No offense to the billions of people I'll probably insult with this post, but the Christian church has sunk to a new low. This morning on my way to the subway, I was offered a "free breakfast bar" by someone on the corner of 74th and Amsterdam. I took it. It was a Quaker Chewy Granola Bar (Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chunk, to be exact). Attached to the bar was a flyer for "The Journey: A casual, contemporary, Christian church." Promoting a series called "Forgiveness: the real F word." It runs every Sunday from March 27 - April 24, 2005. At Hammerstein Ballroom, of all places.
Now I'm sorry, but if your church has to resort to giving away free granola bars to get people to come to your services, then you have a major problem. Are they trying to get people to eat so many bars that they commit the sin of gluttony and then go to church for absolution? That's pretty underhanded, I must say. I also highly doubt that Quaker agreed to, or even knows about, this promotion, seeing as how the bars were simply stapled to the bottom of the flyers. If you want to give away flyers, go ahead. But don't try to tempt people with food. Isn't that how all the trouble started in the first place, when Eve tempted Adam with the apple? It's basically the same thing as this.
Anyway, if you actually take this stuff seriously and would like to attend one of these services (and I hold nothing against you if you do, although you've probably stopped reading by now), check out their website (which also happens to offer a free gift of some book I've never heard of from an author I don't recognize)... yet another bribe. Jeez.