ENI – The National Council of Churches in India spoke out against what it describes as the growing commercialization of the Christian faith.
“Churches too are caught in the trap of seeing people primarily as individual customers, and the Christian faith becomes a product to be marketed,” lamented Bishop Dinesh Kumar Sahu, general secretary of the council.
“Today's phenomenon expresses itself in the form of an unholy alliance between 'evangelism' and 'consumerism,'” rued Bishop Sahu of the Church of North India. “In the marketplace of religious ideas and persuasion, free and competitive denominationalism contradicts the basis of being a Church.”
“The sellers of the prosperity gospel are doing great disservice by selling the Gospel to those who seek success in their business, profession and student examinations,” decried Kunchala Rajaratnam, a former NCCI president.
Besides this “sacred commercialization,” Rajaratnam asserted, “we also have rampant secular commercialisation of the administration and elections of the Church.” He asserted that bribes were being paid for appointments in church institutions.
