becoming

Lohfink continues in the preface:

Not long ago there was a report in the newspapers that church agencies in Berlin had established a mobile unit, an automobile equipped with short-wave radio, in which a priest, a physician and a psychologist could be summoned immediately at any hour of the day or night. That sounds very up to date: the church, in a sense, at the front, modern technology in service of the reign of God. But in reality this ecclesiastical mobile unit is a highly questionable symnol of what the church has largely become in our society: a church which takes care of the individual, an institution which offers its wares to a group of individuals.

This conception corresponds exactly to the situation of our consumer society, which Gisbert Greshake recently compared to a large supermarket. Everyone moves around with a cart and picks out what he likes and needs. In the giant “Supermarket West Germany” there is among many other things a section which offers religious products to individuals. Responsibility for this section lies with the churches. Society is very anxious that this corner remain occupied; the stock should be complete  It seems to me that the mobile religious unit in Berlin is a perfect symbol of this supermarket-church, which takes care of individuals, provides for them, and leaves them in their anonymity.

Of course Lohfink was describing the German Catholic church in the early 80’s. It is rather interesting to recall how the late 19th century liberal theology had reduced church and salvation into individualistic and profoundly spiritualized/internalized forms. In such sense, a striking resemblance can be found easily among many Chinese churches today (yet their theologies are anything but liberal!). The supermarket analogy is simply dead on in today’s church. Hence it begs the question — if contradicting theologies can produce similar phenomenon, what’s the real driving force behind it?