“There are 8 billion people are on the planet, and about 2.5 billion of them are Christians. Christians claim to have the only-true-God connection and view themselves as the only qualified ones called to minister the truth to save humankind. They believe that privilege is theirs because they are the Bible experts.
There are 45,000 different Christian denominations around the world, and close to 450,000 international missionaries mobilized abroad. The Roman Catholic Church is considered to be the largest financial power on earth. Evangelical Christianity isn’t doing too shabby either.
A top Christian televangelist lives in a $10 million house with a private jet, another one drives a $350,000 Bentley, and a recent Megachurch teacher was hired for $22 million a year. Another megapastor has a net worth of $760 million. No, that’s not a typo. One megachurch meets in a sports stadium, draws close to 50,000 people for a worship service, and has an annual budget that exceeds $90 million.
Speaking of budgets, 82 percent of the average church budget is used to cover the expense of buildings and salaries. Considering the number of people, buildings, and dollars, Christendom is quite an impressive empire on planet Earth.
But for what? What has this shiny, lucrative Christian empire actually accomplished? What do we have to show for it? We haven’t made even a dent in the suffering that plagues humankind and our planet. But I’ll give us one thing—you sure have to admire the sheer size of this discordant monstrosity.
However, Jesus, as a homeless man with a handful of confused followers and no budget, had more of a revolutionary impact in three years than the entire Christian church has has in three centuries.
Jesus was a revolutionary. Christendom is a business. Following Jesus once meant speaking truth to power. Modern Christianity is budgets, buildings and bank accounts.
Jesus would confront megachurch Christianity because the pattern of his life was a direct challenge to any religious system that amasses wealth, centralizes authority, and performs holiness as spectacle while distancing itself from the suffering of ordinary people. His ministry consistently disrupted institutions that turned spirituality into a marketplace, elevated leaders above the community, or used fear and conformity to maintain control.
The life of Jesus was a campaign of liberation, a refusal to let religion become a machine that eclipses the very people it claims to serve.”
