Over the last few decades I have noticed a certain trend in America. It is a trend that rings true in secular and religious arenas. It is a trend towards control and away from competition. In the secular world it plays out like so. A person gets a job at a profitable company. The more profit they see the company making the more control they want over what they consider their "fair share". You find such a person making statements like, "I deserve to be paid more because you are making more money." Or, "It is not fair that you control so much money, I deserve a part of that too." This is contrary to the attitude that helped build this nation... one of competition. The world of competition would take the same person working for the same company and they would say, "I think I could do this cheaper, better, or with better customer service... and compete with this company." At first it might seem like the end would be the same, The Company loses profit while either the Employee or the Competition takes it. But, what almost always happens is that the Competition actually increases the market. Their new service or product will reach people that The Company never did. Of course, the fact is that The Company does not want competition. It is often scared of competition and works to control the market in such a way as to prevent or destroy competition.
This same thing happens in the religious world where you have churches focused not on finding ways to tap unreached markets, but instead wanting more control over the market of the "already reached". They see churches with more members and think, "You have more people, and I deserve some of the people you have." And, The Church (including all Christian sects) often works just as hard as The Company to squash competition from competing brands.
My basic premise is that Christianity is most healthy when it operates in a competitive environment as one of many religious options. Christianity declines and dies when it assumes Monopoly status within a culture. In Economics, monopoly exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.
Though I do not believe Christianity has ever achieved Monopoly status, I believe it has actively pursued such a status here in America. And, I believe that pursuit has led to its decline over the last three decades.
1 comment:
Very interesting premise. While thinking through your blog, I had the thought that your premise is tied very closely to what I believe is one of the most common criticisms that non-Christians have about Christianity.....that Christians exclude instead of include. Various Christian denominations will argue with each other over which way is the “better” version of Christianity, all in the hopes of convincing someone who is possibly already a Christian that their church is “the” church to go to. A non-Christian looking in could easily get the feeling that Christian churches are only interested in those who already believe in the basic fundamentals of Christianity, but just haven’t decided on the details and/or semantics of how they like to worship. Not to mention that the arguments between denominations will obviously sound extremely judgmental to non-Christians, which is common criticism #2 that non-Christians have about Christianity.
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