Just Like Alice’s Restaurant

“We build temples to the gods of commerce, and this is why the modern church looks like a shopping mall, sprawling and flat, plenty of parking, Visa and MasterCard accepted. In one city, a church mailed out hundreds of thousands of brochures hawking their wares. Come to our church, they said, and we’ll give you higher job satisfaction and a better sex life. Just like Alice’s restaurant, you can get anything you want. Churches now have weight rooms, they have food courts, they have Christian book stores. In the old days, this last item would not have been a matter of shame, but in the old days, Christian book stores had Christian books in them. (I have not heard of any church that has a Victoria’s Secret outlet, but this is problably because I don’t get around much.) (Mother Kirk, p. 228).