Commercialized Kingdom of God

Manufactured Spirituality and Commercialized Kingdom of God

Asian Link, a Christian missions site dedicated to dramatize and commercialize the stories of the works of grace in poorer nations to woo the hearts of Christians living in affluent nations, has numerous stories from Nepal too.

Even for a Nepali reading these stories, C. S. Lewis pales in storytelling in comparison to the ability of these storytellers and mission hunters. When a gullible Christian living a comfortable life in an affluent nation reads these stories, guilt grips the heart so strong that until some amount of money is sent to the sites like Asian Link, it won’t leave.

A small fraction of the fortune collected from these stories does fall in the hands of those native interlocutors. But there is no structure of accountability; neither in the receiving end of the native agents (spiritual leaders) in poorer nations nor in the collecting end of the affluent originator of the missions. If genuine conversion stories can be dramatized for commercial purposes, it is not a rocket science to imagine the dramatization of the bookkeeping to fill the legal loopholes of this profitable enterprise.

Jesus had a small church with 12 members, and one of them fell into the temptation of money and sinned against the Son of God; resulting in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament Church in the book of Acts faced its first internal problem because of the greed and sinned against the Holy Spirit; resulting in the death of the couple.

The second internal problem it faced was in the area of food and eating; resulting in the appointment of deacons, and apostles relinquishing the control of money from their hands.

The third internal problem it faced was in the area of buying and selling the gift of the Holy Spirit to satisfy the lust for power in the ministry; resulting in Peter cursing the buyer.

Anything that keeps repeating itself more than three times can be seen as a pattern of behavior. Material greed and lust for power in leadership have been the patterns of the problem facing the church from the beginning. For a thousand years, church went into dark ages, and starting from the modern evangelical missions supported by the power of the American dollar, church is once again bowing down at the altar of greed and lust for power.

Asian Link is one example of countless such undertakings world over where spirituality is manufactured and Kingdom of God is commercialized. Wherever and whenever greed for money and lust for power become the defining marks of Christian leadership, the Holy Spirit is quenched and the gospel is abandoned. Just like the Galatian Christians, the hearts of such Christian leaders become bewitched by the same power of the devil who entered in Judas Iscariot in the night he betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver.