Porn and Pancakes

Church attendance is in trouble. Congregation after congregation in this country is showing precipitous declines in attendance. And all the Sunday Catfish Fries, Hallelujah choruses and Godspell-like bands rocking out behind the daises won’t change a thing. Part of it, naturally, has to do with technology. This current generation of churchgoers lives in an informational bubble where, with the click of a mouse, one can learn more about the teachings of the Bible – its message, its meaning, etc. – faster and with more multimedia pizzazz than from even the most charismatic of evangelical preachers. Part of it has to do with the messenger. Hypocrisy, hate and crystal-snorting power bottoms don’t exactly round up the pious to Sunday morning meetings. But church leaders aren’t stupid. Many of them are good business managers and realize that in order to keep their coffers filled they need to adapt to the times. And one sure fire way to do that is to turn their attention to sex. As one church in upstate New York recently discovered sex sells. Increasingly churches across the United States are beginning to focus their attention on sex – specifically pornography. There’s even a site devoted to the subject cleverly entitled XXXchurch.com. (Hell, they even ministered at the 2006 Adult Expo.) But the question is really whether or not pornography has multiplied so insidiously to meet the demands of an ever growing body of technological delivery systems – VOD, cellphones, MySpace pages, etc. – or have churches succumbed to the times by offering seemingly scintillating topics masked as moral rectitude in order to keep the flock engaged. My hunch is sex sells whether it’s in Advertising or the public square of ideas and church leaders aren’t stupid. And that’s why in order to keep the faithful engaged, we’re probably going to see a lot more appeals to the prurient with talk of “Porn Sundays” and the like. After all if you can’t beat ‘em…





--MOC BLOGGER