A NEW RELIGIOUS AESTHETIC

This brief text does not constitute a destructive critique of persons or institutions. First,
however, it is an invitation to think about the Church of Christ in the twenty-first century. It is an unquestionable fact that capitalist ideology
dictates the way of life in the Western Christian world. Its influence in regard to the church is such that it has changed the doctrine, organization,
and features of spirituality, giving rise to a new religious and spiritual aesthetic.
Capitalism has so profoundly shaped Western society that its influence goes far beyond religion.
It reaches the levels of art, culture and education. This, for example, instead of forming man for life as a human person, seeks to develop skills to make man
a mere component of production systems. According to this ideology, the meaning of life is success, the accumulation of wealth, is to be highlighted. It was
within this perspective that the Theology of Prosperity was created, according to which it is God's desire for the material wealth of the faithful. Of course,
that is not the meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who, by the way, was a poor man and taught: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth
..." (Matthew 6:19).
There is, among many religious, a fascination with the growth of the church they pasture. The order
to preach the gospel and lead people to an encounter with God has been fulfilled less with the announcement of the kerygma and more with the
application of church growth techniques. There is a quest for "success," for admiration and fame among many priests in the current
church. Moved, unknowingly, by the capitalist way of life, they leave the condition of servants and become masters, they cease serve to be served.
Capitalism has weakened the priestly vocation.
As a result of the growth, many churches have undergone a change in the layout of their temples
and in the worship liturgy. The altar or the place where the pulpit is, from where the homily is made, became a stage and the cult in something similar,
sometimes with a show or a presentation highlighting the period of songs and the sermon. There is little biblical reading, little prayer, and the people
present participate privately in a dialogical relationship with God. A liturgy that generates a spirituality founded on visual and auditory sensations without
interiorization of faith, of the sacred.
This new religious and spiritual aesthetic does not contemplate the fact that Christian worship occurs in the individuality of the witness of every believer
in the world. And in the temple, happens to the collective worship of the church, the Eucharistic rehearsal full of hope for the meeting with the Lord
who said: "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in
the kingdom of God "(Luke 22:15, 16). There is an allusion to various issues in the current worship that do not always lead to worship of God and
there is little space for prayer in this new spiritual aesthetic. However, the Lord said, "my house will be called a house of prayer" (Matthew
21:13).
Antônio Maia – M.Div.
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