Reuters’ Carlos Barria posted this remarkable slide and sound show from a Detroit area church on Sunday, December 7.

There were uncertain responses as the link made its way through InsideWork.

“Is this how it’s supposed to work?” Dan Wooldridge wondered. “Can’t tell if this is an old fashioned revival meeting or a car show.”

“I find it fascinating but off-putting,” Jim Hancock admitted. “It’s a form of expression that’s enough offbeat that I don’t know how to position it…”

Geoff Finch cut through our fog with a sensitive take on the event…

I feel a great deal of empathy for that pastor and his congregation caught in the final death-throes of the 50-year decline of an industry.

I don’t know what was in the heart of that pastor…fear for his congregation, a desire to calm their fears, fear of losing his congregation or his beautiful church facility following a massive layoff of many of his parishoners? Ignorance of the world of economics and global politics? A sense (dare I call it faith?) that God is in control of the decision makers in Detroit & Washington who appear to have so much control over their lives… a fear that God will not exercise his control in the direction the congregation is hoping for? Perhaps the pastor has calculated a bailout will occur, and by praying for it ahead of time he is hoping to increase people’s faith as they see this answer to prayer…perhaps increase his own stature as the one who “led his congregation” in a time of great answers to prayer…

Perhaps there is a theology behind this that premises if we believe something, God will make it so. Is that sound theology? “For where two or three of you are gathered in one place, if you agree on anything, it will be done for you”… “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…”

I must confess I am confused by this expression of Christianity/materialism. I really don’t know what to make of it.

The record of Church history is not one of continuous, growing prosperity. Belief finds its expression more frequently in the call to faith for personal salvation, a life of sacrifice, humility before the Sovereign God, of giving and expecting nothing in return, of compassion for the poor and the widow, of love of the Book, and sometimes even martyrdom for the sake of our faith in Christ. The scriptures are filled from Exodus through the New Testament with scathing reproaches to materialism, and severe warnings about the perils of trying to serve God and Mammon, a call to practice compassion in the practical sphere of economics and wealth.

And yet what do you say to a people whose way of life is vanishing before them?

Can you not tell them that they will hand off to their children a standard of living that is lower than the one they themselves enjoyed, and yet the wages of a re-structured auto industry can still be livable wages, just not as affluent as the previous generation? They will have to work harder and get paid less. But does that somehow reflect anything at all about God’s approval or disapproval of them? They can still practice faith, community, service, the study & sharing of the Word, good deeds, with greater uncertainty about the future.

For a few moments I felt some anger towards the Nancy Pelosis of the world who took the stage with obvious delight in humiliating the Big Three CEO’s. She felt the need to dress them down, send them back to Detroit empty handed, summon them back to D.C. driving themselves, to beg and grovel before the long green table at congressional hearings. Speaker Pelosi did not earn the $15 or more billion dollars she was considering lending them, but she felt it was her role to grandstand as if she had, as if it were her money and her power. It was Pilate looking down at Christ all over again. Or perhaps a triumphant Caesar parading Vercingetorix through the streets of Rome as a public spectacle. Did she not understand that any authority or power she has came from far beyond her? There was not a hint in her demeanor that she was a public servant, and acting as trustee for the American people.

But I found my anger at her self-righteousness subsiding in a way. Somehow, Christ is sovereign even over Nancy Pelosi and GM’s Rick Wagoner. Perhaps the Big Three needed humiliation, and Speaker Pelosi was just God’s instrument to do this. Perhaps they needed to be paraded through the streets in ignominy. Perhaps they should be fired. Perhaps they should be made to work for no salary. Rick Wagoner deserves everything he got, you might say, for presiding over the decline of his industry over the last 10 years. A fitting end to a vanquished captain of industry. One way or another, Wagoner will retire with his multimillion dollar earnings for the last 9 years. So do I not weep for him very much.

I do feel for that pastor and his congregation, though.

Does that pastor see all that is going on? Does his congregation draw any comfort knowing that it is an epic struggle being acted out before them? That it is certainly larger than the pastor and his congregation, or Pelosi or Wagoner, or Detroit or Washington. It is global, at least, and maybe even the ushering in of the next era in history — beyond socialism & capitalism, beyond the nation-state, beyond the church & state, beyond the rights of the individual. It is not yet clear what that brave new world will look like. And perhaps that is the thing we should fear the most.