Distraction is the Greatest Threat to Churches

The journalist Andrew Sullivan has some strong words of advice for the modern church, 

If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal to a frazzled digital generation. Christian leaders seem to think that they need more distraction to counter the distraction. 

Their services have degenerated into emotional spasms, their spaces drowned with light and noise and locked shut throughout the day, when their darkness and silence might actually draw those whose minds and souls have grown web-weary. . . . 

This new epidemic of distraction is our civilization’s specific weakness. And its threat is not so much to our minds, even as they shape-shift under pressure. The threat is to our souls. At this rate, if the noise does not relent, we might even forget we have any.