planning at one of the dominant megachurchesrnsays, for instance, on a videorndocumenting a P&W service, that shernis always looking for new ways to orderrnthe midweek believer’s service so thatrnchurch members will not fall into a rut.rnShe goes on to say that people are oftenrntired, having worked all day (an argumentrnfor worshiping on Sunday) andrnneed something that will arrest their attentionrnand put them in a proper framernof mind. This perspective, however, fundamentallyrnmisunderstands the relationshiprnbetween form and worship. C. S.rnLewis had it right when he said thatrna worship service ‘”works’ best when,rnthrough long familiarity, we don’t havernto think about it.” “The perfect churchrnservice,” he added, “would be the one wernwere almost unaware of; our attentionrnwould have been on God. But every noveltyrnprevents this. It fixes our attentionrnon the service itself; and thinking aboutrnworship is a different thing from worshipping.rn. . . ‘Tis mad idolatry thatrnmakes the service greater than the god.’rnA still worse thing may happen. Noveltyrnmay fix our attention not even on thernservice but on the celebrant.” But this isrnprecisely what has happened in P&W,rnwhere the service and elements are designedrnto attract attention themselvesrnrather than functioning as vehiclesrnfor expressing adoration to God. Lewisrnknew that repetition and habit were betterrnguides to the character of worshiprnthan novelty and manipulation. In fact,rnone does not need to be a professor ofrnliturgies to sense that the idiom of ValleyrnGirls is far less fitting for a believer to expressrnlove for God than the language ofrnthe Book of Common Prayer. Such an instinctrnonly confirms the wise commentrnof the Reformed theologian GorneliusrnVan Til, who while preferring Presbyterianrnliturgy still remarked that “at least inrnan Episcopalian service no one says anythingrnsilly.”rnBut even to criticize contemporaryrnworship, to accuse it of bad taste or triviality,rnis almost as wicked as smokingrnin public. Arguments against P&W arernusually taken personally, becoming anrnaffront to the feelings of contemporaryrnworshipers. Which is to say that the triumphrnof P&W, like the ascendancy ofrnthe cultural left in the academy, is firmlyrnrooted in our therapeutic culture. Thernmost widely used reason for contemporaryrnworship is that it is what the peoplernwant and what makes them feel good.rnAgain, just as there are no intellectualrnstandards for expanding the literaryrncanon to include romance novels, sornthere are no theological criteria for practicingrnP&W. But there are plenty ofrnexamples that show that if we give peoplernwhat they are familiar with, whetherrnsitcoms in the classroom or soft rockrnin church, they will feel comfortablernand come back for more. As David Rieffrnhas noted, the connections betweenrnthe therapeutic and the market arernformidable. So if we can expand ourrnworship or academic repertoire to includernthe diversity of the culture we willrnno doubt increase our audience.rnThis is why P&W services are alsorncalled “seeker-sensitive.” They are partrnof a self-conscious effort to attract a largerrnmarket for the church. Yet, whilernevangelicalism may have a large marketrnshare, its consumer satisfaction may alsornbe low, especially if it deceives people intornthinking they have really worshipedrnGod when they have actually been worshipingrntheir emotions. Thus, oncernagain, evangelical worship turns out to bernas deceptive as the academic left whichrntells students that the study of Batmanrncomics is just as valuable as the study ofrnHenry James.rnOf course, anyone who knows the historyrnof American evangelicalism shouldrnnot be surprised by P&W. In fact, BillyrnGraham’s recent inclusion of ChristianrnHip Hop and Rap bands in his crusadesrnis of a piece with evangelical historyrnmore generally. (It also differs little fromrnhis efforts in the 1970’s, seldom remembered,rnto appeal to the Jesus People.rnWith lengthy locks, an inch over thernshirt collar, and long sideburns, Grahamrnsaid, playing off Timothy Leary’s famousrnpsychedelic slogan, “Tune in to God,rnthen turn on .. . drop out—of the materialisticrnworld. The experience of JesusrnChrist is the greatest trip you can take.”)rnAs R. Laurence Moore argues in SellingrnGod, since the arrival of Boy George inrnthe American colonies, George Whitefieldrnthat is, evangelicals have been unusuallyrnadept at packaging and marketingrnChristianity in the forms of popularrnculture. The intention of Protestantrnrevivalism was “to save souls, but in arnbrassy way that threw religion into a freefor-rnall competition for people’s attention.”rnRevivalism, in fact, according tornMoore, “shoved American religion intornthe marketplace of culture” and becamern”entangled in controversies over commercialrnentertainments which they bothrnimitated and influenced.”rnSeldom have evangelicals recognizedrnthat this commitment to making therngospel accessible deforms and trivializesrnChristianity, making it no better thanrnany other commodity exchanged on thernmarket. As H. L. Mencken pointed outrnabout Billy Sunday, evangelicalismrn”quickly disarms the old suspicion of thernholy clerk and gets the discussion goingrnon the familiar and easy terms of the barroom.”rnMencken went on to say thatrnevangelicalism is marked “by a contemptuousrndisregard of the theoretical andrnmystifying” and reduces “all the abstrusitiesrnof Christian theology to a few andrnsimple and (to the ingenious) self-evidentrnpropositions,” making of religion “arnpractical, an imminent, an everyday concern.”rnThus, the pattern of evangelicalrnpractice shows a long history of beingrnhostile to the more profound liturgies,rnprayers, and hymns which God’s peoplernhave expressed throughout the ages.rnThe reason for this hostility, of course,rnis that these traditional forms of expressingrndevotion to God are not sufficiendyrnintelligible to outsiders. But in an effortrnto reach the unchurched, just as the universityrnhas abandoned its mission in orderrnto reach the uneducated, evangelicalsrnhave reversed the relationshiprnbetween the church and the world.rnRather than educating outsiders or seekersrnso they may join God’s people in worship,rnor rather than educating the illiteraternso they may join the conversation ofrnthe West, we now have the church andrnthe academy employing as its languagernthe idiom of the unchurched and undereducated.rnIn effect, P&W is dumbingrndown the church at the same time thatrnmulticulturalism is dumbing downrnthe university. In the case of P&W thernchurch, by embracing the elements andrnlogic of contemporary worship, has abandonedrnits task of catechesis. Rather thanrnconverting and discipling the seeker, thernchurch now uses the very language andrnmethods of the world. So rather than educatingrnthe unbaptized in the languagernof the household of faith, the churchrnnow teaches communicants the languagernof the world.rnHughes Oliphant Old, in his finernstudy of worship, concludes with a reflectionrnabout mainline Presbyterianrnworship that applies well to what hasrntranspired in contemporary evangelicalrnchurches. “In our evangelistic zeal,” hernwrites, “we are looking for programs thatrnwill attract people. We think we have tornput honey on the lip of the bitter cup ofrn42/CHRONICLESrnrnrn