furtick tells you that it’s the Gospel… (I couldn’t find the live video – it looks like they took it down; nonetheless, the audio is still there and, this is during the same taping of this above video – you can see him walking back on stage)…

But, if you’re not picking up what point I’m making here… it’s that these are all the same – Elevation Churches worship service and Bo Burnham’s comedy special – they’re pulling and tugging on the same strings in our hearts, err, brains(?)…

Bo Burnham’s bit is so painfully funny because he’s showing the mechanics of how easy it is to manipulate us…

When your people are vulnerable, poor, disheveled, broken and they’re coming to your church out of this last-ditch form of desperation…

All this above…

It just comes across as a bit unethical…

And, don’t get me wrong as I said before in my post calling out worship music snobbery: “Some of the most simplistically basic things are the best f&%$ing creations God has gifted this world and our very lives with.”

But, I honestly see this to be a lot like advertising to children…

Advertising to Children Vs. Advertising to Adults…

Most of us know about the laws surrounding advertising to children…

Little children’s innocence and lack a lot of knowledge around commercial food, allows them to easily trust what an advertisement says. As a result, companies are able to falsely display food items to little children and what little children think to be healthy and nutritious is actually unhealthy being high in fats and sugars.^[7][2]

I can’t help but think of us like children – in a sense are we not all child-like; it’s just that some of us have become better at hiding our innocent vulnerabilities… but, all of us are; vulnerable that is. We’re all hurting, we’re all ignorant, and we’re all searching for something that’s bigger and beyond us; something or someone with answers…

As I quoted in my previous post, Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Ph.D. professor of theology at Fordham University, “theologians have always had the ability to lend symbolic capital to ideas. These ideas can create conditions [that]have real-life effects.”

Hurting adults (which is all of us) were just children, at heart.

I mean, think about it this way: these laws surrounding advertisements protecting children from their intended negative effects… those negative effects are working just the same on us as they would on children; e.g. just look at the obesity rates, overwhelming amounts of addictions to video games, opiates, and cells phones.

Yeah…

So then, what’s the solution?