{"id":6730,"date":"2010-03-01T00:14:31","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T05:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/"},"modified":"2010-03-01T00:14:31","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T05:14:31","slug":"eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Eugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>


<\/b>\"Peterson.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>In Eugene Peterson\u2019s new book,\u00a0Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ<\/a>\"\"\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>, Peterson probes into his own history and his own experience of the church to draw out some powerful \u2014 stunning might be the better word \u2014 observations about the church. Three points to make today, and I ask these questions:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Is this your experience? How has the church been \u201cAmericanized\u201d or \u201cconsumerized\u201d? What do you think can be done about it?<\/b><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
First, as a child and youngster, Peterson\u2019s church focused on two images of the church. One came from the Song of Songs and the other from Ephesians. One focused on beautiful Tirzah and the army with terrible banners (Song 6:4), and the other one focused on the pure and splendored and holy and unblemished church (Eph 5:26-27). His pastors were always trying to repair the church to get it to be like those texts.<\/div>\n
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Second\u2026<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n


\nPeterson became a pastor, and those sentimentalized and romantic and crusader images were instinctual.<\/p>\n

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Third, then something happened. \u201cTirzah and Terrible-as-an-army-with-banners had been scraped and replaced with the imagery of an ecclesiastical business with a mission to market spirituality to consumers to make them happy\u201d (22). Instead of preaching fantasy sermons about what the church could be, he says, we could do something about: turn the place into a consumer-shaped business for Christians.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cAll we had to do was remove pictures of the God of Gomorrah and Moriah and Golgotha from the walls of our churches and shift things around a bit to make our meeting places more consumer friendly\u201d (23).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cMarketing research quickly developed to show us just what people wanted in terms of God and religion. As soon as we knew what it was, we gave it to them\u201d (23).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Tell me, is this true? Too true?<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Eugene Peterson\u2019s new book,\u00a0Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ\u00a0, Peterson probes into his own history and his own experience of the church to draw out some powerful \u2014 stunning might be the better word \u2014 observations about the church. Three points to make today, and I ask these questions: Is this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In Eugene Peterson's new book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ , Peterson probes into his own history and his own\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 3\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Eugene Peterson's new book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ , Peterson probes into his own history and his own\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-01T05:14:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/assets_c\/2010\/02\/Peterson-thumb-333x317-11765.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/\",\"name\":\"Eugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 3\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-03-01T05:14:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-03-01T05:14:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"In Eugene Peterson's new book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ , Peterson probes into his own history and his own\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/01\/eugene-peterson-practice-resurrection-3\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Eugene Peterson: Practice Resurrection 3\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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