FIRST THINGS: On the Square

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My Church, My Strip Mall
By Anthony Sacramone
Wednesday, January 30, 2008, 7:53 AM
Read Richard Mouw’s ‘Spiritual Consumerism’s Upside,’ recently made available online at Christianity Today’s website. In it Mouw defends the idea of church shopping (or hopping or skipping or jumping) as not only inevitable given our diverse religious culture but even exciting and positive. It’s more than a concession to how things are, how Christianity—particularly its Protestant and evangelical forms—has played itself out in America. It’s a celebration of it. People don’t ‘inherit’ denominational allegiances to the degree they once did, the argument goes. Most communities offer churches of various denominational ‘brands’ within short distances from each other. The ‘seeker’ church is an increasingly popular phenomenon and attracts both unbelievers and those raised in the faith but who are currently not tied to any one "

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