Christianity Incorporated: How Big Business Is Buying the Church

These days getting religion is generally considered a rather quaint thing of the past. Getting spirituality on the other hand is the hottest thing on the market. In fact corporate-sponsored spiritual salve is becoming the most popular prescription for the overworked and soul-weary employees. But for many Christians this antidote has become its own epidemic. How is this epidemic infecting the church? How should the church respond as a community of believers? According to authors Michael Budde and Robert Brimlow the church must resist becoming the chaplain to capitalism. Christianity Incorporated reminds us that Christ-centered discipleship is fundamentally at odds with consumer capitalist priorities. The church must have a mission and a voice in society that is distinct from rather than in chorus with watered-down corporate spirituality. Christianity Incorporated is a wake-up call for all Christians. Courageous current and accessible this book will provide guidance and insight to anyone concerned with pursuing Christian discipleship in our consumer culture. This is not a pleasant book. It is bitter and bracing like the wormwood tea my grandmother used to make--something I remember with gratitude and affection. And so I will remember this book. --Albert Borgmann author of Holding on to Reality A deeply important analysis of the relationship between the ideological power of capitalism and the radical claims of discipleship central to Christian faith. Budde and Brimlow explicate the aggressive totalism of consumer capitalism in its capacity to preempt Christian faith and reduce it to a chaplaincy function for the defining ideology of our society. The analysis is offered on two distinct levels. First corporations find the facade of Christianity useful and amenable for the whole-life environment they seek to create. Second Budde and Brimlow show how Lockean (possessiveness) permeates thinking even among the churches in their critical posturing. The book is sure to be in dispute but the disputes it may evoke are simply signals of the powers of the analysis offered here and the expose of what is happening among us both practically and intellectually. The authors trust that truth is not for sale but their own analysis is enough ground for anxiety and alertness. --Walter Brueggemann Columbia Theological Seminary Budde and Brimlow have given us a dose of a new reality. Combining wit hard social-science evidence and a passion for true Christian discipleship they show how the political and economic entities that promise us comfort and prosperity have in fact captured Christianity and warped it to their own self-serving power-centered ends. Without moralisms or cant the authors point out Christian failures in the face of late modern capitalism showing ways in which we may yet become rich clothed and aware of what kills and what saves. this book is a must read for everyone who thinks that Christianity is synonymous with the celebration of American prosperity and freedom and for everyone who has doubts but cannot quite say why. --Thomas Heilke University of Kansas Michael Budde is Professor of Political Science at DePaul University. He is the author of The (Magic) Kingdom of God. Robert Brimlow is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. John Fisher College. Budde and Brimlow previously coedited The Church as Counterculture.