Chandler Christian Church

The following is pasted directly from my blog on MySpace. I am trying to consolidate my blogs.

Last Sunday, March 27th, I decided to go solo. I considered the notion of returning unannounced to my friend's Baptist church. I was also very interested in attending services at the local Buddhist temple. In the end, I chose another mega-church. The Baptist church was too far away and my sons wanted me to wait on the Buddhist thing until they were free to go with me (they were busy butchering a sheep that morning).

That left me with the Chandler Christian Church which happens to be located right next door to Cornerstone. There are so many Christians bogging down traffic that attend those two churches that the City of Chandler assigns local police officers to direct traffic in and out of the church parking lots.

With traffic in mind, I arrived about twenty minutes early, got a decent parking spot and had time to walk around a little. After a short, self-guided tour, I entered the theater/chapel about 10 minutes early. I was surprised to find the room virtually empty. That was a little surprising considering the size of the room. I couldn't help but think that attendance must be dwindling.

I was wrong. Within twenty minutes, the room was almost packed and more people were sneaking in. Apparently, tardiness is not frowned upon in this congregation and that was actually a comforting thought. The general tone of the meeting was casualness. There were shorts and sandals and jeans and tank tops but most people were excited and enthusiastic. The worship band was on stage and everyone was standing and waving their hands like they were at a Motley Crue concert. People were singing along (which wasn't difficult because the lyrics were displayed on the big screen).

There were a couple times when a song could be construed as emotional and that did not surprise me. I think it was Dan Barker who explained that as a music leader at his church, it was his job to get the congregation in the "spirit" of things. He understood that even secular music can be used as a powerful tool to make you feel a certain way. They do it in movie soundtracks all the time. They can make you feel really happy or sad or scared with nothing but notes.

The interesting thing is that the pastor wasn't the speaker that day. He got on staged and thanked God for such powerful music. He then gave a prayer to the Lord and introduced the speaker. His name is Vince Antonucci and he wrote a book called "I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: Replacing Souvenir Religion with Authentic Spiritual Passion". The weird thing is that I didn't see anything authentic or spiritual or passionate.

Vince delivered a canned performance that came off more like comedy for Christians than anything significant or spiritual. He told a (likely bogus) story about being raised with no religion. He claimed that college was the first place he ever met a Christian and how he made fun of televangelists on TV. One day, he wanted to read a passage in the Bible to prove Christians wrong and he kept reading it.

Allegedly, the Bible gave convincing evidence of Jesus' divinity by providing places and times and people that were historically significant. From that day on he was a Christian and so the story goes. Well, his big message of the day was that everyone was afraid to die and that we were all born to die. According to the words of Jesus, those who love this life will lose it and those who hate this life will gain it. The Bible is full of little gems of wisdom that are always contradictions of conventional thinking. The misconception is that since they profoundly defy logic they must also be profoundly wise.

I truly have little respect for the speaker because he was propagating bullshit and I'm sure this mega-church paid him a pretty penny to fly all the way over from North Carolina just to tell people they had to die to really live. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the implications of the message; I just think it is stupid. People should be embracing life because it might be the only life they have to live.

I feel sorry for these Christians who delude themselves with a few hours of lies each Sunday. Most do not take the time to truly study their own scriptures (the quickest way to atheism is to actually read the bible). They are content to propagate whatever fallacies their pastors give them. They rationalize that they do not need to bother studying their faith when they have a preacher to do it for them. Oh, they might memorize a key scripture or two but it all becomes lost in blind faith.

I suppose that's what you get with a mega-church: insincerity and emptiness. Everything becomes watered down. I suppose it seems odd that an atheist would care but it has an adverse impact on our culture. People no longer believe because they have taken the time to search for the sacred truths themselves. The danger occurs when Christians in America need to rally the troops. Most of these people have no clue about the issues let alone where they should stand. All they know is that they identify as Christian and the religious right gains mindless masses.

Well, somehow my review of the church has turned into a rant. I intended to keep these blogs on an even keel but it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the obvious. Christian churches are nothing more than a place where professed Christians can take refuge from the secular world and find out what they are supposed to think. I really need to go to some non-Christian churches to get some perspective before I get completely burnt out on this whole project.

Cornerstone

The following is pasted directly from my blog on MySpace. I am trying to consolidate my blogs.

Having never been to a mega church before, I was intrigued to attend last week’s services (March 30th) at Cornerstone. This is a very large church in Chandler with so many people attending that officers from Chandler PD have to direct traffic. To illustrate this point, there was no room for us to park in the massive parking lot near the building so we were directed to the gravel overflow parking. While walking in, Sally and I helped ourselves to some of there free coffee (which was very good, I might add).

Just inside there were a few businesses (I only noticed a snack bar and bookstore but there seemed to be more). We were running late (as usual) and headed straight for the "chapel". But this chapel was just a large auditorium with hundreds, if not thousands, of people. We were greeted by a female usher and were showed to a pair of seats.

We seemed to be in the midst of some hippy love fest for Jesus. The band looked more like they belonged in Seattle’s music scene of the early 90’s and kept singing some inspirational christian rock. This seems to be the formula of most churches: start with music to increase spiritual awareness then bring in the pastor.

But this guy didn’t like much of a pastor. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt and had his hair spiked up like he was trying to be young again. He told some obligatory jokes and proceeded with his presentation (I don’t think you could call it a sermon). He actually stole the phrase "men are from Mars and women are from Venus".

We spent the next 30 to 40 minutes listen to a tirade that was loosely based on the bible versus from Ephesians 5:22-33. The basic gist of the message was that wives should respect their husbands because men crave respect and that husbands should love their wives because women crave love. It was a little awkward to be listening to this "sermon" with Sally, as it was intended to be advice for couples.

Besides reading those few versus from Ephesians, the speaker felt content to only point at the bible and state "Everything you need is in here." That seemed a fairly vague and ineffective way to spread "god’s word". By the end of it, Sally was engrossed in something with her cell phone while I sat and painfully listened to every word. I felt like a masochist who was incapable of turning away.

At the first hint of a conclusion, Sally and I bolted for the door; not for fear of anything but in a desperate effort to beat the traffic. We went to Penny’s Ice Cream & Sandwiches and had a very nice breakfast. Although that day’s lecture was the first in a series on relationships, we had no intention of listening to the rest of the series.

Skyline Fellowship Southern Baptist Church

The following is pasted directly from my blog on MySpace. I am trying to consolidate my blogs.

On March 2nd Sally and I went to attend church at Skyline Fellowship Southern Baptist Church in Mesa. I wanted to go earlier to participate in bible study but Sally was too nervous. She just wanted to go to the worship services and get out. She had no interest to talk to strangers, especially about the bible. (Sometimes it seems like I was the christian and she was the atheist--she is very apprehensive about church.)

We found this particular church through a co-worker of mine so we arranged to meet her and her family at the chapel. We were almost late so when we arrived, things were just getting started. I was surprised to see that the worship band were all kids and was told that the youth band performed for services once a month. They were actually very good and I could even "feel the spirit" so to speak. There was a point when we were encouraged to move about the chapel and mingle with the congregation. I started shaking hands and walking around until Sally asked me to come back. She was too nervous to leave the pew and didn't want to be left alone.

After several minutes of musical worship, the pastor finally came out. He thanked the youth band for their performance and called al the little children to the front. Apparently, this was a weekly ritual where he would give a short sermon directly to the children. On that day, the message was that they should read the bible everyday. Although it was best for them to read the entire bible, he said if that was too hard, they should focus on a list of specific scriptures that were "very important".

I was a little stunned because I have a theory that if a christian was to read the entire bible they would see all the inconsistencies and start to question. I thought it was strange that he would tell these kids to do the very thing that could put doubt in their minds. But when he reduced the mandate to only needing to read certain versus from a list, it became clear. He was just propagating more brainwashing and thought control.

The children were dismissed to their Sunday school and all left the chapel; leaving the adults to hear the real sermon. I don't remember his central message (if there was one) but I remember he was bashing mormons, muslims and Hilary Clinton. I thought that was an odd approach of interpreting "god's word" and felt very uneasy. I wish I had blogged this earlier because I do not remember most of what he said. I only remember that I didn't like how he was saying it.

After the sermon, he brought back the youth back to set a "spiritual" mood. Then he stated that he wanted people from the congregation to come forward and accept Jesus in their hearts. He even hinted that they had all afternoon and would be willing to wait "as long as it took" to save souls (although that was said tongue in cheek).

Well, I was intrigued to see how long we would wait and what exactly would happen but Sally had a desperate look in her eye. She turned to me in a panic and asked if we could leave right away. I felt like she was whispering the "safe word" to end a session of S&M and I felt sorry for her. We, not so discreetly, exited the back of the chapel to the freedom of the parking lot. We then drove away to get our usual cup of coffee and discuss what we had seen.